Native American DNA?

[Regorian]

What you good people have offered proves that DNA testing is a waste of time and money. I have a Welsh name and we were firmly established in South East Monmouthshire until the end of the 17th Century. So, not only Celts but Silures who gave the Romans a lot of trouble. Thereafter, a lot of migration within UK and intermarrying with Saxons. yet, one stem is here in Swindon and the males are slim and dark until middle age when they become much bigger, keep their hair which goes white. Not all are typical, I'm not, my father was about half way but my grandfather was typical. My grandfather married a Saxon, my fathers wife, my mother was half Saxon, half Celt.

I could go on ad nauseam but hopefully you get the idea.

The basic composition of British people is or was Celts, Saxons, Danes and Norwegians. Apparently, Danes and Saxons can't be told apart as far as DNA is concerned.

Cumbrians are Norwegians (Vikings) ejected from Dublin etc. which they founded, by the Irish Celts.

   

[IJDisney]

FTDNA claims I have over 99% European DNA, plus a trace South American! I sometimes get the feeling they just stick a pin in the map and hope no one looks too closely!

Oh I can agree with that. One company says I am 83% Western and Central Europe, 17% Scandinavian and another says I am 100% Great Britain and Ireland.

How do you explain that other than these DNA tests are not worth the claims they make?

Well at least they got the same continent!!

[shellyesq]

What you good people have offered proves that DNA testing is a waste of time and money.   

I am an adoptee who found my birth father's family through autosomal DNA testing, so it certainly was not a waste of time and money for me.  There are many of us in a similar situation who find it very well worth it.  I have also tested my husband, whose heritage is known, and it has helped me verify that some of the paper trail is correct and given me other possible leads.

It very much depends on what you expect to get from it. 

[davidft]

I think you are being unfair to Regorian in the way you have partially quoted them. If you take the context of the full post it is clear they are voicing their concerns about the ethnicity predictions of DNA testing. A view that has a lot of support from many posters although from your past posts not one that you entirely share, fair enough.


What they have not done is criticise the use of autosomal DNA in tracking down people with who you share a genetic inheritance, indeed I can not recall anyone criticising that aspect of it. There are quite a few people on here who know from personal experience that it can work, for myself the first person I established a match with was a lady in America who turned out to be a 3rd cousin once removed. I'll admit she did much of the initial digging as you had two incidents of illegitimacy in her line back to out ancestors in common and I don't think I would have ever discovered that.


Yes DNA testing does have a purpose and can provide answers its just that the ethnicity predictions it makes are at best coincidental to the truth but more often than not just bogus make believe. That's just my personal opinion btw.

[barryd]

I was born in County Durham and most of my ancestry comes from there. Ancestry put me down as Northern England. Cannot complain.

[IJDisney]

What you good people have offered proves that DNA testing is a waste of time and money.   

It very much depends on what you expect to get from it.

The DNA matching is great and can be very valuable, but the ethnicity guesstimates should stop. They can be misleading, if not completely false. Yet they are sold as if they are scientific, accurate, and meaningful.

The trouble is most people do not know their ancestry well enough to call them out on it. Maybe people will start challenging the results more, and get these companies to be more honest about what they are claiming/labeling.