[Verginius Rufus]

Which company did you use? I have had wildly different results from different companies, some of them very different from what I would expect based on genealogical research. AncestryDNA, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA have all revised the percentages they originally sent me, sometimes rather substantially.

In other words, the ethnic breakdowns need to be taken with a grain of salt.

[mass55th]

I bought the kit from Ancestry.com. My initial DNA findings were in June. In August, I got a notice that my DNA findings had been updated. This is the notice they provide on my DNA page:

"Don’t worry, your DNA doesn’t change. What changes is what we know about DNA, the amount of data we have, and the ways we can analyze it. When that leads to new discoveries, we update your results."

In June my initial DNA findings were 70% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe. 25% Germanic Europe, 3% Norway, 2% Sweden.

In August, they revised it to: 59% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe. 35% Germanic Europe, 2% Sweden, 2% Ireland and Scotland, and 2% Norway.

I'm not concerned about the update in the DNA breakdown since I always only thought I was Dutch (my father was born in Holland), and English because my mother was born in Canada, and early research I did showed part of her family came from there. The other parts, Germany, Norway, and Sweden were a surprise. I am wondering though about the Italian ancestors I have found in my family tree. My 9th great-grandfather Peter Caesar Alberti was from Italy. I've rechecked the earlier connections, and the records all match. He was born in Venice in 1608, and is hailed as the first Italian immigrant to New York. His mother was supposed to be Veronica de Medici. His father Andrea Piero Alberti. Peter and his wife Judeth Jan Menjie were killed by Indians on his plantation in Brooklyn near New Amsterdam on November 9, 1655. As far as I know there is no proof that his father was Andrea Piero Alberti, or that his mother was a de Medici. Those are the "potential" parents cited in hints from Ancestry.com and other people's family trees. The problem is that there hasn't been any DNA connected with Italy. Most of my DNA connected lines peter out in the mid-to-late 1700's, and since he was born in 1608, the DNA connection on that family line ends at my 5th great-grandmother who was supposed to be his direct descendant. I know that Native American blood lines, even if they are supposed to be there, according to Ancestry.com may not show up because either it was so little that it didn't register, or that my ancestor never inherited the Native-American DNA from their predecessors.

Once the DNA connections end in the family tree, anything beyond that is speculation at most. So like you, I take all these connections further up the tree with a grain of salt. They can't be proved.