Mikep
I also use DuckDuckGo (daft name!) and have had the same experience.
I think it's something to do with Google since, as far as I understand, DDG uses Google as the search engine simply to isolate the user from Google's tracking. We just can't escape G's tentacles.
There is a British search engine called Oscobo (
https://www.oscobo.com/ that I believe is an independent service that doesn't track, but not as all-encompassing as G. There is also SwissCows (I kid you not) at
https://swisscows.ch/ that also doesn't track but I don't know if it uses Google. Not too sure of all this, so you'll need to check.
Keith