Author Topic: Varying Results - British / European  (Read 1103 times)

Offline Lana2017

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Varying Results - British / European
« on: Wednesday 02 May 18 13:48 BST (UK) »
Hi guys,
Just wanting to get your views on my DNA results, I understand these things are kinda inaccurate so have to be taken with a pinch of salt so I've been trying to interpret them based on what I know of history and the history of various surnames in my family.

Would I be right in saying the autosomal tests look at DNA from up to 1000 - 2000 years ago? Think I read that somewhere. So I get very different results with different providers. They are:

Ancestry
73% Great Britain (with Scotland highlighted)
21% Irish
6% Europe West

MyHeritage:
40% Irish / Scottish
30% English
21% Scandinavian
4% Finnish
1% Italian

Gencove:
32% Scottish / Irish
31% Scandinavian (Norway, Iceland)
27% South West Euro (France, Spain, Basque)
6% Greek
4% Belarusian

Geneplaza:
62% Scandinavian (Norway)
26% North Euro (Scots, Irish)
6% Greek
5% Belarusian

FtDNA
95% Britain
5% Greek

Apologies for the big long list! So as you can see they're a bit all over the place. In terms of paper trail my family is 80% Scottish and 20% Irish so that fits quite well. I've been able to trace my heritage in some of the clans pretty much back to their origin as Norman invaders so that explains the Norweigan and French I think.

So that leaves me with the smaller % countries. Spanish and Basque both come up on gedmatch at the bottom of the top 20 population distances. Greek  doesn't come up on gedmatch at all but has been picked up on 3 of these tests (ditto Belarusian).

I'm not brilliant at history, particularly ancient history, is there any reason that my DNA may overlap with Spanish or Basque people? (maybe due to my French ancestors?) And is there anywhere the Greek could fit in?

Any advice appreciated, I've been trying to read as much as I can but I have a visual impairment so haven't been able to study all this DNA stuff as much I would like! :)

Thanks!
I have a visual impairment which makes research difficult to please forgive any silly questions :)
Hutchison - Midlothian
Dow & Gray - Ayrshire
McQuillan - Ballymena /  Donegal
Reilly - Cavan / Cork

Offline Gardenshed

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #1 on: Thursday 03 May 18 09:20 BST (UK) »
Hello Lana

I can't even remember when I last looked at my ethnicity results, let alone remember what they are. One day DNA tests may be able to tell us more about the journeys of our ancestors but at this early stage they are not worth more than a shrug and a smile. I don't worry about the differences between the two DNA tests I have had because neither result means much.

This board has had some good links on the topic which I can't locate now when I want them  but here is a very short article that caught my eye ( go to Myth 2)

https://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/dna-fact-or-science-fiction/

On the bright side, with all those tests you must have lots of DNA matches who would love to hear from you so you can together work out the linkages and maybe solve a mystery or two in someone's tree.

All the best with your research.

Offline Lana2017

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #2 on: Thursday 03 May 18 14:19 BST (UK) »
Hi Gardenshed, thank you for the reply, the article was interesting (not managed to read it all yet but I read Myth 2), so it sounds like DNA testing is all very speculative. I'd begun to wonder  because I've come across rather a lot of folks online with European ancestry now saying they're mixed race due to a small % of Moroccan or Nigerian etc. on a DNA test (no paper trail). I couldn't figure out how they were so certain but my DNA results are all over the place... but it sounds like it's impossible to prove unless you get a DNA match with a person from that region and can confirm common ancestry?

Something else I'm trying to figure out... my % British on Ancestry is about double the amount the average British person gets. So if I've understood correctly that means that I match very closely to their reference population. I think I recall them saying somewhere that the reference populations are people with 'deep roots' in the area. Have they ever clarified what they mean by 'deep' roots? Like, going back a couple hundred years... or further?
I have a visual impairment which makes research difficult to please forgive any silly questions :)
Hutchison - Midlothian
Dow & Gray - Ayrshire
McQuillan - Ballymena /  Donegal
Reilly - Cavan / Cork

Offline davidft

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #3 on: Thursday 03 May 18 18:51 BST (UK) »
I think I recall them saying somewhere that the reference populations are people with 'deep roots' in the area. Have they ever clarified what they mean by 'deep' roots? Like, going back a couple hundred years... or further?

The most common term I have seen a number of times used to explain deep roots is all four grandparents born with 50 miles of each other. Indeed this is the same definition Living DNA are using in their latest research project i.e.

One Family - The German People / Eine Familie - Die Deutschen, is a collaborative project by European ancestry firm Living DNA and Germany’s largest genealogy society, Verein für Computergenealogie e.V. (CompGen). Individuals with four grandparents all born within 80 kilometres (50 miles) of each other, are being sought to take part in the project by taking a simple DNA test.

Source: https://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Living%20DNA

To me that definition is neither deep or without problems but it is the one several DNA researching companies have used
James Stott c1775-1850. James was born in Yorkshire but where? He was a stonemason and married Elizabeth Archer (nee Nicholson) in 1794 at Ripon. They lived thereafter in Masham. If anyone has any suggestions or leads as to his birthplace I would be interested to know. I have searched for it for years without success. Thank you.


Offline Lana2017

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #4 on: Friday 04 May 18 17:41 BST (UK) »
Hi Davidft

Thanks for the info. Yeah that seems a rather flawed way to define deep roots, somebody could have all 4 grandparents born in the same area but great-grandparents from somewhere completely different  ???

Oh well looks like I've at least got lots of DNA matches to look through even if 'ethnicity estimates' are bunk!  :)
I have a visual impairment which makes research difficult to please forgive any silly questions :)
Hutchison - Midlothian
Dow & Gray - Ayrshire
McQuillan - Ballymena /  Donegal
Reilly - Cavan / Cork

Offline hdw

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #5 on: Saturday 05 May 18 12:22 BST (UK) »
It's quite confusing, the way that different companies use terms like British, English, Irish/Scottish/Welsh. At the end of the last Ice Age, say 10,000-12,000 years ago, Britain was re-populated by immigrants from southern and western Europe, and some of us must have ancestry from that time, which is about as "deep" British as you can get, before the modern ethnicities/nationalities of the British Isles developed.

Harry

Offline Lana2017

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Re: Varying Results - British / European
« Reply #6 on: Saturday 05 May 18 19:37 BST (UK) »
Hi Harry,
That's a good point, their cut off points for deciding what is 'deep ancestry' and what isn't seems quite arbitrary. I've also noticed their definitions of British varies wildly as well. On Ancestry I'm 72% British, 21% Irish. But when you look at the map the 'British' category includes Ireland (and a bit of France) and the Irish category includes Scotland!  ???
I have a visual impairment which makes research difficult to please forgive any silly questions :)
Hutchison - Midlothian
Dow & Gray - Ayrshire
McQuillan - Ballymena /  Donegal
Reilly - Cavan / Cork