Were your ethnicity estimates a surprise?

[Romilly]

And don't forget Martin, - the 'Roman' soldiers weren't just from Italy!

They were recruited from all over the far flung Roman Empire.

Romilly

[hdw]

I am still a little bit confused about my 8% Greek. Or Albanian as another company reported.

Martin

I am ultra-confused about my 1% North African and 1% Nigerian, courtesy of MyHeritage.

Harry

[Romilly]

Hi Harry,

The 'My Heritage' Ethnicity Estimates are just weird!

I don't know how they work them out... I have Finnish on there; which I don't have on Ancestry. My OH has some Italian on there, - none on Ancestry.

I'd just take the MH results with a pinch of salt

Romilly.

[hdw]

Hi Harry,

The 'My Heritage' Ethnicity Estimates are just weird!

I don't know how they work them out... I have Finnish on there; which I don't have on Ancestry. My OH has some Italian on there, - none on Ancestry.

I'd just take the MH results with a pinch of salt

Romilly.

I do, a whole packet of salt, actually.

I've been corresponding with a Norwegian academic whom I "met" on Roberta Estes's very good genealogy blog about mtDNA J ("Jasmine") people. That's the mitochondrial haplogroup that originated in the Middle East and was allegedly brought to Europe by the first farmers. I was intrigued by the fact that this lady, who is 100% Norwegian as far as she is concerned, had a very similar pattern of DNA to myself, with some Scandinavian, some British Isles, some Southern Europe, some Finnish ... She says she is from the west coast of Norway where people had contacts with the British Isles (ever heard of the Vikings?) and she says there are strong differences between the DNA of people from there and from further east in Norway.

Harry

[LizzieL]

Interesting about Norwegian DNA, I wonder which part my 2% is from. Considering a quarter of my family are from Yorkshire, I'm surprised I'm not more Viking!

[Mart 'n' Al]

Lizzie, tongue-in-cheek, perhaps the pillaging Vikings didn't fancy your ancestors.

Martin

[Gadget]

 

I take the ethnicity results with lots of salt, as others have said. My My Heritage results (using my Ancestry data), produces a slightly different distribution to the Ancestry 55:45.

I think my Vikings came via the Celtic Sea 

[hdw]

My wife is U4, "Ulrike", a haplotype commoner in Scandinavia and the Baltics than in Britain. It has been suggested that some of the Vikings may have brought their womenfolk with them. Maybe they had heard tales of bold English girls throwing up outside clubs and fighting with their stiletto heels at taxi-ranks, and thought they had better bring some respectable Norwegian matrons with them in their longships. I suppose it would also be nice to get some home cooking and darning done for them on the way over.

Harry

[Guy Etchells]

Also don't forget the Normans were in many cases Vikings (or rather Scandinavians) who had settled in Normandy, France.

Cheers
Guy