Myheritage ethnicity and matches breakdown

[melba_schmelba]

It's interesting to speculate about these things. FTDNA give me 33% Scandinavian DNA, MyHeritage only give me 19.3%, but they also give me 4.9% Finnish and 4.7% Baltic.

I come from a former fishing village in Scotland, and my paternal grandparents were both local, from long-established fishing families. From my male line I've inherited Y DNA R1b-L21, like the majority of males in Scotland, but two males from the direct male line of my granny's family, surname Cunningham, have turned out to be Y DNA R1a, and a particular sub-group that is commonest in the Baltics and eastern Europe. So maybe that accounts for my "Finnish" and "Baltic" DNA.

The person who runs the Cunningham One-Name DNA project was surprised by that result, as the majority of male Cunninghams in Scotland are R1b, but I wasn't too surprised and indeed forecast that our Cunninghams might turn out to be a bit different, as the local pronunciation of the name is "Kinney" and I don't believe they were Cunninghams to begin with (although they have been for at least 300+ years).

Harry

Very interesting Harry, are you from the Orkneys? I believe they are known to have a high percentage of Viking ancestry.

[melba_schmelba]

Melba, no, no known non-100% UK bits, but someone here once suggested my eyebrows are a bit odd. In a nice way, sort of Mediterranean.

I've been going to the same barber for 20 years, and he still always asks me if I want them trimming, even though I've told him no many times.

Martin

Could be Martin! Do you have any matches in Italy and Greece? 8% would be a great great or great grandparent level, I presume you've traced all lines back that far? In which case it would have to be an illegitimacy if it was actually correct. Have you downloaded your DNA to GEDMATCH? The admixture calculators on there might give you an idea if it might be correct or not.

[hdw]

It's interesting to speculate about these things. FTDNA give me 33% Scandinavian DNA, MyHeritage only give me 19.3%, but they also give me 4.9% Finnish and 4.7% Baltic.

I come from a former fishing village in Scotland, and my paternal grandparents were both local, from long-established fishing families. From my male line I've inherited Y DNA R1b-L21, like the majority of males in Scotland, but two males from the direct male line of my granny's family, surname Cunningham, have turned out to be Y DNA R1a, and a particular sub-group that is commonest in the Baltics and eastern Europe. So maybe that accounts for my "Finnish" and "Baltic" DNA.

The person who runs the Cunningham One-Name DNA project was surprised by that result, as the majority of male Cunninghams in Scotland are R1b, but I wasn't too surprised and indeed forecast that our Cunninghams might turn out to be a bit different, as the local pronunciation of the name is "Kinney" and I don't believe they were Cunninghams to begin with (although they have been for at least 300+ years).

Harry

Very interesting Harry, are you from the Orkneys? I believe they are known to have a high percentage of Viking ancestry.

No, I'm from one of the string of fishing villages in the East Neuk of Fife, near St. Andrews. Although there are lots of incomers and retirees there nowadays, the core population are descendants of the old fishing families. A distant relative of mine, an architect, used to researching house deeds and sasines (official records of property transactions) once managed to identify the house in our home village where our 6 x great-grandparents lived, and that's a couple who were married in 1715. It's just a short walk from where I was brought up.

Harry

[youngtug]

Try the archaic matches on Gedmatch;
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