So for Christmas we got checked out by 23 and me. Too late to get the health stuff, but I found the ancestry portion fun. It killed the “we are part Cherokee” comments from one family member, and the other one that wanted to claim strong German heritage.
Anyone else playing with this?
Ancestry Composition tells you what percent of your DNA comes from each of 31 populations worldwide. The analysis includes DNA you received from all of your ancestors, on both sides of your family. The results reflect where your ancestors lived 500 years ago, before ocean-crossing ships and airplanes came on the scene.
99.9% - European
Northern European
26.5%: Scandinavian
21.7%: British & Irish
12.0%: French & German
0.1%: Finnish
36.8%: Nonspecific Northern European
0.8%: Eastern European
Southern European
0.3%: Nonspecific Southern European
1.6%: Nonspecific European
0.1%: East Asian & Native American
0.1%: Yakut:
0.1%: Native American
< 0.1%: Nonspecific East Asian & Native American
…so I guess I may be among the whitest guys you know? FTR, am an American, Chicagoland. I also have a few family members that also like to claim Native American roots. If so, doesn’t appear to be in my genes at least.
I also have a really German surname, guess that falls under non-specific Northern European? I had expected way more on the “German” percentage.
What does Nonspecific Northern European mean? Are they not able to be more specific due to the technology or our knowledge at this time or what? 36.8% and 52.0% are some pretty big numbers I think.
What are you looking for when you do this? Doesn’t it just confirm what you already know? “Yeah, we’re white guys of English ancestry.”
You can pick between three different levels of confidence.
The more liberal you get - the more specific it gets (but more likely to make mistakes).
I found the most liberal setting to be the most interesting. It did incorrectly (I believe) assign me with 0.1% Asian (which I now kid me one Asian friend that of the two of us I am the only one with DNA proof of being Asian).
I pretty much know my dad’s side goes back (most likely) through one country for a long, long time. It pretty much nailed that - at around 53% of memory serves. My mom’s side is more of a mix of several countries much closer together. I’ve been able to trace some of that back to the 1650s, but by that point - your dealing with like what? 1 part in 4 million. With pedigree collapse and stuff - it’s much better than that of course.
Long story short - I think I know country of origin for ~3/8 gg on mom’s side - and the 23 and me data has switched my guesses on how the other 5 might lean.
I was pretty impressed with the data - I’m sure they’ll get even better (assuming that FDA stuff doesn’t put them out of business). Of course there is good family money there - so hopefully it will be kept going either way.
My ex was much more of a mutt - and that made the more liberal mode seem to make some guesses that didn’t make much sense, but the percentages were so low - It just appeared to be some false positives. Which is what you are warned about pretty much.
Doesn’t happen to me any more, but when my peers and I were in our twenties I swear it seemed like every third male person claimed to be “part Cherokee on grandmother’s side.”
Always “Cherokee”, always “grandmother’s side”, and which grandmother never specified.
Okay, I’ll fess up. Because of the the whole “Cherokee Grandmother” cliche, I almost never reveal my own Noble Red Man lineage.
My mother’s father was half-Mexican, half Yaqui. He was a very handsome man, but (this will sound a little cruel) his sister, whom I was extremely close with until she died in her 80’s, looked VERY much like the famous photo of Geronimo scowling while kneeling with his rifle.
Anyway, my claim violates the grandmother rule, and plain old Yaqui obviously doesn’t carry the same presumed romantic impact as Cherokee.
Northern European
34.8% French and German
31.1% British and Irish
1.5% Finnish
28.9% Non-specific Northern European
Southern European
.09% Iberian
.03% Non-specific Southern European
1.6 percent non-specific European
Less than .01 percent unknown and NOTHING outside of Europe,
And I did order in time to get the medical results but I wasn’t incredibly impressed - frankly I can see why that got shut down. It was good to know that I didn’t have some of the more well-established genetic/health condition connections but a lot of the health risk stuff seemed really specious…and I had to spend about a week listening to my healthy buffed out 19 year old godson going on about his increased risk of gout, which kind of cracked me up.
Oddly enough, I didn’t have any increased risk for the conditions I actually have.
This is where I found out that my great-grandfather who emigrated from Germany in 1859 was Ashkenazi and therefore probably of Jewish ancestry. No evidence that he practiced Judaism, or even that he was aware of it.
I also have large amounts “non-specific” - 46.6% non-specific Northern European, and 28.8% non-specific European, for a total of 75.4% non-specific. I found these amounts rather discouraging in terms of finding my ancestry, but I assume this means that those guys really moved around a lot. No generational stay-at-homes in my family background!
I also have 0.1% Yakut, which is from the far NE reaches of Russia (think of Yakutsk on the Risk™ game board). Possibly from the Mongol invasions of eastern Europe?
Roddy
Honestly did it for fun. I was interested in the Native American bit - really got my mom’s attention since she was the one that was positive of a grandfather of questionable ancestry. My father (and his mom) always talked about our German heritage. We had already killed most of that by doing some old-fashioned family tree work - this helped cement that line.
We knew about the Scandinavian side (lots of FOB Dane and Swede in recent history).
The other fun one was my wife comparing herself to her sister. Since DNA is NOT identical among siblings, it was fun to see how they differed as well. I am going to pay for a kit for my brother, and then get kits for my two boys.
But you ARE part indian, it says so right there! Could be Cherokee…
I haven’t done the DNA tests, but my maternal grandfather’s mother was definitely Cherokee. My grandfather had the prototypical Indian nose (Google an image of “buffalo nickel reverse” for an example), no chest hair and very little facial hair. 2 generations later I still can’t grow a beard…
Northern European
6.3% French & German
2.5% British & Irish
0.4% Scandinavian
79.1% Nonspecific Northern European
11.6% Nonspecific European
0.1% Unassigned
I had hoped for some more interesting influences. But I was especially disappointed because of the huge nonspecific percentage. As far as I can tell through genealogy research (3 to 6 generations), all my ancestors were from Germany. So I suspect that a lot of that nonspecific chunk will turn out to be German when the data gets more refined.
Northern European
37.5% French & German
12.5% British & Irish
7.4% Scandinavian
0.0% Finnish
29.1% Broadly Northern European
Southern European
2.0% Balkan
0.9% Italian
0.0% Sardinian
0.0% Iberian
0.8% Broadly Southern European
0.7% Eastern European
0.1% Ashkenazi
9.2% Broadly European
I actually found the medical information interesting, if not vastly useful. At least I had no weird or unexpected markers.
12.4% is British & Irish
3.5% is French & German
.3% is Finnish
55.9% is broadly Northern European
These percentages are Southern European
< .1% is Sardinian
2.6% is broadly Southern European
1.1% is Eastern European
and
23.8% is Broadly European
and finally,
.2% is unassigned
I was just talking to someone today who has just gotten his 23andme results, and he says there are lots of differences between those and his Ancestry DNA results. Does anyone know why that might be?
Also, any other U51b1b1 haplogroups out there?
I wonder if any of you are on my relatives list and I don’t know it.
My daughter is 99.9% European. with 93.2% of that being Northern European.
96% European (total)
-46.5% Ashkenazi Jewish
-17% British Isles/Irish
-21.1% Non-specific Northern European
-11.3% Non-specific European
3.1% Sub-Saharan African (total)
-2.4% West African
-0.7% Non-specific Sub-Saharan African
<0.1% Native American/East Asian
0.9% Unassigned
I seem to be the most ‘colorful’ of a pretty white crowd so far, while still being (mostly) white.
Interestingly, my dad’s side of the family (from the southern USA, and the source of the African ancestry) long held a story that we were part Native American. My dad’s father was particularly dark skinned. I think it’s pretty likely that this story was concocted many years ago to explain any ‘unusual’ features from the African ancestry.
80.9% Sub-Saharan African
-74.9% West African
-3.1% Central & South African
-3.0% Broadly Sub-Saharan African
14.8% European
Northern European
-2.9% British & Irish
-6.2% Broadly Northern European
Southern European
-0.3% Iberian
-1.1% Broadly Southern European
-0.5% Ashkenazi
-3.9% Broadly European
3.5% East Asian & Native American
-1.7% Native American
-1.6% Southeast Asian
-0.2% Broadly East Asian & Native American
0.8% Unassigned
FTR, am an American, Chicagoland. I also have a few family members that also like to claim Native American roots. If so, doesn’t appear to be in my genes at least.
