DNA passed down

[roderickpaulin]

It is my understanding that we receive 50% of our DNA from each parent.  Parent A has 9% DNA from a particular background and Parent B has 7% DNA from the same background.  Is the maximum DNA from that particular background that a child could receive the total of the two? In this case 16%?
Somehow the DNA test came back with 32%. Is this even possible ?

[davidft]

The problem you have run into there is that genealogical DNA testing is nowhere near as scientific as they like to imply. When you consider large testing companies may divide "ethnicities" into 15 to 25 groups. Now ask yourself is that realistic for the 8 billion people in the world?

Whilst this DNA testing can hit on the right results its more by luck that anything else. In answer to could 32% be correct, well yes it could but it would be extremely unlikely. What you could do if you have the results for all three people you mention is upload them to Gedmatch and look at the analysis they give on their several testing options and that may reveal an explanation that may help

[sugarfizzle]

The ethnicity reports could be taken with a pinch of salt, though I know that is the aspect that ancestry amongst others push.  To me that is the least helpful aspect of DNA testing.

One contact I have made has only one ancestor in 18C and 19C from Great Britain (our match), the rest are Australian. Whilst recognising that there will be more ancestors from GB in previous centuries, I fail to see how I come out as less Great British than she does, when my history as far back as I can go is from England, mainly SE, with one exception from Ireland.

Margaret