My Heritage DNA

[tilly56]

Any ideas please..... My daughter has just received her results from her My Heritage DNA test.

I am mostly English (as far as I know - I've just had my test done and am waiting for results) , a touch of Irish and a smidgen of Italian from my Greatx5 grandfather. My husband is Breton for many, many generations. Nearly all of his ancestors came from nearby villages or towns.

Although the result does not give my daughter as French, it does give her as 53.4% Irish, Scottish, Welsh - which I suppose is the Celtic connection between Brittany and those countries, plus my drop of Irish. She is 32% English (from me I would imagine).

What intrigues her is that she has 6.3 % Iberian and 7.2 % North African. She also has 1.1 % Nigerian. The North African and Iberian does seem quite a lot.

Would this be from her Breton/French side?

My brother had a test done via Ancestry some time back and he is 86 % England, Wales and N W Europe and 11% Ireland/Scotland. So it would seem no North African on our side....

How reliable is My Heritage? Someone I know has just had her results and, although her family tree shows her as English, English and more English, her results said 48% Scandinavian and 50 per cent Irish, Scottish, Welsh!

I would be very interested to hear you thoughts and explanations.

Many thanks
Tilly xx

[Galium]

My Ancestry test results tell me that I'm mainly English, Welsh with lesser amounts of Scandinavian and northern European heritage.
 The same test uploaded to My Heritage gives broadly the same result, but with a little north African and Nigerian thrown in.  I have no explanation for that from anything my research has shown, and suspect that if MH ever update their ethnicity results it will disappear.

[tilly56]

Interesting!!  What percentage of North African and Nigerian do you have?

My daughter has what seems to me quite a high percentage. Added together, her Iberian, Nigerian and North African are more than my brother's Irish.  Do you think that if MH did an update these results would disappear too?

[aghadowey]

My Heritage shows the following for OH (with Ulster Scots ancestry from at least 1700 onwards)-

Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 68.9%
English 22.0%
North and West European 6.7%
Ashkenazi Jewish 2.4%

[Galium]

6% North African; 1.4% Nigerian.  I have no known connection with those places.

Of course, I am only speculating about what changes would show if MH updated, I just don't entirely believe what they show at the moment - (although it's certainly more interesting than what Ancestry have).  I also uploaded to LivingDNA, and they think I'm 100% British Isles, which I know not to be true.

[Guy Etchells]

I cannot understand why people are fascinated by the so called “Ethnicity Estimate” that DNA companies provide.
The fact they even name it an estimate shows they know it is not an accurate figure.
At best it may be correct at the continental level.
What do people understand determines “ethnicity” do you mean race, nationality, language, political identification, religion, language or even culture? All have been described as portraying ethnicity!
All the above are also of interest to the family historian as separate topics but I suggest not as a grouping which in reality is not based of any hard facts.
Cheers
Guy
P.S. I would be happy to be proved wrong on this, perhaps someone could explain exactly what they mean by ethnicity

[Gadget]

What do people understand determines “ethnicity” do you mean race, nationality, language, political identification, religion, language or even culture? All have been described as portraying ethnicity!
All the above are also of interest to the family historian as separate topics but I suggest not as a grouping which in reality is not based of any hard facts.

Guy

I agree with you totally. I've attempted to raise the various meanings of ethnicity previously but the discussion seems to revert to this % of that and that % of the other.

Gadget

[Biggles50]

Guy and Gadget +1 from me also.

My Wife and I took the Ancestry test about five years ago and since then our Ethnicities have changed out of all proportion to what they were given as when we had our first results.

I am now awaiting the results of a My Heritage DNA test so it will be interesting to see what their system reports, I post the comparison here in a few weeks.

[Ruskie]

I think that the ads and marketing bumpf for the DNA testing companies (especially Ancestry) are aimed at “ethnicity”, whatever that is, because (they think) that is what people want to know.

Browsing through the consumer ratings for Ancestry a while back I noticed that numerous people complained about how inaccurate the ethnicity estimates were, and some were unhappy because they expected to be handed a completed family tree. 

Some Q&As which may help you a little Tilly:
https://familytreemagazine.com/dna/dna-qa-best-ethnicity-estimates/

If you enter some appropriate search terms into Google you will find many more.

Biggles, you could have uploaded your raw data from Ancestry to My Heritage rather than take a new test. There is now a fee to unlock the more useful features though.