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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: dnaconfused90 on Friday 13 October 17 00:53 BST (UK)
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Hello, I just got my DNA results from Ancestry and I have a lot of confusion regarding exactly where I'm from. I was adopted at age 3 so I have no knowledge where my biological parents are from? I was born in the U.S. Based on these results where should I even consider myself to be from I'm I Italian? Greek? Spanish?
These are my results:
Italy/Greece 40%
Iberian Peninsula 28%
Africa North 9%
Ireland 7%
Europe West 7%
Scandinavia 4%
Middle East 1%
Thank you!
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I don't know if there is a word to describe that particular area specifically, other than the more general "European"! It may be that there is no one answer to this, your parents and grandparents may have been of mixed nationality parentage themselves.
I don't know how many people from Italy, Greece and Spain/Portugal would be on Ancestry (most of my results are UK and US) but potentially if you end up with a close enough match you might begin to see a trend in a particular country in order to narrow things down a little. Or perhaps someone can suggest another site that people from those countries might test with more commonly than Ancestry?
Good luck!
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Many people in the US trace their ancestry back to early settlers, who may have come from any or all of the countries/areas you list. Whilst your birth parents could very likely have been born in the US, as could their parents and grandparents, eventually the lines will probably trace back to people who were immigrants. Consider also that one of your ancestors may have been the product of a wartime liaison, where the couple were never married and lived in different countries.
I'd suggest you upload your DNA results to GEDMatch and FTDNA (both free) as you may get some pointers through DNA commonality with people elsewhere in the world.
Jane :-)
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The problem with autosomnal DNA tests is that they don't tell people where they are from despite the claims of the testing companies. What Ancestry have presented you with is how far your DNA corresponds to others in their sample populations. As different companies have different sample populations if you tested with other companies you might get quite different results.
The advice of familydar to upload your results to other sites and see what they suggest is good in my opinion. That and seeing if you can make matches on Ancestry and what those people know about their ethnic ancestry and if it helps explain that.
As to the results ancestry have given you in the broadest sense they suggest you are of north Mediterranean European. But in truth the science of DNA is not sufficiently robust to give more than broad outlines based on a lot of guesswork and very small comparison populations
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Sounds likely that a majority of the ancestors came from Southern Europe, so I'd go with that.
It is worth keeping in mind that the category titles that Ancestry gives are not really all the countries that the category covers. If you click on each group, you will see a map and description that shows it covers a larger area. Personally, I got 16% Italy/Greece, but I have found no ancestors from those areas. Ancestry's description says "Primarily located in: Italy, Greece Also found in: France, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Turkey, Slovenia, Algeria, Tunisia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo." I do have likely ancestors from some of those areas, so that may be where it came from. (I am adoptee who found half my biological family through the paper trail and half through autosomal DNA.)
In case you haven't seen it, http://dnaadoption.com/ has lots of helpful advice on looking for biological relatives via DNA testing. You also might want to see who comes up as your closest relatives on Ancestry and see what their ethnic description is.
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I'd suggest you upload your DNA results to GEDMatch and FTDNA (both free) as you may get some pointers through DNA commonality with people elsewhere in the world.
Jane :-)
I agree. Gedmatch has several admixture tools.