Have your ever done a DNA test? What were your results?

Nqp15hhu

The discussion has turned away from the aim of the thread which was to see people's results.

Wibbs

pinkypinky wrote: »

Unfortunately, ethnicity results are only guaranteed accurate on a continental level at this stage.

They can be quite geographically accurate within that. An average Southern Italian is going show differences to a Swede, or an Irish person. A Japanese subtle differences to a Chinese or Viet. In Africa with her incredibly genetic diversity even more populations can be discerned. Hell they can even track geographical differences in extinct archaic human populations. IE a Spanish Neandertal is going to show subtle local differences when compared to a German one. Though I agree 100% that level of detail is not going to come from the Ancestry type places. They're far more aimed at New World American populations and customers eager to show they're [insert nation here]-American and the results tend to reflect that.

I've never taken a full genetics test and no way in hell would I give what amounts to my instruction manual to a commercial company where it could easily affect things like health insurance etc. And this is only the early days, fast forward twenty years and things could get worrying.

That said I know a geneticist(who held the same attitude to these commercial tests) and he did test me for archaic human stuff and it turned out I have quite high Neandertal admixture, especially for Ireland as we tend to have low levels here(contrary to 19th century English Punch cartoons). The interesting thing about that stuff is you could have ten people in a room with say 2% Neandertal admixture, but they could all have slightly different sequences. Asians and Europeans have very different sequences. And these are genes coding for actual traits, like blood clotting, immune system stuff. It's spread pretty wide throughout the modern human genome. Some populations have some even earlier archaic genes going on, like Homo Erectus stuff. It does show how incredibly complex our human story is and incredibly fascinating with it. The are you French, or Italian, or Irish is but the tip of the iceberg. There's the example of the stone age skeleton dug up in England(Cheddar gorge?) and when they sequenced the genes from the long dead person they found a living genetic connection to a local schoolteacher bloke. I mean, WTF? How cool is that?

Hermy

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

The discussion has turned away from the aim of the thread which was to see people's results.

I'm just curious but what are you hoping to achieve in this thread that you didn't in the various threads you posted in in the Genealogy forum?

An interesting thread OP

I would like to take one of those tests. I think there may be Eastern European blood floating about in me.

MoodeRator

Happy with this, as it also alligns quite accurately with our family tree that goes back centuries

silliussoddius

According to 23and me I have higher Neanderthal DNA than 99% of the people in their database, either their algorithm is off or it's because I'm from Donegal. One of these is more likely than the others.

DaveyWaveyLad

I have blond hair, Blue eyes, fair complexion and my kids the same. We can trace our family tree back to the 1830 era in County Clare. Sent off my DNA sample to MyHeritage and was extremely surprised to see 1.3% Nigerian. They must be using average or statistical data to come up with Nigerian.

silliussoddius

DaveyWaveyLad wrote: »

I have blond hair, Blue eyes, fair complexion and my kids the same. We can trace our family tree back to the 1830 era in County Clare. Sent off my DNA sample to MyHeritage and was extremely surprised to see 1.3% Nigerian. They must be using average or statistical data to come up with Nigerian.

I think they sometimes go for a best fit for any genetic sequence that doesn't align to the database, you may have some very old African ancestry (that wouldn't have any impact on physical appearance at this stage) or something else that they can match closest to Nigerian.

bazza1

1% Native American! Explains my love of teepees!

Trigger Happy

Trigger Happy wrote: »

I did the ancestry one but under a fake name.
100% irish with a high focus on monaghan, Leitrim and cork which is where my grandparents are from. Seems that for generations they did no breeding outside their own parish.

I logged in to my ancestry account for the first time in about 18 months and it seems I have gone from 100% irish to 92% irish, 5% Scottish and 3% welsh.

Fcking Welsh. I dont deserve that.

metaoblivia

Took one a few years ago as my Dad was adopted and we wanted to find out more about his biological family. He had been adopted by an Irish-American family who was very proud of their Irish heritage. When they adopted him, they were convinced he was of Irish heritage too because they found him in a Catholic orphanage and he had black hair and green eyes. But he also has very tan, olive skin, so the rest of the family wasn't entirely convinced. And he grew up (this was the 40s/50s) in a very Irish American neighborhood and said he always felt like he didn't fit in.

Turns out his mother was from the Dingle peninsula (according to both Ancestry and 23andMe) and his father was Hawaiian-Portuguese of Azorean and Madeiran heritage. We were able to connect with some half siblings on either side (both of his bio parents had passed by this time) and they shared some photos and Dad looks like a carbon copy of his bio dad.

I know DNA tests are controversial for some of the reasons in this thread, but they provided our family with some answers that would have otherwise been hard to come by.

Aglomerado

Mine is 85% Irish/Scottish (I do have Scottish names in my recent ancestry) and the rest is Hungary/ Ukraine. My dad has the same with a bit of Finnish thrown in. My mum is mostly Scottish (Orcadian I think) with a bit of Greek and Spanish.

I think the accuracy will improve as more people have it done. It's been very interesting and I have connected with people around the world with DNA matches and surname research.

cj maxx

I was never really interested in doing this before , but now I'm thinking of giving it a shot. Who's the best crowd to do the test?

Balmed Out

I was well aware before doing it as to the results since Ive traced all my ancestors back to about 1800 and they are all from Cork or Kerry. I did it not because of any interest in the ethnicity estimate but as a way of fact checking my family tree by checking people with shared DNA and finding the common ancestor.

Nqp15hhu

cj maxx wrote: »

I was never really interested in doing this before , but now I'm thinking of giving it a shot. Who's the best crowd to do the test?

AncestryDNA is the most accurate and representative.

metaoblivia

I will be the contrarian view and say I've found 23andMe to be more accurate. Ancestry has me at 13% Portuguese, while 23andMe has me at 26%, which is more in line with my grandfather being of full Portuguese heritage. Ancestry has had me at 25% Portuguese before, but they're always revising their algorithms and the latest one brought me down to 13%.

That said, I've always taken the admixtures with a grain of salt. The cousin matches and family trees were how we were able to track down my father's bio parents and Ancestry is better for those.

YFlyer

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

AncestryDNA is the most accurate and representative.

What parameters do they check?

Ave Sodalis

I did both the Ancestry and the 23andMe tests, and uploaded the data to another site, because I have missing family members on both my mother and father's side.
I haven't found any close enough to determine for sure, but I might need another family member to take a test in order to tell which side further out cousins are from.

Last time I checked, I was very much Irish with a little Scottish thrown in.

pinkypinky

YFlyer wrote: »

What parameters do they check?

They test your autosomal DNA which comes from both parents and they compare to a reference population sample, which they update periodically. This means your (just for fun not based on solid science yet) ethnicity results will change every year. I tested 4 years ago with them, have made enormous progress with matches and my family tree, but the percentages from different places change regularly. Some places appear and disappear from this part of the test. For example, sometimes I have Scandinavian DNA and sometimes I don't.

The real value of a DNA test is finding and talking to people who match you, which you can then use with records to figure out the connection.

Nqp15hhu

My results and most people I know are pretty precise and accurate on AncestryDNA. It's not 'just for fun'.

pinkypinky

Lecture here given by expert Debbie Kennet, where she discusses how it has improved but still not totally reliable.

Report from Watchdog in the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tBX9dq9V9qWV687ddP6lK9/dna-ancestry-kits

Kid Charlemagne

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

Every day, people give other personal information through faceless websites and apps that could have a lot more of an immediate negative effect on their lives.

Compare the number of people who have had money (or their identities) stolen to the number of people who might possibly have some unknown horror done to or with a sample of their DNA. Which is higher?

silliussoddius

Trigger Happy wrote: »

I logged in to my ancestry account for the first time in about 18 months and it seems I have gone from 100% irish to 92% irish, 5% Scottish and 3% welsh.

Fcking Welsh. I dont deserve that.

It's ok, there are dozens of Welsh people out there who live a normal life.

Hi_thur_folks

pinkypinky wrote: »

You could do an autosomal DNA test and take a look for close matches, then talk to them to work out where you might fit in their tree.
For your father's side, you could also look at Y DNA, but it probably wouldn't give you a lot of detail.

If you were taking a test, I would also recommend talking to your mother first to make sure she's ok with you possibly uncovering something about her birth parents. Also, speaking to a trained social worker or counsellor would be useful too. This kind of stuff can be very emotional.

Only seeing this now - thanks for the reply.
Yes I don’t think I’m ready to do that just yet, like you said could re open a lot of deep wounds.
I selfishly would like to know though if I could get around the above

Hamsterchops

MoodeRator wrote: »

Happy with this, as it also alligns quite accurately with our family tree that goes back centuries

Good test that, very precise.
May I ask what test is it? as I presume there's several companies out there advertising and wanting our money.

pinkypinky

That's the AncestryDNA test.

Capt'n Midnight

pinkypinky wrote: »

That's the AncestryDNA test.

Don't bother with those Ancestry DNA kits.

Just announce that you've won the lottery, you'll soon find out who you're related to.

External Association

My sister in law's DNA ancestry result failed, a note stated 'we cannot find any human DNA'. My brother told her I always knew I married a monkey!

I'm 95% Irish, 5% Scot. Mostly Kilkenny and Laois based. I have my dad's side traced back to the early 1700s already. My Mam's to the 1100s when they moved from Scotland to Antrim, Antrim to Galway. And then built a 10 pounder castle in East Laois in 1440. They were gallowglass soldiers and my first name is unique enough and easily traced.

silliussoddius

External Association wrote: »

My sister in law's DNA ancestry result failed, a note stated 'we cannot find any human DNA'. My brother told her I always knew I married a monkey!

I'm 95% Irish, 5% Scot. Mostly Kilkenny and Laois based. I have my dad's side traced back to the early 1700s already. My Mam's to the 1100s when they moved from Scotland to Antrim, Antrim to Galway. And then built a 10 pounder castle in East Laois in 1440. They were gallowglass soldiers and my first name is unique enough and easily traced.

I didn’t know Gallowglasses ended up in Laois. Interestingly the county is named after a group linked to the Cruithin, who came from Irn Bru land.

External Association

silliussoddius wrote: »

I didn’t know Gallowglasses ended up in Laois. Interestingly the county is named after a group linked to the Cruithin, who came from Irn Bru land.

Well Antrim to Galway to Laois!

Am a little bit suspicious of those DNA kits on a few counts.

They only identify where DNA is concentrated today, not where it came from. This country is famous for its large waves of outward migrations, and it's not possible to know whether your relatives went abroad or came here as strangers.

Secondly theres the racial aspect. I think we aren't as fixated with this, in this country, but Americans go crazy to find theres a little bit of native american dna in them. It's very condescending. The Elizabeth Warren effect, maybe.

Fundamentally, it's that idea that your genes and where they originated define the quality of the person that I just find a little off-putting.

Finally, there are the obvious privacy concerns. You're basically selling your DNA, the most unique thing about to, to a private company.

NeuralNetwork

I think it’s a misunderstanding of the motivations of a lot of Americans to say that it’s a race driven thing.

While many of us in Europe, Asia, Africa or any of the “old world” usually have a fairly clear sense of who our ancestors likely were, even if we don’t have the exact names and details, many Americans really don’t.

There are records but there are also large numbers of people for whom documents didn’t exist or were very vague.

Many people moved there in search of a new life often not all that keen to preserve links to the past, many others lived as refugees from endless conflicts in countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. People fled famines and moved in poverty seeking economic opportunities. Many moved there with no documentation or very limited details and often in eras and circumstances where such records didn’t exist.

Then there’s the absolutely grim history of slavery and people bought and sold, families broken up and origins absolutely obscured and, you’ve Native American connections that were often obscured too by oppression and basically a history of conquest of lands, genocide and attempt erasure of a whole culture.

So for many Americans this is very different to most odd us sitting in Ireland or anywhere in Europe, as most of us have a fair idea of our family tree, even if it’s not that accurate and vague.

If you were adopted, particularly those who were adopted unofficially or illegally, this is also a hugely important technology as it opens up data to them that wouldn’t exist at all otherwise.

However for most of us in Ireland, we’re going to just find a pretty boring dataset that might give you some sense of very old migration patterns back to the Viking era etc, easily explained connections to Britain & continental Europe etc etc or some cousins who moved somewhere far flung, but that data is potentially useful for someone who may ultimately be connected to you and have no idea and is seeking that information because they don’t know.

Obviously your ancestry doesn’t define the person you are now and there’s a lot more to life than all of this but it’s still a huge deal to a lot of people to be able to know who their family were, even if it’s only vague notions.

In a broader demographic sense in old world countries like here, it can also can show migration patterns that explain history in a way that’s not just the records of those who won wars or were dominant culturally.

It can also tell a story that shows we were all migrants at some stage. In a way that to me challenges a lot of the nativism nonsense that goes on. Go back a few centuries in any family tree and you’ll find its a lot broader and more international than most people might realise.

Data is data though. You can use it for good or for bad purposes.

Personally I wouldn’t get too lost in this stuff. You are who you are. Go back far enough and you’ll ultimately find we’re all related anyway.

The bit I always find amusing is when you look at these family tree searches, someone will follow a particular line finding interesting characters, but when you go back a few generations the tree is so wide you’re often getting into thousands of individuals when you go out along any branch and go back very far and you’re talking about connections with huge numbers. It all becomes a bit of a pointless exercise.

Nqp15hhu

External Association wrote: »

Well Antrim to Galway to Laois!

You don't have that much Scottish dna. Your results appear to be typical of any Irish person I have seen.

External Association

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

You don't have that much Scottish dna. Your results appear to be typical of any Irish person I have seen.

Not that much given my ancestors came from Scotland in the 1100s. 30 generations later with intermarriage with Gaelic Irish, mostly in Laois and Kilkenny you'll end up at that percentage.

Any Irish person who intermarried with someone from a line like mine would pick up similar percentage Scottish DNA.

Nqp15hhu

External Association wrote: »

Not that much given my ancestors came from Scotland in the 1100s. 30 generations later with intermarriage with Gaelic Irish, mostly in Laois and Kilkenny you'll end up at that percentage.

Any Irish person who intermarried with someone from a line like mine would pick up similar percentage Scottish DNA.

I dunno most Native Irish have 5-10% Scottish on AncestryDNA, but that’s not actual Scottish Dna just most matched Irish dna that happens to be similar.

Any genuine Scottish Dna that you would have would probably have been bred out long ago.

You might have Scottish Y-DNA though.

External Association

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

I dunno most Native Irish have 5-10% Scottish on AncestryDNA, but that’s not actual Scottish Dna just most matched Irish dna that happens to be similar.

Any genuine Scottish Dna that you would have would probably have been bred out long ago.

You might have Scottish Y-DNA though.

It depends on a lot of factors like how many generations they stayed as a mainly Scottish inter marrying group. The were in Antrim with a lot of other Scottish clans from 1100 to 1400.

NeuralNetwork

There was quite obviously a lot of movement back and forth between Ireland and Scotland, other than the plantation of Ulster era. They’re only a hop skip and a jump apart and given things like the linguistic proximity in both languages and all sorts of other things it’s very unsurprising that you’d get a significant % of links.

I’ve Scottish ancestors on both sides of my family tree and they’re not all that far back and they were due to different histories.

And what do you mean by “genuine Scottish DNA”?! There’s a lot of mingling of populations that are only quite literally a stones throw away from each other.

Even without a DNA test, a quick look around would give you a fairly clear idea that the two places aren’t unrelated.

Nqp15hhu

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

There was quite obviously a lot of movement back and forth between Ireland and Scotland, other than the plantation of Ulster era. They’re only a hop skip and a jump apart and given things like the linguistic proximity in both languages and all sorts of other things it’s very unsurprising that you’d get a significant % of links.

I’ve Scottish ancestors on both sides of my family tree and they’re not all that far back and they were due to different histories.

And what do you mean by “genuine Scottish DNA”?! There’s a lot of mingling of populations that are only quite literally a stones throw away from each other.

Even without a DNA test, a quick look around would give you a fairly clear idea that the two places aren’t unrelated.

Native Irish people often score a small mismatch of Scottish dna. For the most part, they generally score around 90-95% Irish, so that would suggest to me very little mixing with the Scots population.

I think what you're referring to with intermixing would apply more to Ulster.

cj maxx

Wasn't Scotland settled by Irish tribes ?

NeuralNetwork

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

Native Irish people often score a small mismatch of Scottish dna.

That’ll give you a fairly good idea of the historical mingling that took place on these islands

https://www.rcsi.com/dublin/news-and-events/news/news-article/2019/09/researchers-connect-irish-and-scottish-genetic-maps

Some of it tallies with political history, but more of it connects with stuff like research on movement of things like threads of stories in songs, linguistics, music and so on. A lot of those themes crop up again and again and will tie even into similar stuff in parts of Scandinavia and northern France.

There’s a lot of quite complex history and some of the movements don’t match geopolitical history.

It’s interesting in the sense that there are many, many layers that can show a lot of the realities of life, settlements, cultures, migration etc etc.

Nqp15hhu

cj maxx wrote: »

Wasn't Scotland settled by Irish tribes ?

The western and SW parts of Scotland were periodically settled by the Irish, yes. Scots though aren't generally descended from the Irish.

https://www.scottishorigenes.com/sites/default/files/field/image/Scottish%20medieval%20ethnicity%20map_0.jpg

Nqp15hhu

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

That’ll give you a fairly good idea of the historical mingling that took place on these islands

https://www.rcsi.com/dublin/news-and-events/news/news-article/2019/09/researchers-connect-irish-and-scottish-genetic-maps

Yes, I've read that study. It aligns with what I have said in that the mixing was mostly in Ulster.

gozunda

Did the ancestry test. Came out at 99% Irish with 1% Norwegian (most likely a rogue viking).

No English
No Welsh
No Scottish
Or anything else for that matter

How my ancestors managed that tbf considering they came from the four corners of the Island is truely one of natures mysteries. (No offence meant- but my ancestors were a fussy bunch it seems)

Based on this I'll be claiming full ethic status and demanding that all my ancestral lands be given back. The rest of ye admixtures can get lost :pac:

I'll also be checking up what damages we're owed by the Norwegian government...

NeuralNetwork

There’s an interesting one that shows a linkage in the populations right up the Atlantic coast of Spain, France and into Britain, Ireland and parts of Scandinavia.

So it’s likely that a group of people an extremely long time ago just gradually walked from the Iberian peninsula, settling as they went, moving slowly further and further north, all the way up the Atlantic coast lines.

silliussoddius

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

There’s an interesting one that shows a linkage in the populations right up the Atlantic coast of Spain, France and into Britain, Ireland and parts of Scandinavia.

So it’s likely that a group of people an extremely long time ago just gradually walked from the Iberian peninsula, settling as they went, moving slowly further and further north, all the way up the Atlantic coast lines.

Most likely it’s shared ancestry. In the early days high frequency of Y haplogroups in Iberia was assumed to represent an origin point. Now it looks like that haplogroup moved west from a group that originated on the Steppe.

OU812

My tree has one female ancestor (branch) who came from the mid west USA in the early 1800s, then went back about 20 years later when her husband passed away taking the kids with her.

I was really surprised by it & said it to my dad who shrugged and said "that'd explain the family tree I got sent 40 years ago..."

He went and got it & it was a binder someone in the US had sent him on spec after researching their tree through their family bible & documents handed down. 40 years ago my dad was one of two people with the surname in the phone book in Dublin, and still lived close enough to the old family home that had been around when this person had come over here.

Had some great detail on that side of the family but nothing of real use to me as the family genealogist.

NeuralNetwork

Basically we’re all cousins if you go back far enough, or in some cases worryingly not very far at all...

External Association

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

Basically we’re all cousins if you go back far enough, or in some cases worryingly not very far at all...

That idea that we all go back to Charlemagne is great. However we all went our separate ways and what's in your gene pool the last 300-400 years, along with environment, makes you who you are today. It accounts for diseases that are more likely to effect you, your talents etc if your recent ancestry is mostly middle Ireland as opposed to say the Czech republic.

We're all related anyway, when taken to its logical conclusion means, 'well we're all descended from the same group of monkeys, therefore we're all the same'.

jimmycrackcorm

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

Basically we’re all cousins if you go back far enough, or in some cases worryingly not very far at all...

Culture, Boss.

silliussoddius

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Culture, Boss.

No need to invoke a certain community. With no inbreeding your family tree should have 1,000 people in your family tree at ten generations (say 300 to 400 years ago).
Take your typical small rural area and imagine people from different families doing a family tree, how much overlap do you think there would be and do you think that many people would even have existed in that area in the last ten generations?
Granted you would have ancestors move from another area etc. but by and large at about four or five generations most people will be related.