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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Another AncestryDNA Query - Interpreting Ethnicity Estimate
« on: Monday 25 January 21 19:59 GMT (UK) »
Hi everyone -
I recently had my mum take an Ancestry DNA test. I've traced most of her family tree back to the mid-18th century at least and almost everyone came from either rural Gloucestershire, Hampshire or Sussex.
There was one obvious exception and that was her greatx2 grandmother on her mother's side. The gtx2 grandmother was called Isabella Mealy. She was born on the island of St Helena in 1824 but wasn't baptised until Oct 1826. The parish register records her birth and baptism as 'the daughter of John Mealy, St Helena Rgt, and Mary his wife'.
John Mealy married Mary Bray in June 1826 on St Helena, two years after Isabella [and her sister, Eleanor] was born so I've no idea if John Mealy was her biological father. I've always assumed that he was, that he had two children with Mary Bray prior to their marriage, but that the children weren't baptised until after the marriage.
When Mary Bray got married she is referred to in the parish register as "free". Many other women are referred to as "spinster" or "widow", and I'd been told by St Helena researchers that "free" was often used to indicate women who were non-slaves but of non-European origin.
When John Mealy joined up with the East India Company's St Helena Regiment in 1813, he said that he came from Ireland, which made sense as apparently Mealy is an Irish surname, derived from O'Malley.
Apart from the fact that John Mealy and Mary Bray had a son on St Helena and that the family eventually moved back to Ireland, I know almost nothing else about them. So I hoped that the Ancestry DNA test would offer some new ideas.
I expected the results to show something like 95% 'English' with some Irish and possibly something from a non-European source [i.e. Mary Bray]. The reason I got my mum tested rather than me is because she's closer, genetically, to the people on St Helena and I'm of Indian descent via my father and didn't want that to cloud any non-European result.
The ethnicity estimate identified:
77% England [with genetic communities in Gloucestershire and Sussex, as expected]
12% [North East] Scotland [range between 0%-15%]
6% Germanic Europe [range between 0%-26%]
5% [Western] Wales [range between 0%-10%]
I've not found anyone on my mum's side of the tree from Germany, Scotland or Wales. Almost everyone has come from Gloucestershire, Sussex or Hampshire apart from this couple on St Helena.
I know the ethnicity estimates get a bad press, and seem to be regarded as worthless, but is there anything I can take away from these results? Would non-European DNA from a gtx3 grandmother even show up? Can the lack of Irish dna be taken as evidence that John Mealy wasn't the father at all?
Thanks for reading
I recently had my mum take an Ancestry DNA test. I've traced most of her family tree back to the mid-18th century at least and almost everyone came from either rural Gloucestershire, Hampshire or Sussex.
There was one obvious exception and that was her greatx2 grandmother on her mother's side. The gtx2 grandmother was called Isabella Mealy. She was born on the island of St Helena in 1824 but wasn't baptised until Oct 1826. The parish register records her birth and baptism as 'the daughter of John Mealy, St Helena Rgt, and Mary his wife'.
John Mealy married Mary Bray in June 1826 on St Helena, two years after Isabella [and her sister, Eleanor] was born so I've no idea if John Mealy was her biological father. I've always assumed that he was, that he had two children with Mary Bray prior to their marriage, but that the children weren't baptised until after the marriage.
When Mary Bray got married she is referred to in the parish register as "free". Many other women are referred to as "spinster" or "widow", and I'd been told by St Helena researchers that "free" was often used to indicate women who were non-slaves but of non-European origin.
When John Mealy joined up with the East India Company's St Helena Regiment in 1813, he said that he came from Ireland, which made sense as apparently Mealy is an Irish surname, derived from O'Malley.
Apart from the fact that John Mealy and Mary Bray had a son on St Helena and that the family eventually moved back to Ireland, I know almost nothing else about them. So I hoped that the Ancestry DNA test would offer some new ideas.
I expected the results to show something like 95% 'English' with some Irish and possibly something from a non-European source [i.e. Mary Bray]. The reason I got my mum tested rather than me is because she's closer, genetically, to the people on St Helena and I'm of Indian descent via my father and didn't want that to cloud any non-European result.
The ethnicity estimate identified:
77% England [with genetic communities in Gloucestershire and Sussex, as expected]
12% [North East] Scotland [range between 0%-15%]
6% Germanic Europe [range between 0%-26%]
5% [Western] Wales [range between 0%-10%]
I've not found anyone on my mum's side of the tree from Germany, Scotland or Wales. Almost everyone has come from Gloucestershire, Sussex or Hampshire apart from this couple on St Helena.
I know the ethnicity estimates get a bad press, and seem to be regarded as worthless, but is there anything I can take away from these results? Would non-European DNA from a gtx3 grandmother even show up? Can the lack of Irish dna be taken as evidence that John Mealy wasn't the father at all?
Thanks for reading
