growstuff
Germanshepherdsmum
They can pinpoint an English county - I have, as I know to be correct, a big dollop of Essex and Essex/Suffolk border. However with my much smaller helpings of Irish, Scottish and Welsh no areas are specified.
I can understand that it can pinpoint living people who share DNA characteristics to a county, but this doesn't necessarily prove origin.
I was born with a very unusual surname. It was an ideal starting point for family history research, which I've been doing for nearly 30 years. I know that every single person born with the same surname since 1766 can be traced back to the same ancestor. Before that, it's a bit more patchy, but I can still link most of the people back to the mid 16th century and I can see the population movements.
The majority of people with that surname still live in an area of North East England. If Ancestry were to show that my origin is North East England, however, it would be wrong. One of my gt grandfathers was born there, but moved to London as a young man. His gt grandfather came from London and was sent to the North East as an apprentice (I have the documents). I can trace the name back to Sussex and the etymology of the name would suggest it's French. That wouldn't be surprising because many French ironworkers moved from Northern France to Sussex and Kent in the 16th century. However, none of that would show on a DNA search.
Another example would be my children. I would expect their DNA to show similarities with people living on the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire border. They might erroneously jump to the conclusion it's through their father, who was born in that area. However, delving a bit deeper, his grandparents actually came from South Wales and, before that, from Cornwall.
My children have almost certainly inherited East Midlands ancestry from me, even though I have never lived there. However, my maternal grandmother was and I can trace her ancestry back several generations to the late 16th century. It helps that some of them were landed gentry and there are more records available.
I was born in North West England, but I have absolutely no ancestral links with the area. I've traced all 32 of my 3xgt grandparents and many of my "cousins" - we live all over the world and I'm not sure what DNA testing could tell me that I don't already know (unless certain ancestors weren't who they claimed to be on paper!)
Yes growstuff, I agree with you about origin.
I know nothing about my paternal grandmother but believe that her family may have come here from Europe in the 1800's and were Jewish, though she always avoided speaking about it. My father's family were all dark haired.
My mother's farming family lived in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and were almost all blond/redheads and clearly the same genetic "type", probably living in the same area for generations.
Marriages between disparate genetic groups must surely dilute the useful meaning of DNA in terms of where you come from over the generations? I appreciate though that if you are looking for a missing relative or a skeleton in the cupboard it would be useful.
The rest of my makeup is 30% English, followed by Irish, French and Welsh.
