All my known ancestors (some back to the 1500's) were from the United Kingdom, so making a pie chart illustrating just this is pretty uninteresting: a single whole pie of 100% UK. Many other people have much more variable and exotic ancestral origins. However, on coming across an Excel spreadsheet with Ancestry Pie Charts created by John Tierny (under a Creative Commons license), I had another idea: to split up my ancestry into countries within the UK where my ancestors originated: England, Wales, Scotland, and the Isle of Man (the Isle of Man is strictly a Dependancy of the UK) – or to subdivide further by county. I originate from 10 counties/areas + one Unknown (see My Brick Walls and last blog posting on Frederick Woolfall and the Diamond Ring "Hush Money"): 18.75% from Lancashire; 12.5% each from Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, Cumberland, and Shropshire; 9.375% from Devon; 6.25% each from the Isle of Man and Unknown (probably Lancashire or somewhere else in the UK); and 3.125% each from Cornwall, Selkirkshire, and Dumfries-shire. But all of these 11 counties with similar-sized "slices" seemed like too much granularity for pie charts, so I opted to use countries within the UK. 

With John Tierny's spreadsheet, you fill in the ancestry of all 16 of your 2nd great-grandparents, and everything forwards is calculated automatically from there. There are columns for up to 10 "regions", and these can be customized (don't miss the note in the Info. on the 1st worksheet for how to unprotect the worksheets, which allows for customization). My pie charts are shown below. I tweaked a few things on the original spreadsheets to have colours and formatting to my liking, and added some drop shadows to the pie charts.

Frederick Woolfall (1865-1949) was my great grandfather. He was born and brought up in the Huyton area of Liverpool, Lancashire and was raised by 2 "aunts", Elizabeth and Alice Woolfall, while all were living in his grandparents' house (William Woolfall and Alice Hulme). He was born "out of wedlock" and one of his supposed aunts, Elizabeth Woolfall (1834-1911), was actually his mother. Elizabeth was 30 years old when Frederick was born. She never married and didn't have any other children. Her occupation on the various censuses (1861-1901) is shown as a charwoman or a laundress.

Fred was born on 11 Mar 1865 in Tarbock, a sub-district of Huyton, Liverpool, and his birth certificate shows his mother was Elizabeth Woolfall and his father is left blank. Ancestry.com has as a tentative baptism record (the British Isles Vital Records Index, taken from the Bishop's Transcripts) in Huyton on 23 Apr 1865 for a "Frederich Woolfall" (link only available with an Ancestry subscription), with his father shown as "James Woolfall" and mother as Elizabeth, but the Parish records don't seem to exist for me to check for any other information (e.g., an address or godparents). Since there were no other individuals named anything similar to Frederick Woolfall in the Liverpool area at that time, and based on the timing (6 weeks after his birth), it seems likely that this was Fred's baptism record. Was "James Woolfall" a euphemism, or was someone named "James" the supposed father? At that time, effective contraception was not available and it was shameful to have an illegitimate child, so I can easily see why Elizabeth and her father, William Woolfall (1814-1893), may have "invented" a supposed father for Fred (maybe based on a hint of truth).