I was stuck for a Birthday present for my mum a few months ago and decided on one of those DNA testing kits to find your ethnicity.
My mum was originally from South Shields, NE England, and her side of the family has a slightly swarthy look. There was apparently a community of Yemeni ship builders in that area in the late 1800's and the family rumour was that somehow some Yemeni blood had slipped into my mum's side of the family, unofficially...
Anyway, the DNA results came back and my mother is 36.3% Scandinavian, 30.6% English, 24.1% Irish, Scottish and Welsh, and 9.0% North and West European.
Not one drop of Arab blood! The swarthyness must come from West Europe, France maybe. The high Scandinavian proportion was a surprise, although Viking genes are generally common in North-east England. Looks as though my mum's side of the family have been in the North-east for many centuries.
This has sparked my interest. Sadly my father has passed away but my plan is to get two more kits, one to test myself and another for my daughter. Apart from the usual Isaan mix of Thai/Laos/Khmer she probably has, there is talk of Chinese and Indian blood in my wife's family. Should be interesting.
These kits are not cheap and the results should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, but its fun to get an idea of your heritage. I was wondering if anyone else has had any experience with this kind of thing?