I did the Ancestry.com DNA test last year and am thinking of doing another, probably 23andMe. Anybody else done these?
If so, any surprises?
Biggest surprise for me was it estimated I’m 30% Scandinavian. I’ve traced my ancestry back to the 18th century on most sides, further on a few, and haven’t come up with ANY ancestors who came here directly from Scandinavian, though I have found a Norman and several from east England who were probably descended of Scandinavians.
It also estimated my ancestry at 7% Iberian and 3% North African, which I figure must also have been ancestors who migrated further north from those places.
I have a very distant cousin who’s a biologist and who’s using a particular genetic sequence shared by some of his kin group (including me) for a paper he’s writing. An interesting thing, if only to me, is that the particular genetic sequence runs through my maternal grandfather’s family, and they descend from a German Jew who emigrated to Charleston and had a branch of descendants that managed to become a huge clan of vaguely Christian Alabama hillbillies.
No evidence of Native-American ancestry, which was a disappointment as it was my understanding one branch had Saponi ancestry, though it’s possible it does exist as that line- which was in the 17th century- would account for less than 1% of my ancestry.
No surprise: lots of English, Scot, and Irish ancestry (I’ve wondered whether they count Scots-Irish as Scottish or Irish) with German for seasoning.
Not a surprise in the “shocked it happened” sense but in the “glad they are connecting” sense: I’ve been put in touch with several African-Americans who’ve had DNA ancestry and have genetic matches with me. It’s not precise enough to identify an exact ancestor but I know which part of the family it’s from. It was cool being able to share some information with one of the descendants of that branch.
Did mine (at the same time as some other relatives) with 23andme a few years ago – the big surprise was that, from my dad’s side of the family, I’m about 3% black (sub-Saharan African). My father’s father was very dark-skinned (for a white person), and the family lore to explain this was that he was part Native American. My dad’s side is poor rural Southern stock, from northern FL and southern GA, so this probably shouldn’t be particularly surprising – black ancestry has often been historically “hidden” among white-identified people in the South by explanations like Native American ancestry, a lot of time in the sun, or other things. Doing the math backwards, my grandfather was probably 1/8th black, so one of his great-grandparents may have been a non-mixed black person.
I did 23andme a couple of years ago, before they had to stop giving medical results. I was glad to get the medical information, although there was nothing there very surprising or useful.
My one surprise was to find that I was genetically 1/8 Jewish, or more specifically, Ashkenazy. I assume that was my great-grandfather who emigrated from Germany in 1859 at the age of 15.
My maternal grandfather used to say that there was Native American blood somewhere in his past, but this turned out not to be true (not a big surprise, since I hadn’t found anything from genealogy either). There is less than 0.1% from anything Asian-related, and they say it comes from eastern Russia rather than the Americas.
A lot of African American families used it to hide white ancestry as well, which could be embarrassing, particularly if they weren’t especially light skinned but had straight hair or other non-African features. Natives definitely intermarried with whites and blacks, but not nearly as much as the number of people claiming native ancestry would imply.
I’ve not had it done, but then I know from ordinary document sources roughly where my ancestors came from: two-thirds England, a quarter or so Scottish (so mostly Anglo-Saxon but probably higher than expected Viking/Scandinavian and maybe some survival of the Celts who preceded the Romans), an eighth or so Irish, and a tiny percentage of Afro-Caribbean.
The chances of relationship matches depends on the reliability of whichever company’s underlying database of course, and that’s the point of the whole exercise: for them to build up monetizable databases of genetic information, and I don’t see why I should pay them to have mine.
I wonder what my kids would turn up. They have known English, Irish, German, Russian, Hungarian, and Sicilian ancestors just in the last century (Russian and Hungarian only for my oldest, something unknown for the younger one). I suspect German would dominate because it comes from both sides of the family and would likely appear in the English, Irish, and Russians as well.
My wife would be more interested in this kind of thing, I’ll bring it up with her. How much does this cost anyway?
Back in the Province, they are all called Ulstermen ( Scots-Irish being an American gibbering not known to that fine, intransigent, people ); and up to the 19th century, and really up to now, the Protties were generally Scottish, and the Taigs mostly Irish from all over.
However:
a/ there really is very little genetic difference between Irish/Scots/English, contrary to racialist ( anti-English ) dreaming — waves of immigrants went all ways and settled peaceably from early mediaeval times to the 20th century.
b/ I am not persuaded Ulster, being a tiny place where most people did not emigrate from in the 18th century, could have provided enough to be ancestors of entire swathes of America claiming ‘Scots-Irish’ heritage.
It was not until the 1830s, and then the coming of the steam ship, immigration to America went industrial scale.
In the 19th century, Britain’s rulers really started exporting natives to create more space back home: other Euro countries also were happy to get rid of surplus trouble-makers, particularly after '48, and encouraged the process with subsidies. This did not happen a lot before the American War of Independence.
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AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKoreanLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSerbianSesothoSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduUzbekVietnameseWelshYiddishYorubaZulu
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We paid more like 99 bucks! There is a discount going right now or it ended last Thursday
We did my sister and my mother
Was surprised that my mother did not have as much British in her as we thought.
I’m disappointed that the Brit selection did not break down to Scotland or Ireland
Both lines had Scandinavia which was a surprise
And of course to my sister’s surprise, no Native American blood. Everyone seems to think they have that in their lines…seems like everyone in our family anyway. I’m still concentrating on one line, well the main line but if there was any, it would have showed either in my sister’s or my mothers or really in my sisters for sure, right?
I’ve been doing family history for some time. Amassed a great deal of info and documents, its crazy!
I got 23andme as a gift - I think it was on sale for $100. It was huge for me since I’m adopted and had zero idea of what my genetics might turn up. I came up 100% northern European of some kind - I knew there was at least some since I’m blue-eyed. I believe it was 54.2% British/Irish, 14.3% French/German, and the rest Your Best Guess but European. No Asian, no African, no Native American, no Oceanian. I was in tears since it was the first hint I’d had of any background. I’ve since located my birthmom, and she was able to confirm that, indeed, loads of Irish in my background. I’d recommend the process, even if you’ve already got an idea; it’s a cool experience.
Can anyone who’s done both explain the difference between 23andme vs Ancestory?
I imagine that I’d come up effectively 100% Ashkenazi but my cousin did some sleuthing in the early 80’s and claims that my there is a Turkish Muslim in our line (I think I am a direct male decedent) and since his son (my great gf) was mixed, he left what is now the Georgian Republic to come to America. That guy’s brother went to Palestine. My cousin met with our mutual Israeli cousins and compared notes in the family lore to get the story.
I have a friend who’s fairskinned, blonde, and blue-eyed and her DNA revealed her mitochondrial line originated in sub-Saharan African within the last few centuries.
I did 23 and me and discovered a 2nd cousin that I, nor anyone else in the family, knew anything about.
2nd cousins are the sons and daughters of your parents 1st cousins. I thought I knew everyone of my 2nd cousins. I know some better than others but for sure knew who they all are. Then this one popped up unexpectedly.
We started talking to one another.
She was from the south and in a long line of family from the south and her mother never once lived up north. My family is from New England mostly and never lived down south.
The only clue she had from her deceased mother is that her father was military office stationed at Fort Benning back in 1953. They met, dated, she was conceived, he left. Her mother was outcast from the family for 5 or 6 years and lived with an aunt, before she reconciled with her parents. Must have been tough for the mother back then.
Did not take me too long to figure out which one of my parents 1st cousins was a military officer and yes, he was station at Fort Benning at that time.
So my newly found 2nd cousin has 2 half sisters and 2 half brothers. It’s a little tricky as she is of the same general age as her half siblings. At her request I have not yet informed them over there of this. At this writing no one in the family except myself is aware of this. All my brothers and sisters know is that I have been asking a lot of family history questions lately.
Well, if I ever got tested it would show as German, Native American, English and French (from most to least). I don’t think there is a DNA marker for native American.
The weird thing in mine was I got a trace amount of Melanesian (which to save you the google is the New Guinea area). It was <1%, but there’s no way there’s even that much there. For one thing I can’t think of any conceivable way anybody on any side of my family would ever have gotten there, in the second if I’m not mistaken they’re one of the genetic communities least likely to intermarry/interbreed with outsiders.
I figure that must be some sequence that just coincidentally has somebody in New Guinea with similar markers, possibly due to a Euro or North African ancestor. Or, since it was a spit test, maybe it was DNA from the cinnamon in the Altoid I took the day before.
Africa 3%
Trace Regions 3%
Europe 96%
Europe West 31%
Scandinavia 27%
Great Britain 25%
Ireland 7%
Trace Regions 6%
Iberian Peninsula 4%
European Jewish 1%
Finland/Northwest Russia < 1%
Pacific Islander < 1%
Trace Regions < 1%
Melanesia is in the trace regions.
I was “mis-remembering” about the Scottish ancestry- it’s all lumped into Great Britain, but I did wonder if hte Irish is Ulster or, for lack of a better term, “Catholic Ireland”. (My family has a wonderful story about my g-g-grandmother with the thick Irish brogue who stood off a fellow Irish bluecoat during the Civil War- such a great story that I was disappointed to find this Irish colleen ancestress in the census and see she was born in South Carolina and so were both of her parents.
The weird thing in mine was I got a trace amount of Melanesian (which to save you the google is the New Guinea area). It was <1%, but there’s no way there’s even that much there. For one thing I can’t think of any conceivable way anybody on any side of my family would ever have gotten there, in the second if I’m not mistaken they’re one of the genetic communities least likely to intermarry/interbreed with outsiders.
I figure that must be some sequence that just coincidentally has somebody in New Guinea with similar markers, possibly due to a Euro or North African ancestor. Or, since it was a spit test, maybe it was DNA from the cinnamon in the Altoid I took the day before.
Africa 3%
Trace Regions 3%
Europe 96%
Europe West 31%
Scandinavia 27%
Great Britain 25%
Ireland 7%
Trace Regions 6%
Iberian Peninsula 4%
European Jewish 1%
Finland/Northwest Russia < 1%
Pacific Islander < 1%
Trace Regions < 1%
Melanesia is in the trace regions.
I was “mis-remembering” that it specified Scottish ancestry- it’s all lumped into Great Britain, but it does specifiy Irish. I know from research that I have a good bit of Scots-Irish- I’ve even got a lot of their emigration records- which is why I wonder if the Irish is Ulster or, for lack of a better term, “Catholic Ireland”. (My family has a wonderful story about my g-g-grandmother with the thick Irish brogue who stood off a fellow Irish bluecoat during the Civil War- such a great story that I was disappointed to find this Irish colleen ancestress in the census and see she was born in South Carolina and so were both of her parents.
I’d recommend the process, even if you’ve already got an idea; it’s a cool experience.