Meh. I will concede that it’s possible, especially since such a relationship would likely not be acknowledged. There also isn’t a lot known about my father’s family prior to coming to the United States; all that is certain is that my grandfather was born in New York in 1918, and no one still living knows anything about when his family came to the US, or even what their surname was before they emigrated. It’s tempting to come up with some wild-assed stories about how my ancestors were big-time revolutionaries who fled Russia just steps ahead of the Czar’s army, and how someone’s daughter fell in love with a soldier, just like Chava did in Fiddler on the Roof, and they came to the United States. Hm. I might have to write that story. 
The surprises were exactly 2:
[ol]
[li]A cousin who had been given up for adoption in 1960[/li][li]1% Japanese ancestry[/li][/ol]
So for as to how a deep southern redneck could end up with 1% Japanese ancestry, we could imagine all sorts of baroque historical scenarios, or we could just say this test isn’t sophisticated enough to consider that I accidentally shared a toothbrush with my Japanese wife on one particular day.
My wife has expressed interest in this and I saw some discount on it via a Groupon-style site so bought a test for her. Haven’t given it to her yet since her birthday is this coming week. She has a mixed heritage (born in Peru with indigenous blood on her mother’s side and Irish-Italian supposedly on her father’s side) so she’ll possibly get something interesting out of it.
My ancestors are Polish except for the ones who are Bohemian. I can’t see myself paying that kind of money to read “Yup, Eastern European”.
Or what they’re looking at to determine ethnic background isn’t 100% accurate.
Or those redneck ancestors have a Japón in the family tree.
I know I’m Northern European (German-Swedish) but I was surprised to learn that I have a North Africa component - Nigerian - and that ancestor left me a substantial inheritance that I can secure for a small finder’s fee. 
This will pay for the test many times over. 
I had mine done a while ago.
I primarily wondered how much Native American I have in me. 15% as it turned out. I also got a surprise of 2% southeast Asian. I suspect that could be more native ancestry expressing itself, but you never know.
I did the National Geographic test, which gives more conservative (vaguer) results than the others, but with a greater likelihood of being correct.
Agreed. I believe I don’t have Native American heritage. I definitely don’t have Spanish heritage. I don’t believe I have any Japanese heritage; most likely they tested for a marker that SO FAR has only shown up in Japanese. And it’s highly suspicious that got a hit on Japanese and I happen to be married to one.
My daughter bought me the Ancestry kit for Mother’s Day. I dithered about sending it in, finally made myself do it at the end of July.
Y’see, the only thing I’ve ever known about my heritage was written on an index card. My bio mom indicated she was Scottish, English, Irish, French. She wrote that my bio dad was German. I joked my conception was due to a one night stand with a guy named Gudzeunteit. My mom did clarfify my bio mom was a student of my bio dads at University.
Anyways. You know that crappy commercial that have with the guy trading in his leiderhosen for a kilt?
I’m 73% English/Scottish, 12% Scandanavian, 3% Jewish, 3% Irish and the rest is a jumble of everything from Greek/Italian, Western and Eastern European, Caucasian, and Malinese. A Heinz 57, if you will.
What’s scary, though, for me is it gives you DNA familial matches. I swore I wasn’t going to look… But I peeked. I have a 1st cousin listed. I have no idea what to do with that info.
I’d wait and see if the cousin approaches you, now that they may know about you. If after a goodly amount of time you hear nothing, that probably means they aren’t wild about contact.
On the listings is there a way to know if any familial matches found are open to contact?
That’s what I figured I would do. If she approaches me, I’ll make it clear up front that I’m adopted.
No, it says nothing about whether a person is open to contact - there was a button to message her next to her name.
My experience is that many or most Ancestry DNA users are very casual — there’s a fair chance she’ll never notice the match or, given that you have no tree information, won’t bother to send a message if she does notice.
If you’re curious about your biological parents I’d send the message, stating your age and that you were adopted. She may know right away who your parent is!
We just got our 123.Me kits and will be sending in our spittle shortly.
I’m going to bookmark this thread and try to remember to post our results.
My predictions:
Me > Irish/Scots/Dutch > My mom insists that she’s traced our lineage back to William the Conqueror . . . we’ll see about that! 
SharkWife > Austro-German-Russian/Ashkenazi/Smattering of Sicilian (Southern European)
Is anyone else planning on doing the test? It would be fun to collect our predictions and post the results.
pretty safe predictions; if you’ve any western european ancestry at all, your chances of being descended from WtC exceed 80%. Over 90% for Karol de Groot (Charlemagne).
Oh, I have a very full family tree on Ancestry - it’s just not biologically mine. The 1st cousin does appear to be fairly active on the site, too.
I am and I am not curious about my biological parents. I’ve thought about finding out who they were, then pulled back. It’s a pretty scary thing.
I think, at this time, I’m going to wait.
Mine showed that I’m entirely British. This disproved a family legend about an African great-grandmother and Bengali great-grandfather, which supposedly explained why we have dark curly hair and my Dad was quite dark-skinned. I think I’ve even mentioned that history on these boards before, but it turns out it’s not true - we’re Whitey McWhitefaces.
Ancestry research also shows that almost all of my ancestors on my father’s side come from London. You have to go back centuries to find people from elsewhere and then it’s as far away as Kent and, ooh! Suffolk! (Sometimes it’s not listed as London because back then places like Camden weren’t considered London, but they are Inner London now). And the line I’ve traced all the way back to the 1400s is in the exact same part of London where I now live - I mean buried in my nearest graveyard, about five minutes’ walk away.
My AncestryDNA results (last year) had some interesting and at least one disappointingr result. I was disappointed that my alleged Native American (Cherokee) ancestry didn’t show up in the test. Based on verbal family history, I should be at least 6.25% Native American. But AncestryDNA showed the vast majority of my lineage to be from Ireland, Great Britain and ‘other’ Western European countries. The surprise was that I’m 14% Scandanavian, which I find very interesting. Perhaps that is what persuaded me to buy a Volvo??? =)
I decided to give 23andMe a shot and see how it compared. I was pleased with the results. I am mostly Irish and British, as expected, but I am also 16% Scandanavian (vs. 14% on the AncestryDNA test) and 7% Native American. So the family stories (my maternal grandmother always said that her paternal grandmother was half Cherokee) appear to be true.
Mine were 99% Finnish, and 1% Japanese or far NE Siberian. I like to think that a band of Ainu wandered away from Japan and across the vast steppes. Considering some of the cultural resemblances, I don’t think it’s so far-fetched.
I learned from 23 and Me that I’m as Western European as they come, with 1% Native American ancestry. Mostly British/Irish but all American. USA!
What’s interesting is that my wife was adopted from Seoul as an infant. She always thought she was 100% Korean but the results say she is 30% Chinese and 10% Japanese.
Mine would say: You have a predisposition to Boring, due to English and Normal European ancestry.
Now, if I could pay extra for an exotic writeup… “Sorry, boss, I’m off to Pago Pago to get in touch with my Samoan roots!”