Was I part British, part Dutch, a little bit Jewish? The oddness of DNA tests.

The other day, Ancestry.com told me that my mother was my mother.

Phew.

I was starting to wonder about some of the peculiar results that I’d been seeing from the two DNA testing companies I used.

Yes, I’m the kind of person who would take a DNA test with Ancestry and then, curious about whether I’d get the same results, try Helix, another DNA-test site.

(Full disclosure: I also cannot resist getting multiple opinions from palm readers until I get a favorable reading.)

From Ancestry, I learned that I am a muddle of 30 percent British, 29 percent southern European, 15 percent western European and 8 percent eastern European Jewish. (“Mazel tov,” my daughter responded to this news.)

I was surprised because my mother hails from a Dutch family that has been in America since the 1600s, and because when I trace our family tree through church records, census reports and marriages, I see Dutch names: Van Valkenburg, Hallenbeck, Van Vechten, Bronck (as in the Bronx), Vrooman.

Granted, there is the occasional Smith, Armstrong and Patterson, but mainly I find...