Ancestry UK European West 59%

[ChalmersB]

Hi

I have recently had my results from the Ancestry Dna test. They show the following.

European West 59%
Scandanavia 15%
Scotland/ Ireland/Wales 14%
Southern Europe 4%
Ibedirian Peninsula 4%
British 3%
Polynesian 1%

I have traced lots of my family lines back the 1700's and some as far back is the 1600's.

They are mostly north east Scotland, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and surprisingly for me Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Hampshire.

I was wondering why I might have such a high percentage of European West Dna form the results?

Many thanks

[jim1]

British 3%
I think this refers to England & Wales.
Considering that England has been invaded several times plus the later influx from other parts of the UK it shouldn't be surprising that your English genetic make up is so small. This also applies to your ancestors DNA profiles.
OH's reads like this:
Europe West 38%
Ireland/Scotland/Wales 27%
Scandinavia 21%
Great Britain 7%
Europe South 5%
Europe East 1%
Finland/Russia 1%
Most of her family are English apart from an Irish GGrandfather which probably accounts for much of the 27% because it's so recent.

[IJDisney]

Take the ethnicity results with a pinch of salt. They are not tracing where your DNA came from, only who you compare to from their (very small) living sample database. The DNA is great for connecting with living cousins, but DNA is not a clear historical or ethnic marker.

I can trace all my direct lines back to the 18th Century, and every one is from Devon/Somerset. I have confirmed these paper trails by fortunately finding DNA matches for living cousins on those different lines.
 
But according to Ancestry I am only 1% British! And if I look at MyHeritage, they drop the British completely and say I'm 1% Native American!! It's laughable.

[Blue70]

I'm sceptical about this sort of thing.


Blue

[angelfish58]

I'm sceptical about this sort of thing.


Blue

Yes, I asked my daughter (degree in biochemistry ) her opinion on ethnicity results after one of Ancestry's many adverts, it would  be fair to say she wasn't impressed.

[ke]

Why are you surprised by the high percentage?

England was settled by Angles, Saxons, Normans, Bretons, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedish and Danish in the last 1500 years. Mine is around 51% and I'm not surprised by that.

Some of the responses on here are a bit strange, most of the supposed inaccuracies can be explained readily once you understand how genetic clusters overlap.

On Gedmatch my top four are:

1   North_Dutch   4.29
2   Danish   5.52
3   West_German   5.84
4   Norwegian   5.8

Within the context of the history of England the above result is about right, especially in East Anglia, where I am from.

[Romilly]

One of my first cousins took the Ancestry (Autosomal) DNA Test; which came back 57% West European, despite all known ancestors being English/Welsh/Scottish.

I'm not doing one until the results get more precise... As it stands, it just seems a waste of money to me.

Romilly.

[hurworth]

The ethnicity results should be one of the last reasons to take a DNA test.  I've made some genealogy progress thanks to DNA testing, but they weren't due to the ethnicity results.

The English Channel is a tiny strip of water separating Britain from Continental Europe, and the European ancestors of people who came to the British Isles centuries and millenia ago mostly came from across that channel or from Scandinavia.  I say mostly just in case a pedant is reading this and has an irrefutable example of how 1% of the European immigrants came from elsewhere.

People with supposedly German ancestry sometimes complain that their percentage of British is too high.  However, genetically the people of Britain, northern France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Germany don't seem all that different, and if you consider where the Normans, Saxons, Angles and Jutes were from it makes sense.

[Regorian]

Before the Romans left, late 300's early 400's, the population was mostly Celts, English, Welsh, Scots and Irish. The first invaders were the Anglo-Saxons and I think that was a gathering mass migration from West Germany down to modern day Holland, not just leaders like the Normans. England gets it's name from the Angles from Southern Denmark and NW Germany, courtesy Alfred the Great.

Subsequently, there were incursions from the Danes and Norwegians (Vikings). Went on up to c1000. By this time, population was mixed Celts, Saxons, Danes and Norwegians. In the North you get place names ending in by or Thorpe added, the area of the Danelaw.

The Vikings founded Dublin but were pushed out by the Irish Celts and resettled in Cumbria. Melvyn Bragg who hosts 'In our Time' Thursday mornings on Radio 4 proclaimed his pride in being a Viking within the last year. Alfred the Great did not get that far north.