Where do I come from?

For most of us it’s easy to say where you come from, I was born and brought up in Cambridge so I’m originally from there, lived a couple of years in the West country, so there is another connection, spent most of my life in Manchester, so I feel I can say I’m also from there, and now we’re back in the west country, so if I’m asked I can add that to the list!

Being interested in family history, as many people are, and certainly as the characters in my Radwinter novels are, I can also see different places which feature; however, three-quarters of my family come as far as I can tell from England, and what you might call the east and south (not the south-east as such) I also know that a eighth of my ancestry is Jewish, and that some of those distant people came from Wintzenheim, near Colmar in Alsace.

I recently had my DNA analysed to look at my actual ethnicity… and yes, there is my Jewish ancestry, European Jewish in about the percentage I had thought. However the rest of ethnicity is very different from what I had expected… a third is from what is termed Europe west (not great Britain) and an eight is Irish – well, that came as a great surprise and delight, because I love Ireland! Another surprise was a connection with the Iberian peninsular, about a tenth in terms of percentage!

A result which  pleased and intrigued me was a strong Scandinavian connection; two of my cousins also had an analyses made – and they too have a Scandinavian link … family legend has it that our Elsden ancestors came from the north, from some part of Scandinavia, settling first in King’s Lynn and then moving into the fens. This doesn’t prove anything of course, but it is just interesting we have this story and we have some ancestry!  Really fascinating.

If you want to see how my imaginary Radwinter  family trace their routes, have a look at me e-novels; the latest genealogical mystery is available now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Hope-Radwinter-Book-4-ebook/dp/B01AKU9XMK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452863535&sr=8-2&keywords=lois+elsden