DNA pickle....

I did my dna as I was adopted as a baby. It has been fascinating, I’ve found out who my dad was. Before that I had no idea. I knew I had half siblings on my maternal side, but I now know I have half siblings on my paternal side as well. All In all I have 9 half siblings 🥰🥰🥰
I thought I was mainly English, but I now know I’m 96% Irish, 3% Scottish and 1% Scandinavian. Amazing 💚💚

I’ve had great fun with my DNA results and have had hundreds of quite close matches. I registered 1st with Ancestry.com and took a 2nd test with My Heritage which had exact same results. I could have just transferred my Ancestry to My Heritage without paying for a second test but I felt I wanted a Second opinion!

The test that I did came back with good chunks of Irish and Scottish DNA which fits very well with my father's side of the family, and some Devon and Cornwall which fits my mother's side.

My grandson (who has Italian great grandparents on one side) came back with no mention of Italy but a lot of Scandinavian. We think the Scandinavian must come from his American father as we don't know what countries his ancestors came from.

I am very pleased with my results. Most can be explained easily . The only thing I find peculiar is that despite tracing my tree back to Norfolk and Gloucestershire, and connecting with cousins from both branches via DNA, my piechart of results has no English at all!
My 48% Irish takes me to 5 areas including the village where my DGF was born
My DC and DS who have also tested are confirmed and a mystery has been explained to my satisfaction.

Another DGF was his elder sister's child but brought up by her parents as siblings. A common occurrence apparently.

All this from a drop of spittle in a tube!

Dee1012

Thanks so much for the replies.

Oopsadaisy1, perhaps we are long lost family!

Chestnut, I think what I'm struggling with is looking at the numbers, I presumed the Scots / Welsh must be fairly close timewise but I've managed to go back to the 1700's on both Maternal and Paternal sides and there's no link at all I can see...still fascinating though!

You are wrong about Ancestry their data base is the largest of all the DNA companies and growing . It pinpointed the exact part of Scotland I come from and the same for DH. you only need one person in your family to have not been honest about themselves to make the number go in a different direction. If I was to believe my father's birth certificate anf sll og his siblings I should have a larde amout on Irish in my DNA . I have none and this proved what I had already found out that the " wife " of my grandfather was not the same person as they put on the birth certificates . They true parents never married so they used his wife's name to register their children making them legitimate.

Mallin

I’ve had great fun with my DNA results and have had hundreds of quite close matches. I registered 1st with Ancestry.com and took a 2nd test with My Heritage which had exact same results. I could have just transferred my Ancestry to My Heritage without paying for a second test but I felt I wanted a Second opinion!

My Ancestry test was spot on, but then I had a second test with My Heritage and it was completely different and absolute nonsense.

Thankfully my DNA confirms the research I have done.

Our family is so so mixed, especially OH's. But the one denominator is Huguenots. Those who went to the Cape, South Africa, those who went to Germany and Switzerland, and those who went to England.

Deel102
Having use Ancestry DNA this year after having being given as a gift my results completely threw me & my family 🙄
Quick synopsis I never actually met my Father but knew who he was ,where my parents met & their relationship history .,where he lived etc etc etc.Fast forward to the late 1980s ( I am a baby boomer born in 53)
I did the digging by going through the telephone directory of the area : contacted the family ,he was deceased but I met his Mother & Brother .
Back to the test results …What a complete & utter surprise they showed my dna
33%Southern India/ 15% Northern India /2%Bengal 😃😃😃😃😃
Now , it’s remains a mystery as my Mum obviously thought he was my father they were engaged after all 🙄
Yes , there are Lents of 4th 5th Cousins ongoing don the line .BUT only ONE 2nd cousin on paternal side .
2nd cousin equates as half sister / brother .
I have sent a message with no luck , this was back. In May s I will never know .
Se La Vie 😎

Be interested to hear people’s comment
Considering giving it a go
Interesting BBC podcast series of six episodes
The Gift
Broadcast September / October this year

Some of my DNA matches on Ancestry have matched me up with long lost relatives, including a cousin that I had lost touch with. My G.Father has no fathers name on his certificate so I’m assuming my Scottish DNA comes from that side of the family.

MrOops has done an Ancestry DNA test, his brother did a ‘23 and me’ Test and the results weren’t too dissimilar.

However on a slightly different subject I have been given hints on Ancestry, which have led me to several American Family trees who seem to assume that an ancestor of ours, a humble farm labourers daughter, met and had a child by a Dutch Earl quite how he made his way down to Dorset, met my ancestor on the farm and had a son goodness knows.
Wikipedia states that he inherited his title but that he was Dutch, married, spoke no English and refused to come over to England, he died fairly soon after his Inheritance and the title died with him.
Do the facts deter our American friends?
Nope.
They proudly have the late Earls coat of arms on their family tree.
Even after I politely pointed the truth out to them, they didn’t reply to me. 🤗

I have not done the Ancestry DNA as I am not convinced it will tell me anything any more precise than what I already know, going back about eight generations on all sides, and because I am unwilling to provide information which could be mis-used.
I expect it will show Welsh genes as my ancestors lived for years on the borders but family legends abound with “facts” which I have since disproved with documented research.

What does make me sad is that my mum refused to look into her family background, yet since she died, I have found many first cousins of hers living within a few miles of the town where she finally settled, by pure chance. Mind you, I have first cousins I knew as a child that I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with now because of how they have behaved.
Families can have genes in common but be very different people.

Anyone experience of this
I emailed a friend concerning DNA testing when I mentioned The Gift podcast to her
She is very into tracing her family as she is adopted. There are two men that might be possible fathers
Her concern is that as she is adopted she is not legally allowed to contact any relatives and wonders how this stands on a data base
Personally I would go for it but she overthinks things
Any help appreciated

When my daughter did a test, our Breton ancestry showed as Scottish/Irish. So it seems they count all Celts as a single group. For those that see themselves as English, but DNA shows as Scotish/Irish, it could be that your ancestors were indeed Celtic before being overtaken by Anglosaxons rule.

I have read that commercial DNA testing is illegal in France, so therefore not many test results for comparative hits.

Illegal for Ancestry type DNA testing in France, Germany and Israel.

My DNA is as expected English Irish as per all the information in my research.

The results of ancestry testing beyond a couple of generations need taking with a huge pinch of salt. Mark Thomas, professor of evolutionary genetics at University College London, calls it "genetic astrology".

www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/feb/25/viking-ancestors-astrology

It has been reported that you will have different results depending the company you use, they are not actually testing your ancestry but just comparing your DNA to results in their own data base.

I’d love an (accurate!) DNA test of dd2, who has a creamy-olive skin, quite unlike anyone else in the family. One lot of GGparents were from coastal E Anglia, another from near-coastal Devon, so I can’t help wondering whether a bit of washed-up Armada sailor is mixed in there somewhere…

I just queried with Ancestry why a 3rd cousin does not show up as a DNA match and apparently it is possible! That is quite a close relation because our great grandparents were siblings.

growstuff The results of ancestry testing beyond a couple of generations need taking with a huge pinch of salt.
All I can say is that my Ancestry results are spot on and exactly match my own research back to the 1700s. There is an unexpected drop of Norwegian DNA but one of my families came from a village in Essex which had Viking invaders. Mystery solved.

Gwyllt

Anyone experience of this
I emailed a friend concerning DNA testing when I mentioned The Gift podcast to her
She is very into tracing her family as she is adopted. There are two men that might be possible fathers
Her concern is that as she is adopted she is not legally allowed to contact any relatives and wonders how this stands on a data base
Personally I would go for it but she overthinks things
Any help appreciated

I think you’ll find that when a child is adopted they are legally part of that family just as a natural born child would be.

It may be that at some point the past the registered farther was not the real farther. Nobody had thought of DNA testing back then so indiscretion with the gardener could not be proved.

My DNA is from all over the place....God knows what my ancestors were up to!!

I am 13% Scandinavian which I know nothing about but might explain my fondness for wandering round IKEA.

I am a quarter Sweeden/norwegian/ Iceland so living in east Anglia that’s the Vikings for you