European... Mostly

My parent's DNA ancestry composition results finally came in and they held little surprise. Their DNA almost entirely lines up with their genealogical paper trail.

As expected, my Dad is predominantly British & Irish with some German and Scandinavian. He was also 1.4% Sub-Saharan African and 0.9% Native American, values that are more than twice mine. My best bet is still that this non-European DNA is from our Hathcock branch of the family tree in North Carolina.

My Mom is mostly Eastern European and Balkan, as you would expect with someone of Hungarian descent, with some German, British & Irish, Scandinavian, and Italian. She is also 0.3% Mongolian and 0.1% Yakut. The Mongols ravaged Hungary many centuries ago and it seems that their genetic legacy still lingers. She also has a very small amount, 0.1%, Middle Eastern DNA, perhaps a reminder of the century-long Ottoman occupation of Hungary.

My Mom's Magyar DNA is somewhat more vague than my Dad's because while the Isles are located in an isolated corner of Europe, where its people can trace back genetic roots for thousands of years, Hungary was at a crossroads between the great empires of Europe and Asia, where there was frequent immigration from east and west, and the old Kingdom of Hungary once included much of the Balkans and other parts of Eastern Europe.

History is often a dry subject but when you're reading it for clues about the lives your ancestors might have lived, it's a bit more engrossing.