Edward A (Year 6) has written his prefect piece this week called Who Are You?

He said, “For my 11th birthday, my Mum and Dad bought me a DNA test. I’ve always thought I was 75% English as my dad is half Scottish and my mum is English. When I went to Scotland two years ago, I felt strangely at home. My grandad was born and bred in Glasgow. 

The DNA test was easy to do. I had to rub a cotton bud on the inside of my cheek then put the sample in a container and send it off to a laboratory in Texas.

Three weeks later we received the results. The results were a surprise to everyone!

It turns out I am 90 per cent Celtic (Welsh, Irish and Scottish) which means my mum must be too, much to her surprise! My mum’s family have lived in Kent for hundreds of years, but I’m only two per cent English. The biggest surprise is that I am six per cent Finnish and two per cent Ashkenazi Jew! We have an idea that the Jewish part might come from my dad’s side as my dad’s mum said there may have been a Jewish person in the family a number of generations ago. However, we have no idea where the Finnish ancestry comes in. Six per cent could mean only three or four generations ago.

The Ashkenazi Jews traded on the River Rhine in Germany. Does this mean my ancestors could have been in the concentration camps in the Second World War? Could I be from a line of Finnish fisherman? What I do know is the land I have come to know as home, is not my ancestral home. Now I’m interested in doing my family tree. Why don’t you give it a try?”