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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: jnu on Thursday 07 May 15 11:48 BST (UK)
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Hi folks I have just received my results Great Britain 42%, Scandinavia 32%, Ireland 11%, Iberian Peninsula 8% ,Europe West 4%, Europe East 1%, West Asia 2% (middle east 1%,caucasus 1%).Could anyone offer any interpretation on these results. I wasn't expecting such a break down in percentages lol!.Any help gratefully received :).
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Bad news ahead so don't read on if you think you may be disappointed
I have come to the conclusion that the "ethnic" breakdowns from companies like Ancestry and familytree are pretty meaningless and only serve for curiosity value. I say this because in my opinion the science is not advanced enough and the reference populations used to determine your breakdown are too small. This particularly seems to be the case with Ancestry who have had a lot of criticism for overestimating people's Scandinavian ancestry.
In my particular case I have (via familytree) 67% Western and Central Europe and 33% Scandinavian. Apparently no British despite having a tree full of English born people for much of the last 400 years. What are the chances of that? Also when I upload my results to gedmatch I get a different ( well actually several different) analysis of my origins.
I must admit I am rather disappointed with the varying analyses that I can get and that several companies are marketing products that are not robust.
Just as a final thought the amount of your DNA that familytree tests to give your origins is just 0.024%. I assume Ancestry is about the same. I have seen nothing that says that 0.024% of your genes is representative of the rest or why they test that particular bit. Who is to say if they tested a different bit you would not come up with completely different results.
My conclusion is test for origins if you want but treat it as a curiosity and not incontrovertible fact
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Thanks for the reply its given me something to think about. I definitely think the Scandinavian percentage seems high.:)
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I agree that these admixture results have little meaning and are really for entertainment value only. You're just being matched against a random selection of reference populations. There aren't enough high-quality reference populations available to give meaningful results. I often see bizarre admixture results with Americans coming out with higher percentages of "British" than native Brits, Welsh people coming out with high percentages of "Irish", and French people being labelled as "British". If you test with different companies you often get very different results. You should take all these estimates with a very large pinch of salt.
It is possible to derive some meaning from the AncestryDNA results by doing a comparative analysis. Ancestry have done two interesting blog posts comparing the distribution of the different admixture components across the British Isles:
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/04/10/exploring-our-dna-europe-west/
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/03/16/what-does-our-dna-tell-us-about-being-irish/
The primary focus of autosomal DNA testing is on finding matches with genetic cousins. The AncestryDNA database is about 99% American at the moment because the test has been available in America for several years whereas it only launched in the UK in January this year. It will take time for the database to build up so that we start to get helpful matches with identifiable people in our family trees. When that happens it does start to get very exciting.
Do also make sure you take advantage of the Family Tree DNA autosomal DNA transfer programme:
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/imports/transfer-autosomal-ancestry/family-tree-dna-family-finder-transfer-program/
You get first 20 matches free but it's worth paying the very small fee to unlock the rest of your matches. You also got lots of extra tools at FTDNA that you don't get with Ancestry.
FTDNA have been selling their autosomal DNA test (Family Finder) in the UK for several years now and already have lots of people from the British Isles, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and many other countries in their database. The AncestryDNA test, in contrast, is only sold in the US, the UK and Ireland at present.
In case it's of any help you might like to watch the presentation I gave at Who Do You Think You Are? Live which is now available on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/aAYON4gxjiI
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Thank you for posting the link to the Youtube presentation it was an interesting watch (I have seen similar by familytree before), and I learnt some new things. I found the question and answer session at the end particularly interesting as it brought up questions I would not of thought of.
I do think anyone considering a DNA test could profit from viewing this or one of the other similar ones that are hosted on Youtube.
The blog references you put up were interesting especially the first that included the lines
One of the biggest surprises we often see when people get back their results is just how high their Europe West estimate can be. It should be remembered that the estimates show influences of ancestors 500-1000 years ago. Your paper trail may go back 300 or 400 years showing all English ancestors. But your AncestryDNA ethnicity estimate is taking you beyond that and hinting that their ancestors in turn may have had Western European heritage.
ie saying think beyond the most recent past that you have researched to explain those unexpected admixtures.
Must admit I was not take much with the second blog that was trying to explain the high Irish percentages some people get. I don't think it stands up to historical fact of known Irish movement to and from the mainland UK and think it is skewed more in favour of the American market where having Irish ancestry has a higher cachet than maybe it does here, just a thought.
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I'm glad the presentation was of some interest. I do think all these admixture tests are optimised for the American market. I rather think that some of the reference populations consist of Americans with Irish or British ancestry rather than native Brits or Irish, which might explain some of the problems we're seeing with these results.
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Hi folks,
I uploaded my test results to FTDNA the results were 71% British Isles,17% Scandinavia, 10% Southern Europe, 2% North Africa.
The Scandinavian result is a lot less than the ancestry prediction. I was wondering if the southern Europe/Iberian and North Africa percentage might be because I have a Sephardic Jewish grtgrt grandfather?
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My brother's DNA came back with high Scandinavian compared to the rest of us which we had less than 1%. Waiting to see what happens with the next lot of results, awaiting the next offer.
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Hello
I have read somewhere, that about only 10 million have taken an ancestral type DNA test.
If 10 million is approximately the correct figure and with a current World population estimated at 7.6 Billion, then any DNA Ethnicity result cannot be an accurate measure.
The ethnicity percentages are a gimmick and wouldn't sell a Test on their own, to me.
However, my Niece did a DNA Test and was in touch with a lady in Lancashire, who is a descendant of my late Grandfather's late Brother of the same Lancashire town.
But to know the surname she was displaying, you would still have to have an accurate linage going backward into the 19th Century.
I was interested to hear we both had the same 200 year documented line (with same Certificates, which corroborate with the E & W Census Forms).
The interest in family history for me, is not a DNA Test, but actually working back and finding some great finds about my families, but I'm like a dog with a bone, ;D ;D searching, when others feel they have exhausted some possible additional records.
People were often recorded in other records besides Registers & Wills, but it is finding which record that might be and who holds it now, to check it.
Mark
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People should not take DNA tests if they just want their ethnicity results without watching this video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nlmK0X3I1Lo
It is such an excellent presentation, especially the data simulation. It should become required watching for anybody before they give their DNA, hoping to get extreme details of their ethnicity. It counters the YouTube videos of shocked people opening their DNA results on camera. It would also go a long way to explaining statistics to people who shouldn't be gambling. I will be citing this video frequently. One thing that tney don't mention is the absolute futility of researching your ancestry back more than a few generations because you are eventually going to encounter a non paternal event, i.e. somebody is descended from a secret relationship and this is not recorded anywhere except in your DNA. You only have to go back 5 or 6 Generations, and you have looked at 100 relationships. You only need one man or woman in those 100 or so relationships to have had an illicit relationship producing a child and it makes a mockery of your further research.
Martin
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Martin, There have been many posts/threads over the years in this forum about ethnicity, and there is plenty of advice given in return.
Your link doesn't appear to mention ethnicity, so I hope you are not 'going to cite this video frequently' :) :)
And why should people not have an autosomal DNA test until they have seen any video? :) :) Though lots are not interested in family history, and lots will ignore your emails, don't forget, the more people who test, the more matches we will all get, and someone will respond or have a small tree where you can work out the connection and perhaps break down a brick wall.
As for futility of researching one's tree back more than a few generations, I disagree.
There may be an unknown illegitimacy in my tree, there may well have been an illicit relationship.
But to say that research beyond 4G grandparent level, in my case to about mid 18C on most lines, is futile? ---
What about my granddaughter, should she only research as far as her 4G grandparents? That would be early to mid 19C. Why should she only go back 75 years later than me? And what about closer relationships, great grandparents or 2G grandparents? If one of those is incorrect it makes a whole mockery of your tree. As for your mother or grandparents having illicit relationships, half to a quarter of your tree could be based on fallacy.
To a certain extent you have to trust that your ancestors had good values, didn't commit adultery, or didn't take in children as their own if they were found in the street, or were their grandchildren.
First children, especially those conceived before marriage, are perhaps more likely to be NPEs, but impossible to prove/disprove. That's where hopefully autosomal DNA comes in - no matches at all on one line could indicate an NPE, but may just be dilution of the DNA (which your link actually talks about, not ethnicity).
The people who you will be sharing your link with will mostly already have taken DNA testing, so will not stop them from being disappointed or shocked.
Lots of smiley faces in this reply, as I don't want to offend you, or anybody else for that matter, merely expressing a different point of view. :) :) :)
Regards Margaret :) :) :) :) :)
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I never profess to be able to please all the people all the time. There is so much snake oil on the internet and it is very much a case of caveat emptor, but I thought the content and presentation of that video was second to none and everything that was said was relevant to people looking for their ethnicity estimates, and I will be continuing to recommend it to anybody who asks for help. I have no connection with the organisation who produced it.
I am a mathematician and statistician and I have rarely seen such a complex subject explained so succinctly. You only need one person in your relatively recent heritage to have been euphemistically playing away from home to totally scupper the relevance of your research. I am starting to repeat myself.
Finally I will add that my own research has proved without any doubt that the legal documents I have uncovered tell a very different version of my ancestry than I had been lead to believe for more than the last half century.
I will leave it to Mark, who posted earlier today, the one to which I was replying, to take my advice or leave it.
Finally I very much recommend the recommended video which I recommended in my earlier recommending comments of recommendation.
Martin
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But Martin, the link does not allude to ethnicity. I am tempted to say 'at all', but I only watched it once, so cannot say for sure.
It is talking about why we do not inherit much DNA from more distant generations, and how DNA recombines at some stage, and why we always inherit 50% from each of our parents, but not exactly 25% from each of our grandparents, thus not exactly 12.5% from great grandparents etc. etc.
It was an interesting video, nonetheless, but nowt to do with ethnicity.
Regards Margaret :) :) :)
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I'm sorry, you only paid for a 5 minute argument, and you've had five minutes. Everything in that video explains why people struggle to understand their ethnicity estimates. (Except for me, and I'm still struggling with my supposed 8% Greek...)
Here's another of my recommended videos:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvcnx6-0GhA
Martin
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I am paying for one more minute, after which I will not comment on this thread again, unless directly invited by your good self. I am not trying to be difficult, I can assure you. :)
You have seen an excellent YouTube video, presumably which helps people understand why their ethnicity results are not as expected. I don't know, as I haven't seen it.
You link to a YouTube video which helps people understand why 'You might be related even less to your ancestors than you thought'. This is by Andrew Lee and is quite informative, but doesn't relate to ethnicity. It is about how we inherit less and less DNA from ancestors with successive generations.
Your really excellent video, which I would love to see, is not linked to at all, i.e. your link is incorrect.
Either that, or my tablet and phone don't work properly, I get the same video on both.
If you give the title and presenter, I might be able to find it myself. :)
Regards Margaret
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I have watched the video and it was quite interesting, but did contain some errors. One of the tables showed a negative amount of DNA inherited. You can only inherit some or none!
I haven't had my DNA tested, but am considering it, but it does confuse me and wonder whether its worth it. I would like my brother to have a YDNA test as our g/father was the result of an "illicit liaison", but he wont and he's the last of the line, so that's that. I can see that although there was no mention of ethnicity in the video that conslusions can be drawn as to why you get some of the results that you do, as you lose DNA with each generation that you go back to. I think ethnicity results can only be limited, because of the amount of people tested and probably should be taken with a pinch of salt.
After watching other of the guys video he does say that we share 95.5%-99.9% of our DNA with our ancestors, its only a small proportion thats randomly shared. He also says that you are only genetically related to about 120 ancestors but are genealogically related to them all.
If DNA is inherited as up to half (approx) of each person in each generation then surely DNA is unable to prove or disprove that someone 5 or 6 generations back is related or not, as you may not have inherited any of their DNA but they are still your ancestors. If you only research 4 generations back then presumably the current researchers will be the last generation to research, as future generation have all the info that they need.
Whether you share some or no DNA, (are genetically or genealogically related) to your 10x g/parents if they hadn't got together then you wouldn't be you, so every generation is worth investigation, DNA can only to a tool? It proves nothing/it proves everything?? :D
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Returning to the ethnicity question which kicked this thread off, my lineage as discovered by tradional paper trail research is virtually wholely southern English. I do however have an unknown grandfather whom I would obviously like to identify. My ethnicity results indicated 34% Scots and then mainly English. Although I agree that the ethnicity element is not to be trusted in general, my matches show a large number of people who are Scottish or have Scottish ancestry - very interestsing to me and a partial confirmation that I should be looking at a Caledonian grandpa!
Steve
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People should not take DNA tests if they just want their ethnicity results without watching this video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nlmK0X3I1Lo
It is such an excellent presentation, especially the data simulation. It should become required watching for anybody before they give their DNA, hoping to get extreme details of their ethnicity.
Its an interesting presentation, but he contradicts himself. At 4.20 he says "about three quarters of our six great grandparents we don't share any DNA with". That suggests that we only share DNA with about 64 people at that generation. But later on, with his simulation from about 5 minutes in, the chart shows that we could actually share DNA with up 93 out of our 256 6 x great grandparents (which is over a third). A small point, but in mathematics a small variant can throw out a huge error in the long run. His maths also doesn't allow for any cousin marriages (a huge factor in my opinion) which will throw his conclusions way out too.
But I get the point. Basically, DNA can only prove part of our ancestry, since we don't inherit DNA from every one of our ancestors. Therefore ethnicity estimates are only based on the DNA markers we have inherited from a certain percentage of our ancestors (not all our ancestors). So even if the ethnicity estimates were accurate (I am aware that they are not!) it will ignore a huge percentage of our ancestors whose DNA we have not inherited.
Therefore if I get told I'm 79% Irish/Scots and 21% North European, yet I believe that one of my 3 x great grandparents was from Indian, and another was North African, then I should ignore the estimate and go with my family knowledge (if I have document proof, of course). Equally, if i didn't know about those ancestors, and believed the ethnicity estimates were accurate, I might ignore possible future leads that would lead to me finding them.
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One thing that tney don't mention is the absolute futility of researching your ancestry back more than a few generations because you are eventually going to encounter a non paternal event, i.e. somebody is descended from a secret relationship and this is not recorded anywhere except in your DNA. You only have to go back 5 or 6 Generations, and you have looked at 100 relationships. You only need one man or woman in those 100 or so relationships to have had an illicit relationship producing a child and it makes a mockery of your further research.
Martin
"Abosulte futility"? Have you given up all research then, Martin?
Do you get 'non maternal events'? If no, or they are less frequent, then following the maternal line of descent would seem a less futile effort!
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I J Disney I do appreciate the clear irony, especially as we seem to put more importance on the male line of primogeniture. However, if, in the course of your research, through DNA analysis, you start to suspect that your grandfather or great grandfather isn't who the paper documentation claims, do you continue to pursue what the gentleman's wife knew or what the documentation says?
3 years ago I found out that my grandfather wasn't who I thought he was for 50 years, and I am now researching in a different direction, but, as my grandfather turned out to be actually my great grandfather, I am still researching the original line. I am also investigating the family deception.
If you had a married Victorian lady ancestor who had just one child by a secret lover, wouldn't you be more interested in the background of the secret lover than in that of her married cuckolded husband? Surely you would prune everyone on the branch of your tree earlier than the husband? You might keep the husband, but surely none of his ancestors? A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, said Paul Simon.
PS, while I'm on, the link in my comment at 17:15 yesterday is correct. It does not go to the same video that I referred to near the beginning of the thread.
Martin
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I J Disney I do appreciate the clear irony, especially as we seem to put more importance on the male line of primogeniture. However, if, in the course of your research, through DNA analysis, you start to suspect that your grandfather or great grandfather isn't who the paper documentation claims, do you continue to pursue what the gentleman's wife knew or what the documentation says?
DNA is just one more source for our research - along with oral history, family ephemera/heirlooms, photographs and documents. As with all sources you have to understand the uses and limitations, evaluate its reliability against other forms of information, and decide what conclusions (if any) you can draw from it. There is also the researcher bias - maybe I, as a family researcher, place more value (rightly or wrongly) on a newspaper report than a family story; or I value Census returns over a DNA analyses (or vice versa of course).
In your case the DNA suggests something different than the documents and oral history that you have. You have assessed the DNA as being a more reliable source, and so have adjusted your research accordingly. We all do that. It does involve culling lines (I myself spent 5 years researching a line I later found was based on an inaccurate link) - its the nature of the research. We are dealing with humans, after all - who lie, mislead, make mistakes, or perpetuate inaccurate information.
I assume your DNA discovery, however, was not based on following results on ethnicity estimates, but due to autosomal testing with DNA matching with 'cousins'. The two are quite different as sources of information for family research.