Dna result - No Viking

[sirsimon]

Hello

I recently got my dna test results. It came back 83% england/wales/nw europe and 17% ireland/scottish

These results are not surprising and line up with my research

What surprised and disappointed me a little was that there was 0% scandanavian or germanic dna

According to the results i dont have any viking or saxon ancestry or any blood from outside Britain

My question is: is this rare or unusual? I thought nearly every briton had some norse blood of some kind

Most of my closest dna matches have some scandanavian origin, so why dont I?

My thanks i am new to dna testing

[Liz_in_Sussex]

Hi,

I'm sure someone will be along with a much more scientific answer than me - but from experience - no, I don't think it is unusual.

I have my DNA results on 2 different sites:
A - I am 80% British, 14% Swedish and 6% Germanic.
B - I am 100% British.

My mother and her brother had their DNA tested on site B - both are almost 100% Swedish and a bit of Danish/German (If I remember correctly those were in the same block) and NO British.

My Dad is fairly consistently over 3 tests 74% British and 26% North European. His Living DNA test was the most interesting because it matched entirely the regions we knew he had ancestors from - leaving us with a fairly big clue as to where to look for the illegitimate line.

I take the ethnicity estimates with a very large pinch of salt - it will probably be different if I check again in a couple of weeks - I know I am my parents' daughter - and you'd think I'd have a bit of "Sweden" showing on site B if it was all Mum had! (That she has so much "Sweden" isn't a surprise - that I have none is - but I'm not going to worry about it! I do understand though that children don't inherit an exact % of DNA from parents - but "B" appears to have a leaning towards Sweden?!

Liz 

[avm228]

Which company did you test with? MyHeritage seems to lean towards interpreting Northern European genomes as Scandinavian, so if that’s what you want you could re-test with them. They have me as just about as Swedish as ABBA. (In fact I am British for as long as the papertrail goes back).

The ethnicity stuff should be taken with a big pinch of salt. Northern Europeans share lots of deep ancestry, and it’s a matter of interpretation for these companies whether they pigeonhole that ancestry as Scandinavian, Germanic or whatever.

[Ayashi]

Given the amount of time between Vikings, Saxons etc, I'd say that those DNA segments would be pretty watered down by now without any newer lines breeding in. The small smattering of genetics a modern Briton could expect to have might be included in "British" as common traits of people from this isle, plus could be at a percentage of total DNA less than 1% so not listed as a nationality.

Plus as Liz says, it's not a hard science. Different sites interpret results differently depending on their own databases and as they get more information they change their interpretations. When my parents first tested they had a lot of minor nationalities that showed up but after a couple of months it updated and my mother is now entirely UK and Irish.

As far as I'm concerned the nationality part of DNA testing is fairly useless. I've had far more useful results with researching common ancestors with other DNA matches, both confirming the paperwork on various branches and confirming the father's family of an illegitimate ancestor.

[sirsimon]

thanks for replying guys

I had my test results from ancestry and it was a nightmare to get them back since these results are from a second sample I had to send another sample since they failed to retrieve any usable dna from the first sample.

Perhaps I will just have to wait until the databases get more accurate. To be honest I am not displeased with the result as it aligns with 11 years of research, just find it all confusing

[davidft]

Over the years there have been several threads on here where people have compared their ethnicity estimates from different companies. Here is one such thread

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=802458.msg6762338#msg6762338

According to the DNA companies I am anywhere from not Scandinavian at all to 43.5 per cent Scandinavian.

[Rena]

Hello

I recently got my dna test results. It came back 83% england/wales/nw europe and 17% ireland/scottish

These results are not surprising and line up with my research

What surprised and disappointed me a little was that there was 0% scandanavian or germanic dna

According to the results i dont have any viking or saxon ancestry or any blood from outside Britain

My question is: is this rare or unusual? I thought nearly every briton had some norse blood of some kind

Most of my closest dna matches have some scandanavian origin, so why dont I?

My thanks i am new to dna testing

Cheer up - North West Europe could mean Breton blood and that means Cornish/Devonian ancestors sailing directly across the English Channel and mixing with Bretons of Brittany.

[guest189040]

Just wait a couple of years and the %age ethnicity results will be completely different.

[Craclyn]

Focus on your matches and don’t get too hung up in the ethnicity results which are just estimates and will continue to change as the company gathers more data in its reference populations and makes refinements.