My sisters therefore mine is
Asia 1%
Europe:
Great Britain 91%
Trace regions 6%
Finland/NW Russia 2%
Scandinavia 1%
Europe West 1%
and the surprising 1% European Jewish!
Iberian Peninsula/East Europe Less than 1%
You too? Hey, Cuz!
Family Tree DNA. I came out 99% in Finland, no surprise, and 1% far largish region in northeast Asia, as in northern Japan, eastern Siberia, which surprised and pleased me.
One of my mother’s cousins just sent us his report which surprisingly showed a Sephardic line instead of what I would have thought would be all Ashkenazi. This could not have come at a better time since now I can eat corn and rice this week ;).
I tested through Ancestry.com and downloaded the raw data file, then uploaded it to FTDNA, Gedmatch and DNA.land. Ancestry has me as 45% Great Britain, 30% Ireland, 10% Europe West and 15% trace regions, which break down to 4% Scandinavia, 3% Iberian Peninsula, 3% Europe East, 2% Finland/Northwest Russia, 2% Italy/Greece and <1% European Jew. Absolutely no surprises there. DNA.land would have me believe that I’m actually 89% North/Central European, 7.1% Mediterranean Islander and 3.5% Italian. I can’t see that being accurate at all.
I have loved making connections with distant cousins that prove my paper trail. I’ve had matches on both maternal and paternal lines so yay, I’m genuinely not adopted. 
My next step is to get my dad tested and see if we can get a YDna match to descendants of his great grandfather’s first marriage to validate or invalidate my lingering doubts that we’re actually the descendants of the man on the birth certificate.
My aunt had it done recently, and apparently we have Jewish blood. A small percentage, granted.
About a decade back, 37 marker Y tests (comped by Nat Geo) were used to confirm the accuracy of the Muffin family’s historical record to the 12th century. Turned out that we are who we are, which is comforting, for I’d hate to simply disappear into the sub-atomic void for failing a DNA test.
The historical record continues reliably on further back into the 6th century, but since one of the ancestors is a woman, Y chromosome testing would be futile in proving that particular link. Prior to the 6th century, parts of the historical record might have only been mediaeval chroniclers making shit up.
It’s fun to dig out information on my ancestors – real people with real lives without whom I would never have been. It brings a personal light to otherwise dusty history.
I sure wish my brother would do his, have no idea why he would not. Lose his identity? Yeah right
The Normans were Vikings.
East England was part of the Danelaw which - you guessed it - was Viking.
30 posts in and no Doper has commented on how shady these “X% Freedonian” breakdowns are?
If they say you are 50% Northern European, then you probably have a fair chunk of Northern European in you. But the margin of error is huge.
Which means all those 1% or 4% odd amounts are just noise and should be ignored.
I’ve had two relatives do this and the odd small percentages are easily explained by something other than actually being a few % that. (I also know their genealogy going back centuries.)
E.g., country A ruled Country B for many centuries. People from A settled in B, B only became independent in modernish times, some people in B still speak A’s language.
So, if you have ancestry from A (or close by), then you will be told you’re 4% B! Why? Because a lot of people from B have some A mixed in. Not the other way around.
Similarly with being x% Jewish. It’s been known for a long time that Jewish people in Europe share a lot of genes with their immediate neighbors. So if you have ancestry from one area and the DNA database has several Jewish people from that area, you’re going to be listed as part Jewish.
It’s really stupid for these DNA sites to give precise data when the margins of error are so large. If you have a general idea as to your background, you’re probably could give a better estimate of your genetic makeup than these sites do.
They are only worthwhile for things like finding relatives and such. (Esp. now that the FDA cracked down on the medical side.)
But these things can be checked – my mother is 100% Ashkenazi Jewish (as far as we know, at least), and my father is not. Sure enough, without reporting this, my DNA results reported 49.x% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. I had a “surprise” ~3% sub-Saharan African ancestry. My uncle (father’s brother) also did the test at the same time, and he had a “surprise” ~6% sub-Saharan African ancestry.
I suppose it’s possible that, through coincidence, poorly classified data just so happened to give my father’s brother twice the African ancestry as myself, which was a surprise to both of us, but that seems a lot less likely to me then that we actually have African ancestry, pass down from my father’s father, who was very dark skinned for a self-identified white person (and for whom family lore explained this by supposed native American ancestry).
My family is just a few data points, but the best explanation for our results seems to be a good level of accuracy, as far as I can tell.
No surprises; mitochondrial DNA which I knew to come from the Northern edge of Spain turns out to be of a variety most commonly found in Southern Europe, who would’a thunk. Nuclear DNA didn’t get analyzed, I would have been curious to know if there is any Northern European in there (I’ve been told that the light hair and eyes so common in my Dad’s family might involve vikings in the woodpile).
My 23andMe breakdown:
Sub-Saharan African 61.0% (Mostly West-African)
European 34.6% (Even split between N.W. and S. European)
Middle Eastern & North African 3.1%
East Asian & Native American 0.7%
Unassigned 0.7%
I already knew most of mine because of extensive research but there were a couple of surprises. Despite my family being in the U.S. for hundreds of years, I am still more genetically English than typical English people today. I follow the typical pure white Southern ancestry pattern of being mostly English, Irish and Scots-Irish. I did test positive for about 1% European Jewish ancestry which is supported by a long-standing family rumor that I have a Jewish great-x grandparent but I still haven’t figured out who that was.
The biggest surprise was the complete lack of Native American ancestry. I guess that rumor is really common (and false) for a whole lot of people. I still can’t make sense of that part of the results though. My father’s side of the family always swore it was true and they had features like true black hair and darker skin that suggested it as well. Maybe they were part Italian or Greek and just used Native American as an explanation for it because I do have some ancestry from Southern Europe as well that I can’t quite place other than that possible explanation.
Ancestry.com DNA test results
Europe 99%
Northern Africa <1%
Native American 0%
Asia 0%
Sub-Saharan Africa 0%
Major Subregions
Great Britain 67%
Ireland 12%
Europe West 12%
Trace Regions
Italy/Greece 4%
Iberian Peninsula 2%
European Jewish 1%
Scandinavia 1%
Europe East < 1%
Have you any evidence of your ancestors beginnings? Where they were born? Where they lived?
I would think that most people who have their DNA done have already or will be researching way back in history to find out where these people come from…in my family’s case, most did come from Britain-the DNA test reveals further back blood from wherest the British came from…Stuff I have not research far enough back to but I’ll probably never will. Its like reporting that you are a descendant of Adam and Eve or Jesus himself…people might say they have the proof but how could they?
How many people have ancestors that kept that good of track of their heritage?? :eek::dubious:
What difference does it make if my ancestors knew or did not know much about their heritage??? Genealogy can find out a lot without using family lore. (And is often better off without it. E.g., the standard “part Indian” claims.)
I have researched my ancestry so that it’s complete for 300 years back. Have to go 400 years back before it gets sketchy to a noticeable degree.
Note that just knowing your ancestry for a mere 10 generations means that if one ancestor that far back came from an unexpected place, their contribution to your genetic makeup is 1 in 1024. A tad less than a 1% I’d say.
I am completely baffled as to why someone would think that genealogy relies on ancestors keeping records.
So what’s stopping you from doing it?
I’m a female and my sister did hers-which is mine too
I just sent in my saliva test to ancestry.com. Let’s see how diluted my 100% Ashkenazi Jewishness is. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there’s some Neanderthal on my father’s side.