I’ve done one of those DNA things. Pretty interesting from a curiosity standpoint.
According to the news from the past few months, if your name is Elizabeth Warren, you can be 1/1028-th of just about ANYthing
Steely Tom did a great job of explaining the DNA % angle.
My Ancestry DNA in the past 6 months didn’t change with a very large increase of identified past relatives. However, my DNA profile had significant changes in the last 6 months.
Now:
My England, Wales, Western Europe DNA % is 72%.
Ireland/Scotland % is 25%.
Benin/Togo % is 3%.
My ancestors # is up to 18,674 from about 1,000 ancestors.
With the exception of the Benin/Togo 3%, my siblings and I are about as white as you can get.
I had about 5% Iberian Peninsula ancestor DNA and about the same re Italian/Greece and both of those are now less than 1%.
Who cares? I mean honestly, what’s the point of all this? At the end of the day our race is one. The human race.
My interest will be peaked when we find fish in our ancestry. Stop giving them money.
DNA is a great tool but it is mainly used to identify distant cousins and confirm research already done, identify missing parents etc.
I would not trust ancestry’s ethnic models to give you a specific heritage. Over so many generations you are talking about mixing a lot of DNA that is not passed down equally among siblings.
The best solution is find whatever info your family has and dig into it some more if you really want to know about your roots. If you PM me I would be happy to do some free lookups for you if you don’t have access to all of Ancestry’s databases.
The Welsh and Cornish, for example, are like the Irish and Scotts in being mostly the genetic descendants of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain who were pushed to the West by invading Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Yet Wales and Cornwall are now geographically part of England.
Thus geneological research would mark a Welshman as English while his genetics may well show Scotts-Irish origins. Or, with frequent intermarriage and migration, an Englishman today could easily have a large component of Scotts-Irish ancestry.
Scottish by way of Ireland, no Irish per se unless you go back into the dark ages and beyond to Queen Scota. You’re half of a parent, a quarter of a grandparent. So, assuming the test is accurate there’s more than one grandparent who is Scottish by way of whatever country.
DNA went back and forth between ireland and scotland for millenia
scots-irish were mostly transplanted scots which the english settled into northern ireland sometime after 1300
All these results are based on probabilities (frequency of certain DNA sequences in certain populations).
There is no such thing as “Scots-Irish DNA” or “German DNA”. What there are is DNA sequences that are more common in Germans than in Italians, or in Scots.
Ancestry has made a killing reporting results at the 50% confidence level - “OMG, I’m 2% Jewish!” The better companies like FTDNA let you adjust the confidence levels - most of the 2% Jewish, 1% African, 1.5% East Asian results disappear when you dial the sensitivity up from 50% to 80%.
The other poster is not EXACTLY right that the results are for entertainment only - my probabilities match exactly my actual pen-and-ink genealogy. But the way the tests are being sold, and the “fun discoveries” aren’t what they are represented to be.
You may just inherit 10% of that grandparent's DNA or you may inherit 30% or a bunch of other combinations.
I think it is all fascinating. But I am a little freaked out about it and I have not been tested.
Here is a fun comparison. These results are from 2 full siblings who are relative of mine.
#1 Europe-West 16%, Ireland 35%, Scandinavia 24%, Europe-East 8%, Great Britain 9%, Eastern Europe/Jewish 0%, West Asia/Middle East 0% South Asia/India 0% Iberian Peninsula 5% Caucasis 3% Italian/Greek 0% Africa 0%
#2 Europe-West 36%, Ireland 27%, Scandinavia 13%, Europe-East 12%, Great Britain 6%, Eastern Europe/Jewish 0%, West Asia/Middle East 3% South Asia/India 0% Iberian Peninsula 0% Caucasis 0% Italian/Greek 0% Africa 1%