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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: kjmck on Thursday 13 September 18 20:16 BST (UK)
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Hi everyone
I did my AncestryDNA over a year ago now, and I have now updated my results and there are a couple of changes.
My previous results were -
Ireland/Scotland/Wales 50%
Europe East 24%
Great Britain 18%
Scandinavia 5%
Iberian Peninsula 2%
Europe West <1%
I believed that the 2% Iberian Peninsula may be the reason for my olive skin, and ability to tan at the first sight of sun! But after my update, these are now my results....
Ireland and Scotland 58%
Scotland
Northeast & Central Scotland
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 24%
Eastern Europe and Russia 18%
I would have hoped that the results would have given me a time frame of how far they went back, and whether the results are from my maternal or paternal line. It's a little confusing to a DNA novice!
Also - if I am 58% Scottish / Irish, does that mean I have that DNA from both my father and mother?
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The latest update, even though it might appear more accurate than previous version, is still very much something to look at for amusement, rather than accuracy.
They cannot distinguish between your maternal or paternal line that I know of. Time frame is also difficult to establish, but usually reckoned to be beyond the times that records began, that is thousands rather than hundreds of years.
Each of us had 50% autosomal DNA from our mother and 50% from our father, so by definition the 58%, if it is accurate, has to be from both parents, but in no fixed proportion.
Regards Margaret
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Thank you for that Margaret.
Do you know if it is true, that if you have more than 50% of a specific region, it means it comes from both parents?
Keelan
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Keelan, Sorry, modified my previous reply when I realised I hadn't answered that part of your question.
You inherit 50% autosomal DNA from each parent, so if one area indicates 58%, it has to come from both parents. But it could be 29% from each one, 40% - 18%, 50% - 8%, or any other combination in between.
That is, assuming (big assumption) that it is accurate in the first place. I would go with my paper trail rather than the ethnicity estimates.
Regards Margaret
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Well my father's family are Scottish and Irish (Scottish mainly), as far back as I can go. And my mothers family are Welsh, Polish, and English. And there was always a family legend of Spanish on my mother's maternal line which I thought might be the Iberian Peninsula connection!
I would be EXTREMELY surprised to find any Irish or Scottish on my mother's side!
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Keelan, In that case I would go with what you already know.
Just goes to show how inaccurate the estimates still are, though 8% is not all that much of an overestimate. Think speed limits - 50 mph, police will usually let you go up to 57 mph - 10% + 2 mph, to allow, so they say, for any inaccuracies in your speedometer.
Regards Margaret
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I wonder how you lost your 5% Scandinavian?
I haven't been able to access my updates
Or my mum's but was pleased with the accuracy of her first update which included welsh ...first definition
Contained irish only
my results reflected her half of my dna well with 43% scottish coming from my dad I suspect most of my Scandinavian 5% came from him too
My mum's great grandfather was Latvian jewish
..she had 24% eastern European jewish and I had 13% European jewish which fits perfectly with facts .
But I see a lot of sceptical posts about accuracy of DNA.
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I think most people have lost their Scandinavian.
Mine was 1%, has changed to Norway 3% instead. I did have Iberian 3% as well, which has gone.
The overall accuracy appears to have improved, but the subtle additions and subtractions would puzzle me if ethnicity was all I was interested in.
Regards Margaret
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This is why I think DNA testing is a waste of time and money, it should be able to detect Saxon or Celt. OK, Scots, Irish and Welsh Celtic (and Cornwall) but English mixture of Saxons, Danes and Norse (Norwegians). Apparently, Danes cannot be told apart from Saxons.
You mention Celtic and Spain and olive skin. This sounds very like Silures from SE Wales, there are Silures in Spain. Silures might have been Mediterranean people and caused the Romans, when they came, to do a double take.
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This is why I think DNA testing is a waste of time and money, it should be able to detect Saxon or Celt. OK, Scots, Irish and Welsh Celtic (and Cornwall) but English mixture of Saxons, Danes and Norse (Norwegians). Apparently, Danes cannot be told apart from Saxons.
You mention Celtic and Spain and olive skin. This sounds very like Silures from SE Wales, there are Silures in Spain. Silures might have been Mediterranean people and caused the Romans, when they came, to do a double take.
For ethnicity estimates I think most of us here agree that the test is a waste of time and money.
For breaking down the odd brick wall or two, for confirming doubtful family lines, for adoptees looking for answers, it definitely isn't a waste of money, but it does require a lot of time to get the most out of it.
More time than lots of people are prepared to give, depends how much value you put on your free time.
As a retired person I can spend an hour or two a day (ok, maybe more!) on my favourite hobby, genealogy. DNA is just one of the many tools I use.
Regards Margaret
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I believed that the 2% Iberian Peninsula may be the reason for my olive skin, and ability to tan at the first sight of sun! But after my update, these are now my results....
Ancestry.com seem to be doing away with 'trace' (low) estimates and this is probably a good idea, because results below 15% were meaningless anyway
This is from ancestry FAQS/information page on 'trace'/below 15%results (my underline)
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/dna/legal/faq#interpret-4
Trace Regions are regions where the estimated range includes zero and does not go above 15%, or where the predicted percentage is less than 4.5%. Since there is only a small amount of evidence that you have genetic ethnicity from these regions, it is possible that you may not have genetic ethnicity from them at all. This is not uncommon,
I would have hoped that the results would have given me a time frame of how far they went back...
The below quote is from the same Ancestry FAQS/information page linked above. I'm afraid that, again, the information is all a bit vague.
It maps ethnicity going back multiple generations...targeting your family history a few hundred or even a thousand years ago...
As others have pointed out, the ethnicity part of the results are a waste of time and not to be taken seriously.
'Olive skin' could have come from anywhere in Europe. For example, I have a relative from the North of England whose family are all extremely dark and his ancestors, going back hundreds of years, are all in local parish records within a small area of rural Yorkshire .
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Perhaps I was lucky, I was lucky, I got back to 1695 and thats before the internet. If I was starting out now, I would have to subscribe to Ancestry and a few others. It would have saved 1000's of miles driving to London, Gloucester and Cwmbran and £1000's. Filling out around 1700 was courtesy a cousin who employed a genealogist to take my researches back further. It turned out to be same generation but limited by the fact that the PR's only started 1695.
I don't agree about skin colour. I could post photo's but won't. The Silures gave the Romans a whole heap of trouble pushing West and North into Wales. Apparently, the Romans were considering extermination of the Silures. (Tacitus?). Luckily for our family they didn't. That's why one of three permanent Legionary bases was at Caerleon.
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This is why I think DNA testing is a waste of time and money, it should be able to detect Saxon or Celt.
I agree the ethnicity tests are a waste of time but the reason they do not label results as 'Saxon or Celt' is because they are not ethnicities. They are historical time periods.
There is also no 'Celtic' relationship between Celtic regions. The link below is from the largest DNA study ever done in Britain. The Wellcome Trust/People of the British Isles Research Project
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764
A DNA study of Britons has shown that genetically there is not a unique Celtic group of people in the UK.
According to the data, those of Celtic ancestry in Scotland and Cornwall are more similar to the English than they are to other Celtic groups.
...Scots, Irish and Welsh Celtic (and Cornwall) ...English
These peoples are all mixed together anyway and have inter married and moved about for thousands of years. There is no significant difference in ethnicity. This is why on the Britain/Ireland DNA result maps, the regions overlap significantly
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Sally, your view is modern PC. It will distort and destroy British history, I hope it doesn't. I'm 75 and been fascinated by the subject all my life.
Very strange as the so called UK is falling apart. Most of the Irish broke away in 1922, Scotland is governed by the SNP, Wales wants independence. Even the Cornish have their own flag. I could explain but it would fall on deaf ears.
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Sally, your view is modern PC. It will distort and destroy British history
Not sure what you mean.
...Wales wants independence. Even the Cornish have their own flag...
According to polls only about 10% of Welsh people want independence. Even less so in Cornwall
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I have known Danish ancestry (and this is verified by my Uncle's Y-DNA - and he is very much my Uncle!) but Ancestry has now decided that I no longer have any Scandinavian DNA at all - very strange - but I am taking this with a fairly large pinch of salt and going with the paper trail and the few facts I am slowly gaining from my Uncle's and my Dad's tests.
Liz
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I was very confused by?the Welsh Irish? Definitions.
My mother has Welsh ancestors but no known Irish ones ....
The first ancestry test she had stated 33% Irish when I queried this they told me Irish and Welsh had been lumped together
Now the?definitions include Welsh
Zhen is more English and has also lost her 7% Scandinavian
My tests seem to have half of her significant numbers
And the scottishness from my father is the other half
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I have known Danish ancestry (and this is verified by my Uncle's Y-DNA - and he is very much my Uncle!) but Ancestry has now decided that I no longer have any Scandinavian DNA at all - very strange - but I am taking this with a fairly large pinch of salt and going with the paper trail and the few facts I am slowly gaining from my Uncle's and my Dad's tests.
Liz
Is that from the Isted line? Any autosomal DNA would likely have disappeared if we are talking about Isteds that have been in Sussex since the 1200s. The Y-DNA may be so common now in the UK they do not mark it as scandinavian even if it did ultimately originate there.
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Hi,
My Uncle's Y-DNA haplogroup (certainly amongst anyone who has tested) is very rare and does trace back to Scandinavia) - he is proud of his uniqueness! ::)
Agreed that line is unlikely to show up in the autosomal DNA as the Isted's have been here for so many hundreds of years but I have a couple other branches of non-Isted in my tree, which are more recent (last couple of hundred years) that are from northern Germany / borders of Denmark and which seem to have disappeared from Ancestry's list - on both Mum and Dad's side.
Liz
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Intrigue. Wonder at 'changes' in % shares. Due to using different company testing kits? If so, how valid and contradictory are they?