DNA pickle....

Thankfully my DNA confirms the research I have done.

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.

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.

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!

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’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!

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 💚💚

My dad was born in Scotland - his dad was Irish - my mum’s family originated from Ireland, however, my DNA results showed no Scottish or Irish!!!!

Mine waas mainly Swedish, my mum's side, Irish, my dad's side and French, I've got some Norman ancestors that I know of. The rest is a mongrel mix. It's fairly accurate for me.

I show as 30% Scots but can only account for 12.5 % by known ancestry. But my second cousin, who doesn't share my Scots great grandfather and is, as far as we know, thoroughly English, shows as 5% Scots. So I think it is just the case that enough people we share genes with have ancestors who moved from England to Scotland and who are therefore counted as Scottish by the DNA banks.

Bella23

I turned out to be 67% Scots. I knew my mother had a Scots great grandfather x3 and my father's family are Reivers from the English side of the border. I can only guess there has been a lot of taking women as well as cows and sheep.
My mother has Stewarts way back but they are living in Northern England and I cannot make the connection back.
My cousin found she was 75% Scots and is now looking into her fathers side and Reivers not the same as mine on her maternal side through which we are related.
We have come to the conclusion that people just wandered from one side of the border to the other and thought of themselves by their family name rather than English or Scots .

Like most other land borders, the one between Scotland and England has moved about quite a bit, This might explain some of the 67% Scots.

Young people fell in love in the past too, without bothering about where someone actually belonged. If their families objected, some ran away together, some married someone the family approved of, and some of the girls who did this, were probably more concerned with getting married and having a father for the bairn they knew was coming than concerned with getting the bairn's father to marry them!

Or would a Manx ancestor account for the Scottish and the Welsh?

Interesting article, Caravansera, thanks for posting it.

I have always fought shy of these DNA tests, though I am tempted to do one just for fun. I know that a niece did one recently, it would be interesting to see if Ancestry 'matched' me with her.

Dee1012

I've recently received my DNA report via Ancestry and am totally intrigued by the results which are;

23% Scottish and 22% Welsh plus a further mix of Irish, Germanic Europe and Norway.
I expected the Irish and Germanic but am at a total loss about the Scottish and Welsh.

I've been working on my family tree for some time and have been lucky enough to go back quite some time but cannot for the life of me work out the largest parts.
Has anyone else found something like this?

Wasn't there a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland?

Ancestry reported a DNA match which was exciting until I realised my son in Australia had also done the test.

Borders in UK have changed over hundreds and hundreds of years. The border between Scotland and England used to be near Edinburgh.
Vikings invaded the north taking slaves, Romans, who probably had otger European heritage, and goodness knows who else invaded everywhere so of course there's a good chance folk have mixed DNA.

That’s correct JudyBloom. Siblings do inherit 25% of paternal and maternal grandparent DNA , but not necessarily the same combination of DNA, and this distribution is random (recombination).

I find it fascinating but wouldn’t waste money on it. I agree it’s ok for fun. Has anyone tried different sites and had similar results?

Ancestry's ethnicity estimate is just that. Mine is actually fairly accurate but you shouldn't see it as more than just a bit of fun. The test is only worth doing if you want to further your family tree efforts. I was lucky enough to be able to test both my parents and the results have helped me verify (or not!) my Ancestry family tree.

I did a DNA test just to convince myself I have Viking blood (apparently I do!) but I also received a message from an unknown half cousin in NZ who thought her family tree for the last couple of generations was complete.
I knew I was adopted and have quite a lot of info on one side of my birth family but knew very little of the other side.
Thanks to this lovely new relative I discovered three cousins and two half siblings. The cousins are my age and we are in regular contact but the siblings are considerably younger and we’re happy just to exchange an email every now and again. I knew the name/address of our shared parent but had chosen years ago not to get in touch and I’m still happy with that decision.

That’s really informative. Thanks

Apparently what we inherit in our DNA is quite random. I have found that it is all fairly accurate though and even brothers and sisters can inherit different DNA.

When tracking autosomal DNA through the generations it obviously becomes diluted with each generation. It’s interesting that it is estimated that from a 3rd great grandparent we may inherit as little as .01%. DNA from them.

This is variable because of recombination of DNA which is not equally shared.

Fathers named on the birth certificate aren’t necessarily the actual father, that may account for some discrepancies. Through Ancestry.com my family were contacted by a lady in Australia with whom we had no known connection, but whose DNA was a match. We discovered that her great grandfather and our great aunt were the parents although they weren’t married. They lived two streets away from each other at the time.

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!

I was tempted to do the DNA test on Ancestry until I did some background reading and decided that the results are so inaccurate that it wasn't worth it! The database is still very small and results are changing all the time as more people are tested. As I understand it - you could have 2 parents from a remote South American tribe but this wouldn't show in your DNA results if no-one else from that tribe had been tested