Community Chat

[Burnsite]

Hi, Goldie,

   I have a partly Portuguese grandmother and was hoping for all kinds of diversity from that (her father was from the Azores). 

   So I was disappointed.  ALL of my ancestry is from Western Europe, mostly from Ireland and the British Isles (probably Scotland). 

     But I still got a surprise that taught me something about Irish history and made me glad I sent in the money to Ancestry.

   My DNA is something like 18% Scandinavian.  I couldn't understand it until I did a little research about the Viking invasion of Ireland, and how long that lasted during the Middle Ages.  I don't look a bit Scandinavian, though I have liked every Scandinavian I've met in my travels. 

   I was also 1% ancient Greek/Roman, which I loved to find out.  More residue from ancient empires.  Acc. to Ancestry, I am only 8% "Iberian Peninsula."

[golding76]

Burnsite, that is the fascination and what compels me to do the test.  You never know what you will find.  

I will not be surprised, even if my father's side, which hails from Mani, a deeply protected region in southernmost Greece, is derived from the Franks.  They were there.  My father's side does not look "typically Greek."  In fact, they are fair and have the build of modern-day Frenchmen. By that I mean trim and smaller-boned. We will see.  Now, I would be surprised if there are any strains from the U.K.  I think that would be a total impossibility!  LOL !

When I first visited my family in Mani, of the 20 or so people seated around the table, I was the only one with brown eyes (and I have VERY brown eyes).  The others had blue or green eyes.  Someone said this, which made me laugh:  "Must be her mother's side."  My father had brown eyes, but his general appearance was that of someone fair.  

[haddon9]

My son gave this to me for a Christmas gift.  I only sent the swab in recently so I'm waiting to see what the results are.  The company was Family Tree.

I'll check it again tomorrow to see if they have the results.

[Moonchilde]

---

@haddon9 wrote:

My son gave this to me for a Christmas gift.  I only sent the swab in recently so I'm waiting to see what the results are.  The company was Family Tree.

I'll check it again tomorrow to see if they have the results.

---

The Family Tree results took three+ months for me from the time they received my sample in their lab. The bad part was that their communication about the whys & wherefores of the delay was not good. Someone dropped the ball as far as the contacting the customer policy. I ended up filing a BBB complaint. From that point, FTDNA came through. Everything came out all right in the end, but you might have a long wait with no idea why.

FTDNA is the company Nat Geo uses to do their Genome 2.0 testing, BTW.

[PurpleBunny]

---

@ALRATIBA wrote:

---

@golding76 wrote:

If I am remembering correctly, I once read that both sexes from the same family must be tested to gain a full, correct picture of the ancestry.   There is a patrilineal line and a matrilineal line.  Anyone else know about this?  Is this so? 

---

@golding76

Yes - females don't have Y-DNA which is passed from father to son.   

Males have both the Y-DNA and the mitochondrial  DNA (mtDNA) from their mother.  The males do not pass along the mtDNA to their children.  That always comes from the mother. and passed along the maternal line.

The genealogical society I belong to had a DNA seminar back around 2005 - presented by FamilyTree DNA and testing was available (for sale).  I had mine done and picked up a kit so my brother could be tested for the Y-DNA.

I've had my kits upgraded periodically as new tests become available through FamilyTree DNA.  I'm glad we did it.  Worth the expense.

---

So if just a female has this done, will she get a full picture of her "own"  DNA Ancestry?  Does the male relative just add to the full "family" ancestry or do women need it to complete their "own" profile?

My sister is having this done and she says it will give her 100% information about her. Which is all she cares about.  Or is she missing information from my father's line because she does not have a Y chromosome?

I hope I'm making sense. 

[Kalli]

I just read that all caucasions have 2-4% Neanderthal in them.  And no, I can't remember where online I read that but the map of migrations included in the article seemed to support it.  I thought it was interesting but didn't send me into a tailspin.  

I never considered getting DNA testing because I don't think there will be any surprises.  Three of my grands were definitely Irish.  One grandmother was from Austria, spoke German and was born into a Jewish family but became Catholic to marry my grandfather.  I've been told that since my mom is her daughter, I could be considered Jewish even though I was baptized Catholic.

[YorkieonmyPillow]

I tried getting my DNA tested but it came back with results that claimed I am "mechanical," with "a few screws loose." 

[JaneMarple]

My identical twin sister had her DNA done and it came back with a few surprises. I suggested to my son to have his done and he went through the same company as my sister and along with his results, he was told that she was 99.99% his mother. 

In other threads from the past I have disclosed the results of both tests. 

[PurpleBunny]

---

@YorkieonmyPillow wrote:

I tried getting my DNA tested but it came back with results that claimed I am "mechanical," with "a few screws loose." 

---

My profile came back Holland Lop, with a small percentage of Belgian Hare and a spot of Jersey Wooly!

(😜)

[Barbara in Virginia]

Hi, Goldie :-) !   I have been working on my genealogy for about 20 years now with nearly 17,000n entries in my Brother's Keeper program. I took the Ancestry DNA test to see how it compared to my research.

My best documented ancestry is that of my maternal grandmother, which goes back to Charlemagne then to the Norman Conquest.  Those gene pools remained quite intact to my gateway ancestors and through her generation.  Now she was a bit of a rebellious Virginina Belle and married a first generation Swede, whose ancestry was traced and well-documented to the early 1600s.

Now my father's ancestry is murkier.  My paternal grandfather's ancestry goes back to just before the Rev War with his gateway German ancestor and pretty far back in England with the female Quaker wives.  My paternal grandmother's is the cloudiest.  According to her, it was French and English, but she had been known to lie and documentation is pretty scanty.

My results came back 44% Scandinavian, 23% Western Europe, and 22% Irish (inc. Scotland).   No surprise with the 44% Scandinavian due to my Swedish grandfather and English Norman invaders once I learned that the Normans were "Norsemen" as were a couple of the English kings before the invasion.  They were royals, nobles, and then gentry after the Wars of the Roses when the Plantagenets fell.  The men all married French and other Western European princeses until they were no longer of the ruling classes and then married within the same gene pool.  And continued doing so until my grandmother's generation in Virginia.

The Western European also covered my paternal grandfather's German paternal line, so no surprise there also.  Would also cover his wife's French line which was indeed French.  But where did the Celtic, Irish, Scottish come from, my next largest group?  I did follow a couple of maternal grandmother's lines back to find that several of my Marcher Lord ancestors married the local girls in Ireland and Scotland.  And the border of Scotland with Northern England changed from time to time.  I suspect that some of my paternal grandmother's ancestors go back to Ireland rather than England as she claimed. (She was very tall and striking with red hair.)

With the exception of the Swedes and my German gateway ancestors, all the others came from England and in our colonial period.  My indiginous English ancestry?  Less than 1%!  The rest: 

• Iberian Peninsula 4%
• Italy/Greece 3%
• Finland/Northwest Russia 2%
• Europe East < 1%
• Great Britain <1%

100% European, which is probably why when I am in Europe they think I amone of them LOL!

So I was suprised by some of the report but not by most of it.  It is important to remember that our geographical ancestry is not necessarily our DNA ancestry, and in fact isn't in most cases..

I am happy I did it, but have brick walls still on my paternal grandparent's DNA.