Maternal side Ancestry Origins 2025

 

Ancestry Origins for BAJ. Oct 2025.

After a webinar yesterday, Diahan Southard of YourDNAGuide wrote, "it's just a good reminder that our ethnicity results are best handled as a group project." There are enough changes in all the kits that I can access, I'm breaking up my posts reviewing the update. Previously I reviewed my own update, then my Dad's side of the tree. Now I'm switching to the maternal side, and this definitely is a group project as I have access to my Mom's update and updates for my Aunt Patty and Linda.

Last year, my Mom had 9 regions, and for 2025 those regions doubled to 18. My Aunt Linda now has 20, and my Aunt Patty has 19. I'm taking them as a group, and looking closer at three areas: Americas, then England, Celtic & Gaelic plus Western Europe, and separately at the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean and Africa. As Ancestry's Crista Cowan noted yesterday on Connie Knox's GenealogyTV YouTube channel, get multiple people in your family tested because "the aggregate of information is what will lead you to those brick wall breakthroughs that we're all looking for."

For the Americas, both Aunt Patty and Linda have 12% Indigenous Americas Mexico, 1% Bolivia and Peru, 1% Indigenous Canada and the United States (there's our shared A2d2a mtDNA), and 1% Yucatan Peninsula. My Mom only has the 12% Mexico, not the 1% amounts in South America, Yucatan or Indigenous Canada. The Bolivia and Peru percentages almost certainly come from Gabriel Vasquez' distant maternal side in the Andes.

For England, my Mom now has 28% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, and 5% East Midlands. Linda's update is 26% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, 3% East Midlands, and additional micro-regions: 9% West Midlands, 4% Cornwall and 3% Devon and Somerset. Patty has 23% West Midlands (that's a big difference from Mom and Linda), 9% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, 8% East Midlands, and 2% North East England. For Celtic & Gaelic, Patty has 9% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland, Linda has 6% plus 1% North East Scotland, and my Mom has 10% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland, 1% North East Scotland, 4% Hebrides and Western Highlands, and 4% Leinster, Ireland.

When I look at the paternal side of the tree for my grandfather Leo, the surnames are heavily English. The Read family came to America from Hampshire, England (Southeastern England). Other family names from England include Ballard, Carter, Gibson, Wheatley, Lawrence, Grinstead, Matthews, Davis and likely more. Thomas Key came to America from Lincolnshire (East Midlands). McKinley is a Gaelic surname that we also have on this side of the tree.

Shifting to the Iberian Peninsula and Mediterranean, here's where the 2025 update is really interesting when comparing between the sisters, and with known Campuzano and Amado cousins in Arizona. My Mom's 33% Spain changed to 9%, with with additional micro-regions 8% Northern Spain (Cantabria's in the middle of that), 4% Azores, 2% Madeira, and 1% Portugal. She also had 5% Northwestern Italy (centered around Genoa), 2% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, and 1% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean. Linda has 11% Spain, 7% Northern Spain, 5% Portugal, 2% Basque and 1% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean. She also has 5% France (Nicolas Martiau was French). Patty has 13% Northern Spain, 4% Spain, 3% Azores, 3% Portugal, 2% France, 2% North Africa, 1% Basque, 3% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa.

Comparing with a cousin in Arizona, AA, he has 33% Mexico, 17% Spain, 15% Northern Spain, 5% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean, 2% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, 2% Azores, 1% Portugal, 1% Madeira, 1% Northwestern Italy, 5% Basque and 4% North Africa. He also had 1% Ashkenazi Jewish in Central & Southeastern Europe. Comparing with a Campuzano cousin, she had 27% Mexico, 14% Spain, 9% Northern Spain, 8% Basque, 5% Portugal, 5% Sardinia, 4% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, 4% Sephardic Jews in Eastern Mediterranean, 3% Canary Islands, 2% Northeastern Italy, 1% Yucatan, 1% Crete, and 1% Ashkenazi Jewish in Central & Southeastern Europe.

My son & I inherited the Nigerian Woodlands trace percentage from the maternal side of the tree. My Mom has this too, so does Linda, along with a trace from Senegal.

A new region on this side of tree, likely from a distant maternal-paternal branch, is Germans in Russia (also known as Volga Germans; see also this collection from North Dakota State University). Linda has 1% from this new region, while my Mom has 2%. These people were living in the area of the present day war zone of Eastern Ukraine.

My big takeaway from this side of the tree is that we have a very diverse set of roots, from all over the map.