Are Ancestry DNA Results Really Accurate?

Your parents never told you op. YOU WERE ADOPTED!

Mama had a secret.

It's not as intriguing as a paternity scandal, but it's common for families to pass down misinformation throughout the generations. One of those DNA services even had commercials about such surprises in the past.

OP = Liz Warren

R1 I think there is a lot of variance based on the data they have, and their database occasionally updates and your DNA percentages will change, sometimes notably. It is very confusing and I don't fully understand how it works. Obviously you pull different DNA from each parent and it's never an even cut, but I do wonder whether or not the DNA in saliva samples can vary in terms of what it "shows", or if each sample looks exactly the same—any geneticists here to offer some expertise?

My DNA analysis has gone through a number of changes since I submitted it there 4 or 5 years ago. It used to be that I showed as primarily English (dad's side), but now it's flip-flopped and my top 2 are Russian (mom's side) and Swedish (dad's side). My mother and uncle are both on Ancestry as well, and I show as sharing 50% DNA with my mother and 25% with my uncle, so there are no questions there. However, my uncle's DNA estimates show mostly Russian, with some Jewish—my mother's shows as mostly Russian, but it no Jewish. I know from my family history that my maternal great-grandfather was Ukrainian and had Jewish ancestry, but for whatever reason, my mom didn't inherit those genes, or it just didn't show on her DNA sample(?) Like I said, I don't quite know how it works.

[quote] But to get DNA results and zero reference to one genetic line which is obvious (based on memory of parent) seems strange.

Would that "genetic line" be your father who raised you? I'm sure it happens a lot. (People's bio dads turn out to be someone from Mom's past.)

[quote]zero reference to one genetic line

"Zero Reference" means you are not related to that person.

The ethnicity results are a crapshoot below the continental level. They are good at determining whether your DNA comes from a certain large region of the world, but can go very awry when it comes to specific countries.

The relative matching doesn't lie, however. If you're missing an entire line of what you thought was your genetic history, that means there was what they refer to as an NPE ("non-parental event" or "non-paternal event"). In other words, someone somewhere down the line was a WHORE!!! Either that, or absolutely nobody has tested from that line, which is unlikely.

Yeah, I think the ethnicity results are not to be taken seriously. But I would believe the results about paternity / maternity.

Two of my relatives used it and turned up a cousin no one had heard of before. He looks EXACTLY like my uncle who fathered him, never married his mother, and never acknowledged him. I’m told he’s quite unlike my uncle in personality, but that he moves in exactly the same ways. The uncle was a morose asshole and by all reports this son is intelligent, a talker, and very personable. He has an advanced degree and in my opinion he dodged a bullet in not being raised by that jerk, but I doubt that anyone will ever summon the courage to tell him so.

I was always told we were German but no. Irish (primarily), English, Welsh, Scottish and Swede.

I think things get diluted. I was raised on the assumption that I had a good deal of German from my father's mother, who came from an old Pennsylvania Dutch family. However, her father (who died when she was born, so we didn't even really ever think about him) was probably almost all English and her mother had a swiss mother and Pennsylvania Dutch father, whose forebears might have mingled with English settlers in Pennsylvania. . Long-story short, when my brother did his DNA through 23&me, it shows 97% British and Irish, with 1% broadly northern European, and 2% broadly southern European. (My mom is 100% Irish, both parents born in Ireland). The DNA didn't show any German ancestry at all. We know it's there, but it has clearly been diluted to just a tiny smidge of the total by time and generations.

Parents contribute 50% each

Grandparents 25% each

Great-grandparents - 12.5% each

Great-great grandparents 6% each.

Eventually you would come to the point that the input of a single ancestor to your DNA would be vanishingly small in the overall mix.

OP here. Thank you everyone for your posts - I will try to explain the situation.

I am not adopted. I knew my birth mother who raised me for part of my life (mother's grandparents really raised me). My mother was petite, French looking, brown eyes, huge nose (which was corrected via plastic surgery). Not your anglo-saxon type of look. My mother was adopted and she used to get very upset sometimes crying that "I never knew my mother, at least you know your mother, etc etc....."

My birth father (who I never ever met) was your typical anglo-saxon, tall, blue-eyed, (Kevin Coster type) very handsome based on photos I have seen. I met his parents once - my paternal grandmother born in UK (tall, red hair), grandfather was adopted but was very anglo-saxon looking. (As an aside, I discovered ancestors firmly documented in published Dudley Pedigree - Ireland - through grandfather who married into descendants of this aristocratic Irish clan).

With all of this, the DNA results show zero mention or reference to any French ancestry (birth mother was definitely 'ethnic' French plus whatever else). In fact, DNA results breakdown show: Scottish 38%; Irish 27%; UK huge percentage, European German 5%, Basque 1%, etc.

There is zero DNA it seems from my birth mother. It just seems so so so weird. I even thought as poster suggested that yes, perhaps birth mother was not really birth mother. But, I quickly dismissed that because I kind of look like her ....(not the ugly part - ha ha - but just aspects of her which kind of tell me, that yes, she was my mother. (I took after my father in looks department thank goodness).

I am tempted to try this DNA test again but with another company. But would it return same results?

R5 during gamete formation there can be a lot of swapping of DNA among matched pairs before they shortage, so what you inherit from either parent can be an uneven mix of what they got from their parents. The same is true for what your mom and her brother got from their parents, so drift of the markers the DNA company uses to define your background is quite possible.

Before they separate*

They are 100% accurate and prove that I am the rightful heir to the British throne.

[quote] her father (who died when she was born

So her father died giving birth?

The accuracy depends on the samples.

People with European ancestry have the most accurate results because of the greatest number of participants in the pool.

American Indian results are not good because of the small pool.

This is the Irish part of my Ancestry results. See the ever-smaller circles to the west of Ireland? That is exactly where my mother's mother's family came from during the famine. So the results are clearly extremely accurate—and it's because the genes there are very concentrated from generations of people not migrating once they got there, and because there are so many generations of Americans now who are descended from Irish famine refugees in the 1800s.

[quote] perhaps birth mother was not really birth mother

Which one of the bitches at the convent was your real mother?

[quote] There is zero DNA it seems from my birth mother.

I would have your and your mother's DNAs compared. Find out - conclusively - whether she is your bio mother. If you find out that she is your bio mother, then who gives a shit whether the two of you are French or not.

r17, that was poorly expressed. I apologize Her father died very shortly after her birth - he was a carpenter, fell off of a roof and died a day or so later from a brain bleed.

You said your birth mother was herself adopted, so how is it possible to know what her ancestry really was?

Two random men contacted my father over Ancestry because he came up as a cousin and neither knew who their fathers were. He looked at all their relations and easily determined which of his uncles were their fathers. Both of them came to a family reunion and were welcomed by the family, but they are all in their 70s and so the old cheaters who made them are long dead and the shame died with them.

I have lost contact with birth mother r21. Sad story but it is true. So, no way to test her DNA. This is the sad part of the story.

Ancestry.com said I was about 20% Swedish, despite having no known Swedish ancestors. Then there was an update and it completely went away! Apparently they had some flaw that gave lots of people Swedish ancestry they didn't have, because they even had a FAQ with "What do I do with my Viking tattoo now?"

OP, if your mother was adopted, how do you know that she was definitely ethnically French? France has been a mecca for centuries - there are Poles, Russians, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, and all sorts of people who emigrated there. They or the families they parented might have spoken French, but they would not show up as "ethnically French" in a DNA sample. The French themselves are a mix of Celtic, Germanic, and Roman DNA, with a little Viking thrown in (in northern France in particular).

Good point r22. Birth was adopted - I have seen photos of her pre-surgery when she was a little girl - she just looks so French or even perhaps, I am thinking aboriginal ancestry. What I should try to do is try to track down adoption papers - I fear that won't get me far but worth a try.

^^^^Oops, meant to say *birth* mother was adopted.

PS Some northern parts of France, especially Brittany, but also Normandy, are very Celtic. The DNA from those regions would probable be quite close to the DNA of people from Ireland, Cornwall and Wales, and might not show up as French ethnicity on a DNA test. These Celtic peoples migrated to western France when the Anglo-Saxons started to infiltrate Britain from what is now Germany.

Good points, r29.

R25 probably artificial Swedeners was the problem.

My father is 100% Scottish and his DNA results show that his ancestors were from The British Isles but also Scandinavia and Iberia. Is this common?

R5'S GRANDMA WAS A WHORE.

NEVER share your DNA - it's your defining identity, more than a finger print. And the companies that deal in DNA identification are not regulated, which means their info could fall into the wrong hands...

Otherwise, yes, these services are extremely accurate.

The Vikings made regular incursion to Scotland, which is, relatively speaking, very close to Norway, and the British Isles were settled by Iberians in pre-historic times. Those early settlers might have been the people we now call Basques.

What I think this DNA is teaching is is that human beings have spent the past 100,000 years constantly migrating, and leaving their DNA hither and yon. All the people who yammer on about ethnic purity are very mistaken. Certainly, every time a region was overrun by soldiers from another place, rapes and the children that followed were an inevitable consequence.

Parents do not contribute 50/50 all the time. You could have more genes from your mother than your father and vice versa. It is a crap shoot. My mom kept saying I was Irish and german but my DNA show no Irish. My mom is English and Scottish so I guess scots Irish. My father is German and also has some Scottish in him. I have more DNA from my father than I do from My mother.

If that's the case, r35, then it just shows that r32's father's ancestors can be traced in Scotland for well over a millennium. That's a pretty solid settlement in the region and shows little effect of modern migration.

23 & Me was amazingly accurate for me with regions I inherited from great amd great great grandparents.

Ancestry is good and getting better with updates that include more regions. However, many people got deflated with Ancestry because they know they’re, say, 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Scottish. Then Ancestry would tell them they’re in the categories: Scottish & Irish and Greek & Italian. Basically diluting what they already knew.

R11 which test did you do. On 23 & Me a friend with a very German 1st generation grandfather got English results for him.

Very accurate. 23 and Me ID'd various relatives who were on there with the correct degree of relationship

the dna results have supported all my genealogy results.

r36 Although DNA is passed down from both parents to child, it is rarely precisely 50%. Mothers usually pass on a tiny percentage more (mitochondrial DNA) , and certain genes will be more evident than others in things like appearance, eye or hair color, etc which could make the child resemble one parent quite a bit more than the other. But the majority of our genes don't show up in differences of appearance. (They might have to do with our digestive systems, our bones or organs). When we say DNA is not passed on exactly 50% each, we're not talking 35% to 65%. We're talking 48.5% to 51.5% or 49% to 51% or percentages along those lines. It would not be enough to radically effect a DNA ancestry test.

They kind of warn you to be prepared to find out something that you may not want to know. Family history can get twisted over the years. A lot of people seem to think they have Native American ancestry, when they don't - all based on family stories. I would trust science over family stories every time. Memories fade, people lie, someone wrote down the wrong ethnicity at Ellis Island.

my uncle stopped in Cincinnati before Cleveland...have a cousin there....

23&me did bring to my attention an unknown first cousin, once-removed. Turned out that one of my first cousins fathered a child out-of-wedlock when he was 16. That child has now gotten in touch with a number of my cousins. Her newly-discovered aunts are very enthusiastic about their new niece. (who is 40+). Her blood father, who is something of a jerk, not so much.

OP! I have your answer. French outlawed these tests, so the reference population is not there. Your mom could still be French!

This is discussed ad nauseum Reddit, and there are many news articles. I will post separately when I find a good one.

OP, quit relying on Google Translate and please ask someone who speaks English to help you.

So based on the above when one applies for DNA testing with these companies they ask you to indicate on the form what you believe to be your ethnicity before testing?

What's the point of this?

Details about French heritage in link.

If you want to see if you match with people in France, download your “raw DNA” (a file) and upload it to My Heritage .com. You can sort relatives by country. You’ll also get a new ethnicity breakdown, but theirs stinks.

There’s no spit test needed and you unlock your matches by paying a nominal fee.

Keep in mind, ten generations back (about 250 years) we each have about 1,000 people we are directly descended from. Twenty generations back (about 500 years) we each have roughly a million people we are directly descended from. Thirty generations back (about 750 years ago) we each have a billion people we are directly descended from. There weren't a billion people alive back then, so you can safely assume you are related to all of our ancestors together.

It's short-sighted to take a look at five or six generations back. Some genes are more hardy than others, so you still have a few genes from far in the past.

When doing genetic genealogy, you should never, ever attempt to determine whether you are related to somebody based on the ethnicity results.

That's what the relative matching is for.

Read this...

I had a friend who was never told by her mother who her father was. When she was in her early 20s she did a DNA test, which matched a few of her fathers relatives, and found him that way. Turns out, he had been her mother's much older meth dealer, a violent career criminal with multiple incarcerations, and she has 10 step siblings scattered across the country. She showed me a photo of them together the day they met; they look like doppelgängers separated by decades and gender. (Learning about her origins helped explain a good deal of her personality, I must say.)

[quote] So based on the above when one applies for DNA testing with these companies they ask you to indicate on the form what you believe to be your ethnicity before testing? What's the point of this?

That's my problem with these DNA country-of-origin testing. It seems to be based on shaky ground. Metadata. Self-referential.

They change my ethnic group origins every year it seems.

R53 Very similar thing happened to my sister in law. My mother in law was quite the ho in the early sixties, having three daughters by three different men (she lived near an air force base in Laredo, TX), but she told the daughters they all had the same father. The youngest did an Ancestry test a few years ago and found that she had two OTHER half-sisters by her real bio dad. An Air Force vet, who moved back home to South Carolina after his service and married his HS sweetheart. Whoops.

I've tested with Ancestry, 23 & Me, and Living DNA, as well as uploaded my raw data to My Heritage and Family Tree DNA.

I have never been asked what my ethnicity was by any of the companies in question.

or where you are from. stupid elderghey posts above.

I don't remember having been asked any "what is your ethnicity" questions before doing my testing, but that was several years ago. My results were very close to what I was expecting.

[quote] OP! I have your answer. French outlawed these tests, so the reference population is not there. Your mom could still be French!

The companies do not use the customer base as part of the reference population. A lot of people assume that, but it isn't true.

The reference populations they use to come up with the ethnicity estimates are a separate group of people.

R13 maybe the company accidentally mixed up results. If you say you recognize her features and that if your dad on you that would be a logical examination. I'm not yet convinced that these kind of tests aren't one big scam in the first place.

OP your mom was adopted but knew her heritage?

That's funny about the missing German ancestry. My daughter who was supposedly German on both sides came back with 0 percent. But she's 50 percent Irish so I'm supposing my German ancestors (with very Germanic names) were really Celtic? I suppose I could send in my spit but I don't care enough.

My parents always told me we kids weee 50% Swedish and 50% Italian. They both were immensely proud of their ancestry. The Ancestry test came out shortly after they died. I told my brother “let’s just see how wrong they were.”

Well, results were: 50% Scandinavian and 47% Italian (3% Greek). I’m the only person I know whose test came back with no surprises. The only surprise was that my ancestry is exactly what my parents told me I am.

My mom's Ancestry DNA results were all over Europe. Her parents died early in her life and she was raised in an orphanage (this was in the '30s) and then farmed out as a nanny / housekeeper when age 16. The report was very disappointing to her because it wasn't specific enough but perhaps her parents' heritage was all over the map -- a lot of fucking went on before her grandparents emigrated to the US.

My siblings and my results are very similar to R18, which is what my parents said we were. However, my brother-in-law's paternal grandmother was 100% Native American, but his results showed no markers at all. He called Ancestry and the person he spoke with said the same thing - the pool was too small to show adequate results.

Try 23 and me, OP. They try a little harder and will update it when they get new information.

I did it for shits and giggles. I'm the same complexion as Obama, so I knew there was some milk in the chocolate. What I didn't realize until I saw my results was that there actually some chocolate in the milk. After the most recent update, I am almost 60 percent England and Northwestern European and about 30 percent African (Nigeria and Cameroon) with the other 10 percent being various other European and African stuff and Indigenous Americas.

I knew it was there, I just didn't know how much of it was there. It's all very strange when you see it broken down like that. So I also did 23 and Me just to see if the results would be similar and they were.

OP, my mom was told she was 1/8th or 1/16th American Indian. I took two different DNA tests and neither one came up with any Native ancestry.

Mom had sort of ruddy skin and wavy hair when she was a teenager in the 50s, and more than once was called "high yellow" or worse by my father's nasty cunt sisters or their kids. But nope, we didn't have any sub-Saharan African ancestry, either. Mom turned out to be just what her grandparents on both sides would have suggested - very, very, very German.

One thing I will say is that while Ancestry and/or 23andMe aren't intending to be wildly incorrect, their sample group is driving definitions. As they get more people, they learn more and can be more specific. Some smaller percentages of my breakdown have changed over the years.

I would not necessarily test with Family Tree DNA.

I did, and I appreciated what I found, but it is not quite as easy nor are results as clear as Ancestry or 23andMe.

I did find out about one of my families as there was a special project going on for one of the family names, and I found out that we were Scots-Irish (as expected) and part of the "Border" Scots or Ulster Scots who went from Scotland to Ireland and then on to America. (Not a small or special group as most immigrants from Ireland in the late 1700s and early 1800s to the east coast colonies/states fit this category.)

I took the National Geographic 'genographic' test very early on and then the Ancestry DNA test early on, and neither asked me to indicate what I believed to be my ethnic background.

The Ancestry results surprised me at first because they showed very little Irish—maybe 5%—and something like 12% Iberian, which was totally new information.

Over the years, as the company has amassed more data, the results have changed a lot. I am now 33% Irish, which seems correct. The rest is mostly England/Scotland/Wales and a bit Germany/France, which also seems correct, and small (3-5%) amounts Norwegian and Swedish, which our family oral history doesn't substantiate, but it makes sense given that the countries border the UK and there's been plenty of immigration over time.

The Iberian disappeared from the results shown early on; however, almost all of my Irish heritage is from the west coast of Ireland, and the 'black Irish' from there are most closely genetically related to Basque people of Spain/France, who are known to have traveled northward and settled on the west coast of Ireland a long time ago, possibly after wrecking on the rough shores. So it all adds up and the wrong results are not random; they just become refined over time.

Ancestry also has classified me into 'genetic communities,' including Connacht Irish, which I know to be correct, as well as early settlers of New Jeesey & Eastern Pennsylvania (where my father's mother's British family came from) and Ohio, early settlers of North Carolina (where my father's father's Swiss and British family came from), early Delaware & Chesapeake Bay settlers (I grew up in the DC area, smack between these two regions.).

I'm amazed that a machine can lay out a line of genetic code and identify so much family history.

It is definitely precise and accurate IF you have a family background that relates to a large pool of information. If you are from a background from which few people have taken the tests, it will sort you incorrectly and put you into wrong groups.

The little rainbow arrow on the left points to where I live. All the circled and colored countries show nations where ancestors came from.

I think it's incredible that this can be determined by a spit swab, and it's entirely accurate when compared with our family stories.

The only 'inaccuracy' is that it shows geographic areas where certain genetic groups live and, for example, Iceland is highlighted and we have no known ancestry from Iceland; it is highlighted because they share genes with Norwegian people.

r71 is from New Bern?

R73 I'm not but some of my family is.

Yes, I'm black y'all!

All I know is that my15 pound dachshund/Chihuahua mix is not the mastiff/border collie they say he is. Dennis looks like a weiner dog with chihuahua ears.

I would like to try this, since I have only been able to go back maybe three generations or so via census records and marriage licenses. I have, like many of us, been told I have American Indian heritage on both sides of my family. I know of doubt it. I do know that my great grandmother came over as a child from France. I never knew her.

But after reading here, it sounds like I’d have little luck trying to find American Indian OR French info from these sites?

Oops, *kind of doubt it.

R77 Yes, you can't count on DNA to demonstrate American Indian heritage. That's one, but not the only, reason that tribal communities do not accept DNA evidence for enrollment into a tribe.

And as you mention, many of us have been told we have 'some Indian' blood without any evidence and likely do not.

However, a black woman I work with has always identified as being part Cherokee and she says her grandmother appeared and claimed to be fully Cherokee. She had an Ancestry DNA test and was kind of devastated to have zero Indian heritage according to the results. But then a year or so later, the results updated and showed she had approximately the amount of American Indian heritage that would come from one grandparent. She ran around saying I KNEW IT!!

CRI Genetics gave me wildly different results from the other, and they would identify single sequences on one chromosome that they wildly traced back to "Bengali 1850" or "Chinese Dai 145)" or "Peruvian 1700" and all of it utter nonsense. I think they are a scam.

R57, did you get the same results with all three companies?

That's what I was just wondering, r80 (hence the question to r57), if someone tested with different companies, how closely to the results match each other. Although, what you CRI Genetics was telling you does seem like nonsense.

My first American grandmother, think colonial VA, was named Basheba. She became Elizabeth when she married the Anglo. So...

Anyway, gedmatch does show NA DNA at the correct percent of 8th? ggmother on their experimental tools along with ancient Siberian DNA. I think it is true as the percent and numbers match. You can Google to see what percent so and so gg grandparent gave you.

One of the complications of tracing Native blood, if I remember correctly, is that in some cases it shows up as similar to Asian ancestry? Because Native Americans are thought to have crossed from Asia into Russia and then into North America (at a time where either the masses were connected or when ice formations allowed for migration? Sorry if that statement is dumb, I know there's some reasoning behind it) it can be challenging sometimes to parse out the more individual DNA lines and history.

This is, seriously, why I don't hold the Indian thing against Liz Warren. Our family swore up, down and sideways that we had Indian blood and there's documentation in photos and notes going back to the early 1900s about this belief, but nothing in the DNA supports it. Whether you like or loathe Warren, her experience was one many Americans have had. I imagine especially in places like Oklahoma, it would be pretty common.

R81 I only have Ancestry & 23andMe but here is a comparison of the results. 23 is the top, and Ancestry's results begin with the 'Ethnicity Estimate' line.

Ancestry is a lot more detailed in its breakdown. It is generally regarded as the best for ethnic estimates.

23andMe's emphasis is on identifying genetic health conditions.

[quote] One of the complications of tracing Native blood, if I remember correctly, is that in some cases it shows up as similar to Asian ancestry?

I say this because I think it's been shown as such on shows like Finding Your Roots.

R76 people always comment that my *registered pedigree* black lab is part Rottie or Doberman in account of his massive head and blunt snout. Sends me mad.

He's just more adorable than most pointy little mongrels, and people are simply green with envy.

OP, 23 and Me does specifically tell you who is related by which parent. Especially if you are a guy. You just aren't reading it correctly.

I don't think DNA testing works for dogs at all.

My sister had three dogs tested all at the same time.

One was supposedly a Jack Russell and she looked more like a rat terrier.

One looked like a miniature black Lab, and they were told by the shelter he was a Lab-terrier mix.

And the other most closely resembles a Carolina dog/American dingo.

The DNA test results said all three were primarily Akita (??) and two I think were supposedly Akita and Rottweiler, including the little terrier. My sister sent the DNA company photos of all the dogs and the company refunded her money.

The problem with Native ancestry not showing up is that American Tribes don't submit samples because they don't want you trying to claim casino money. It can show up as Central American. They can get some samples from tribes still in central America.

R87 I'm not doubting you but I have never seen that. Maybe I need to dig around a bit.

Ancestry now will show you for most relatives whether you are connected via Parent 1 or Parent 2.

r88, that is such a first world problem.

r90

Maternal Haplogroup and Paternal Haplogroup will give a report on each side of you and you can run a search with those relatives it produced of you that are in each haplogroup.

It's there and a great feature.

Are you finding out your parents aren't who you believed? This does happen when you do DNA testing. We've met some new relatives that our grandfather was responsible for out of marriage.

I went with DNA Consultants, not a company that advertises, I didn't want a DNA fad ancestry company, they also do tissue samples so I suppose they know what they're doing. They say it is not accurate to give percentages of ethnicity, they give your highest population matches. I don't trust these companies that advertise.

And yes, you and your siblings could have completely different DNA but it should match up usually with at least one parent, if there wasn't any hanky panky. All the DNA sites tell you you might not expect the results you get, so be prepared.

R87 Ancestry and 23 both do that now.

Here are my breakdowns by parent side by side. Ancestry is far more detailed.

23andMe shows trace (0.2% each) inheritance of Coptic Egyptian and Central Asian, which Ancestry doesn't show.

23andMe interestingly also shows Neanderthal ancestry (Ancestry doesn't), but it shows that separately and does not factor it into the ethnic breakdown for some reason. I guess since it just shows general European heritage, Neanderthal would be generally European?

It tells me I am <2% Neanderthal, which it says is more than 55% of customers.

Here it is...

Mine constantly changes.

And here's a look at 23andMe's health reporting.

I was anxious about getting the results but they haven't affected my life at all. I do have Hashimoto's and had severe acne and migraines.

I opted out of finding out if I have a gene for Alzheimer's.

Henry Louis Gates did an appearance at the Richmond Forum several years ago. His guest was Richmond native and DL fave Russell Wilson. HLG had run Russ's DNA. HLG asked the predominately black audience how many have been told they have Native American blood. A very large percentage (as expected) raised their hands. He said he also been told he had NA blood. He said it was actually African blood.

Ancestry DNA results (no matter which company) are based on EXISTING population references, not previous generations. They will give you approximations of your lineage, but not an exact breakdown of your family history.

Because of DNA testing our family found out that our Uncle (my mother's half brother) had a daughter that we knew nothing about. He had been married for 45 years without any children. I do not know if it was a relationship before or during his marriage.

More recently me and my sister found out our father had a daughter after he left our Mom. I think my Sister met her with other family members. I am 60 and Dad and Mom divorced when I was 6. I never saw him after about the age of 10.

My father's parents were Russian and Polish. Mother's parents Italian. My ancestry results showed no surprise, but the categories did. Results showed 49% Mediterranean, and 51% Eastern European Jewish. Didn't realize Jewish would be part of the DNA description.

Regarding the NA DNA above. Checked Gedmatch again and the results are the same. One to two percent. Also, using their Ancient DNA tool I have strong markers of Clovis DNA.

I think it is true.

There is nothing special or magical about Native American DNA that causes it not to show up on DNA tests. This is a narrative that is promoted by the huge numbers of non-native Americans who have been told they are "part Indian", and insist on clinging to that notion.

The companies have enough data in their reference populations to detect DNA from the Americas, provided there is a sufficient amount of it in your genome. If your grandparent was 1/8 or 1/16 Native, there's a good chance that that 1/32 or 1/64 isn't going to show up in your results.

They cannot, and don't claim to be able to, identify any specific tribe.

The truth in most cases, is that the family lore of the "Cherokee princess grandmother" is either totally made up, or else greatly exaggerated.

I know a guy who married a man 15 years his junior. DNA testing showed they were father and son. The older man was from St. Louis and he and his GF lost their virginities togetherbthe night before he snd his family moved to Atlanta. He had no idea he’d knocked the girl up, the boy was gay and it was all pretty aweful. Anyway, he and his new husband stopped in St Louis on the way home from their honemoon for a family christening. The younger husbsnds parents were there, and the topic of afoption came up. The younger msn said alk he knows anout his bio mom was that she was a 15 year old from Chicago. His mother corrected him and said St. Louis. They afopted him in st. louis abd didnt move to Chicaho until he was alonst a yeR old. The older msn did the math and realuzed that his husbsnd was conceived about the sane time snd place as when he list his virginity. In that context a lit of things the girl’d parents said to him when he tried to call her after he moved to Atlanta made sense. A few nights later sfter the bewlyweds got back to their homd in L.A. , while making love, the older man collected a sperm sample from his husband and toik it to a lab, snd discovered they were father and son. I was at the wedding and im the guy the older msn called in hysterics when the lab report came back.

Wow, r104. That's crazy. But it's fascinating that they were drawn to each other. Obviously the father must have sensed some deeper connection to collect the sperm sample.

I'm assuming they got divorced, R104, is that right?

OP has just discovered some 'ethnic' traces in his bloodline.

Dad fathered a child with another woman. He was married to my mom and in fact, his other child was born two months before my older brother.

My mom knew about it and blurted something out years ago, but then backtracked and said the woman had accused my dad in a case of mistaken identity, but the actual father of her baby was one of my dad's coworkers. However, DNA evidence shows my dad was his father.

My half-brother is on Ancestry. I know a lot about him (I'm a nosy bitch!) but I am petrified for numerous reasons to reach out and contact him.

R104's post sounds like the beginning of a Joe Gage movie.

We're attracted to our own kind x 10.

French dna is not being blocked. My mom is French Canadian and it definitely shows her as being majority French. It was easy to trace her family tree going back hundreds of years, quebecois families seem to be well documented. I wonder if Ancestry just cheats by looking at your family tree since I already had it written on the site before the DNA tests. My moms third great grandmother was Native American and that shows up as 1%. One of her cousins is actually getting paid by the Canadian government because of this.

Whoever said French DNA was being blocked doesn't understand this process at ALL.

Has anyone here done the specific Y testing that Ancestry doesn't offer? It claims to deep dive into male ancestry but I don't know that it's any different than the general test.

[Quote]Because Y-chromosomes are passed from father to son virtually unchanged, males can trace their patrilineal (male-line) ancestry by testing their Y-chromosome.

[Quote]Y-chromosome testing uncovers a person’s Y-chromosome haplogroup, the ancient group of people from whom one’s patrilineage descends. Because only one’s male-line direct ancestors are traced by Y-DNA testing, no females (nor their male ancestors) from whom a male descends are encapsulated in the results. Ancestry does not offer Y-chromosome testing.

I did a Y-DNA test with Family Tree.

It's a completely different animal than the autosomal tests.

My sister and I have both done Myheritage and she also did Ancestry. We got different results from each other from and there was a huge difference between Ancestry and Myheritage for her. In my case, bizarre results. From what I know of my family history, I just don't think they are very reliable. It may depend on your origins. I'm not sure there are enough takers (E. Europe in my case) yet for reliabilty to build up. If you're from Western Europe or North America, maybe more so.

In my case, they were 100% accurate. I went into it with no idea about my bio family. Later it revealed my birth parents and a bunch of siblings I didn’t know about. A year later, I petitioned the court to have my adoption records unsealed. These old documents proved the accuracy of the test.

R104 What happened to them? Are they still married? Did they stay together?

[Quote]I did a Y-DNA test with Family Tree. It's a completely different animal than the autosomal tests.

It would be helpful to know more. Would you recommend it ?

Re: Native American, just because it doesn’t show up on a genetic test generations later doesn’t guarantee someone was lying. If the original ancestor was someone from the 1600s to 1800s it might not show at this point.

There’s an Ancestry.com hack you can do to reveal trace ancestry below .3%. Search “Ancestry hack” on Reddit. I got an Asian nation which squared with an original result in 23 & Me before my mom joined and they readjusted my values.

[quote] It would be helpful to know more. Would you recommend it ?

What information are you after?

If you don't know who your bio father is, it might be a little bit helpful. Not much, but a little.

Or, if you're deep into genetic genealogy, you could have some fun with it.

Thanks. I'm looking primarily to trace male lineage.

R115 My Heritage is a joke. I’m part E. Euro & they made that all incorrectly Balkan. They made my 3 Benelux 25% Scandinavian. Ignore that but it’s great for matches!

OP here again. I meant to post this yesterday. In response to questions about mother being French, she was French Canadian, and as far as I know no "blockage" on DNA testing in Canada. I come back to my original post - dumbfounded how zero link to her ancestry (yes, I am guessing but based on her appearance, definitely not anglo-saxon, German or Welsh, etc etc). I guess DNA really is random but to not have any trace of French-Canadian ancestry or French is kind of ....strange.

[quote] I'm looking primarily to trace male lineage.

Not sure what you mean by "trace male lineage". You're looking to identify, say, who your 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th great-grandfathers were, down the paternal line?

i did y due to the insistence of a family (male line) tracer. it honestly did not show too much and the line has not really expanded. i do not think it was worth it. it did confirm first anglo us guy but beyond that that line has not expanded. maybe one day. makes me think they took a new name when they came over.

I think some of you who are saying that the ancestry sites got your lineage wrong don't want to deal with the fact that someone in your family either lied or was lied to. Remember the old saying, "mama's baby, daddy's maybe."

“Ancestry hack” on Reddit

Oh man that's make it ok, I guess.

just use the gedmatch tools

AncestryDNA identifies Parent 1 and Parent 2 but does not say which was the mother and which was the father. This has caused a lot of mystery for me. I was identified as being 40% Central/Eastern European Jewish (Ashkenazi) and 15% English/NorthWest Europe - all from Parent 1. I assumed that this was all from my mother side and that my mother was Parent 1. Even though she was Catholic, there were always rumors of a Jewish line to her family from my Great-Grandmother. My father, also Catholic, never knew who his father was, and his mother (my wonderful Nana) never spoke of it to him or me. We assumed they were Spanish or French. Everyone is dead now.

Well, imagine my surprise when I started looking at the last names of my DNA-related cousins. I recognized several last names from the non-Jewish Parent 2 lineage, and they were all from my Mom's side of the family. That would mean that the 40% Central/Eastern European Jewish came from my father and that he was Parent 1. And because of the large percentage, perhaps his biological father was Jewish. If so, who was this man, how did my Nana hook up with him, why did she not marry him, and why would no one speak of this? o many questions...

My advice to anyone who has living parents and grandparents is to ask these questions now and get non-judgmental, honest answers.

I'm not R114 but I did Family Tree DNA's test.

It is less helpful in the "I want to know who my fourth cousin is" or, in every case, giving you an actual name of someone.

However, as I said at R70 above, I was able to find out a definitive path of one of my father's lines - his paternal line.

Where you see "LN" is last name/surname (am staying anonymous but otherwise happy to share).

[quote] Nearly two-thirds of all the Study's testers are members of the "Border LN" branch, sharing a common ancestor who probably lived in Dumfriesshire on the Scottish Borders during the 14th century, although his name is unknown. This branch includes testers representing the LN of Eskdale, the LN of Bonshaw and of Dumfries (all in Dumfriesshire), the LN of Durham and Northumberland, and the LN of Castle LN (Co. Fermanagh). Some of these testers still live in the Borders today, some are descended from ancestors who migrated direct from there to America, but the majority now living in USA are descended from ancestors who probably migrated from the Borders to Ulster in the 17th century, and from Ireland to colonial America (typically to the Appalachian regions of PA, VA, NC, SC and GA) in the 18th century, typically for economic or religious reasons. This proportion of testers sharing a single common ancestor within the surname era is much higher than found in most other Scottish surname DNA projects, and our Borders branch is probably the largest such branch in any Surname DNA project.

This was kind of worth the price of admission to me, even through I don't have a name for the long ago ancestor. But overall, results are more scientific and it helps to have a more academic understanding of DNA and genealogy, which I have yet to acquire.

R129 it shouldn't be that hard to figure out the identity of a "mystery grandparent".

All you need is one relatively close match from that line with a decent tree and you can begin to put the puzzle together, if you're really interested.

R111 R112 I didn’t say French DNA was being blocked. I said DNA kits are illegal in France and people have surmised this affects their results due to a smaller control group.

[quote] during gamete formation there can be a lot of swapping of DNA among matched pairs before they shortage,

NO THERE CAN’T

[quote] I'm the same complexion as Obama, so I knew there was some milk in the chocolate. What I didn't realize until I saw my results was that there actually some chocolate in the milk. After the most recent update, I am almost 60 percent England and Northwestern European and about 30 percent African (Nigeria and Cameroon) with the other 10 percent being various other European and African stuff and Indigenous Americas.

r68 I'm Tisha Campbell's complexion. So, like you, I expected "milk in the chocolate" because...duh. Per AncestryDNA, I'm 21% England and Northwestern European, 78% African (Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Benin & Togo), and 1% Indigenous Americas. That mean's you're darker than me but have less African DNA than me. Genetic expression is like a box of chocolates with the...well, chocolate. You really don't know what you're going to get.

To be fair, r134, your insides (bones, organs, circulatory system) might have more African DNA than r68. Skin color is only one of many physical markers of DNA and is probably expressed in very few genes. In mixed marriages, you often see a child that could pass for white and another that is unmistakably black in skin color - but the children both got close to 50% of genetic material from each parent, so other non-visible genetic material might be the contribution of one parent over the other.

I have gotten to know a lot of Russians from the "stans". Most of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz people I have met look east Asian, although sometimes with strangely light eyes. However, when those people intermarry with Caucasian people, their children almost always look 100% Caucasian to the point of having blond hair and blue eyes. Their Asiatic heritage is dominant overall, but as nomadic people living on the border between Russia and China, these are peoples who have been mixed-race for millenia, so the east Asian influence is "thin" in them. On the other hand, when a Chinese person marries a Caucasian person, the children will be much more likely to look Asian, with perhaps brown instead of black hair, or missing the epicanthic eyefold. I'm linking a picture of a Kazakh model below to demonstrate the mixed-race quality.

Mine keeps changing. I was about 7% Finnish, and now I'm not. Is this because they keep gaining new depth of knowledge as more and more people get tested?

I'm fair and blue-eyed, so I guess that means I'm from northern Europe. Or Russia.

You could also have some Czech or Slovak or other Central/East European Slav in you, r137.

R35, the UN Peacekeeping Force just had a field day in Haiti. Rapes and prostitution resulted in many little mixed race children. DNA spread through war I now realize, is very common.

R35 was simply stating a well-known fact, namely that Vikings raided parts of Britain. Iberians setting in Britain in prehistoric times was a very long time ago, and it's interesting that their DNA is still strong in Britain after 100,000 years.

What this DNA evidence actually tells us is that, while it is well-known fact and not some stunning revelation that humans have always migrated, the vast majority of population groups in specific geographical areas can remain the same for centuries, if not millennia. Moreover, there is an overlap between the mapping of DNA and ethnicity.

What it tells us is that men migrate but women tend to stay in place. By Y DNA Argentinians are 90% European. By mitochondrial DNA, they are 51% indigenous.

Well, R71, my father was from near the Cliffs of Moher and attributed our wavy brown hair to Spanish influence.

OP, you're her daughter AND her sister.

A lot of women not willing to admit they are hoes.

Elizabeth Warren showed that most people claiming "native ancestry" are lying, or were lied to.

Like everyone else we were told we had native blood, and in my case it's true, along with African melungeon blood which was the highest after American European, yet I'm your average brown hair eyed white guy, the DNA doesn't always match the face you got.

I also have Lumber Indian blood, they were mixed African European, yet I look white.

R135 Those were Sri Lankan Peace Keeping troops in Haiti so there's just a bit of caramel in the mix of some now..

My mother was a geneaologist who spent more than 30 years researching and verifying almost every single ancestor's line on each side of her's and my father's families. The first arrived around 1613 in Jamestown. The last in in the early 1850s.

Essentially, what she found was that my father's side was predominantly German (Alsatians), with French ancestry coming in a strong second. None of these ancestors married out of their German or French groups once in America over two hundred years, until my grandparents.

On her side of the family, there was a predominantly German (around southern Germany and Switzerland) with a LOT of English ancestors (at least 30%), all emigrating from the southern part of the country, but she was able to trace one line back to King John (like many other Brits). A Scotsman here or there or well as a Polish person, but that's it. She was able to correspond with relatives still living in England who provided even more history based on local records, so her information was quite extensive. Unfortunately, because of language differences, she wasn't able to accomplish this with German or French relatives.

I've never felt the need or desire to have my DNA tested because my mother did such a great job (and left us all of the information). However, two of my sisters recently did, with two different DNA companies. I would like to add that we all look very similar/alike....there is no doubt we are all related.....we all have lots of physical traits that were inherited from my father as well as my mother.

One sister's results showed about 38% Scottish (!) and the rest Scandinavian. The other sister's showed some German and the rest was Scandinavian! Nothing about the English or French. As far as I know, they didn't report any relatives that were even vaguely closely related. We're all getting together in a few weeks to look at the reports.

So yeah, I think these companies are really scammy. And don't ask about dog DNA. I know a woman who tested her dog's (it was large and looked part St. Bernard) and was given results that it was mostly Chihuahua and some other little breed.

[quote]Remember the old saying, "mama's baby, daddy's maybe."

Never heard that expression before, but I'm sure it was popular in YOUR family.

R147 I don't think that those tests always break it down by county per se....sometimes the groupings/names are more general. I have French but it does not show up by name in the results.

r148 The linked song might explain it all.

[quote]My mother was a geneaologist who spent more than 30 years researching and verifying almost every single ancestor's line on each side of her's and my father's families.

Did your mother have DNA information?

And also people moved. Just because someone was from Germany doesn't mean that their parents were German or fully German.

"she was able to trace one line back to King John (like many other Brits)" - I'm fascinated by how your mother was able to work out every single ancestor going back 900 years. Which records did she use?

Person who is convinced their ugly mother is French = Hyacinth Bucket.

Mine were pretty accurate and revealed nothing I didn't know already. I'm mostly Sicilian so I was thinking at least a little African would be in there....but nope.

I was just adding the Ancestry tree shit to my tree for shits and giggles. Well, then some Lady Stuart from Edinburg Castle shows up one of the James' sisters. I definitely thought...no way...

But some DNA I uploaded somewhere...not Ancestry...said I was related to the House of Stuart a few months later. So, it was some old paper trail (like the dude's mom} confirmed by DNA.

And this also confirmed lots of Scottish in a line I did not know anything about until recently. Confirmed the clans. The paper probably is not too far off.

But Scotland is so small everyone is probably related.

R154 My cousin is Sicilian. No African showed until I did the Ancestry hack for her. Then two African nations showed in minuscule amounts.

R147 What DNA companies. 23 & Me & Ancestry are way better than some others. If one sister tested with My Heritage, those results are crummy.

I have a German last name…but according to Ancestry, that’s about all that’s Germanic about me. My great-grandfather’s family was mostly Irish.

It really nailed down the region of Italy my grandmother’s family came from, but we already knew that anyway.

I wish my mother was still alive. Lots of Welsh and a tad French but mostly just British.

I had my dogs DNA test and it was what I thought, pit mix with lab, and no I didn't send a pic, so it was right. Stay away from the big DNA companies who advertise, it's like social media for DNA.

[quote] pit mix with lab

Lord, you have a furry spitball of pure energy. Do you sleep?

Who has had their mitochondrial DNA done? Do the companies offer it?

Anyone know if it's any good if you have ancestors from India? Thanks

Mine was a bust but I've spent 100 bucks on stupider things in my lifetime.

I'm Irish, Scottish, English and German. No surprises there.

My questions go back to my grandmothers' insistence that we were Scottish and protestant and not Irish and catholic. Funny now that these points were sooo important two generations back.

Also, I wanted to see the paternity of my nieces as my sister in law is a crazy cunt and I think she's pulled a fast one on my not too bright brother.

I guess I'll just steal a tooth brush.

An enormous genetic database is being assembled for the benefit of government and big business. And they actually are making you pay for it out of your own pocket. George Orwell would have been amazed by your eagerness to be tagged.

Hey, dumbo:

Read your literature. "Old" lines are not necessarily discoverable through this kind of testing, which is good for about four generations of DNA.

Also, OP, learn English.

Oh, dear.

R162, Ancestry dot com is not great for Indian Ancestry. It’s divided in three very broad groups— North Indian, South Indian and Bengali. If you know you’re Indian then you already know whether you’re from the north or south or Bengal.

Of course, if you’re Indian mixed with other things, or you don’t know whether you’re North or South Indian or Bengali, then you may find it more interesting.

Ancestry.com is run by Mormons, the same group that tried to baptize dead people who were Christians without even notifying their relatives.

23 and Me is more accurate if you want a DNA ancestry test.

They are not very reliable.

They are actually VERY reliable. They are used in court criminal cases all the time. That's how they caught the Original Night Stalker.

The thing most people don't get because they don't bother to read the details is accuracy is based on a percentage scale. 23 & Me for example even has an option where you can set it to whatever number you want 90% to 10% and it will filter out less likely accurate matches.

DNA consultants says percentages are not valid and don't give them, I looked it up and they're correct, the can only tell your closest matches.

That does not make sense r170, because your closest relatives are still based on percentage. Nothing is 100% in this world.

R163 DNA identifies religious preference. Who knew.

R172, religion used to not be a “preference.” It was mandatory. If you have Scottish ancestors, they were Protestant. If they were Irish, they were Catholic.

[quote] Henry Louis Gates did an appearance at the Richmond Forum several years ago. His guest was Richmond native and DL fave Russell Wilson. HLG had run Russ's DNA. HLG asked the predominately black audience how many have been told they have Native American blood. A very large percentage (as expected) raised their hands. He said he also been told he had NA blood. He said it was actually African blood.

That is answered upthread. There are not enough indigenous people in the reference pool to reliably identify Native American ancestry. Likewise, among African ethnicities Ghanaians are overrepresented in the reference pool, in time, as there are more participants from other countries in Africa the accuracy of the results for those with African ancestry will improve.

It's not inaccurate but it's definitely an evolving science.

In terms of identifying health related things it's very accurate and so much is being done in that category.

The ancestry piece is a bit more complicated, partly because existing test subjects make up the control group. As others have said, Native/indigenous people are often not comfortable testing, so very little of their DNA has been properly labeled/identified.

It's not wrong, but the descriptions you get may change based on constantly changing info from the larger database.

[quote]He said he also been told he had NA blood. He said it was actually African blood

This explains a lot. As someone who is 1/3 Native American, tested by DNA, I find it funny how so many white people say they are part Native American and then find out they are not. You can look at my extend family pics and it would be quite obvious. But these white guys are usually MERICANs who like to think they are so American, probably some where down the line they have true Native American bloodline. You know, they heard from their grandma that an aunt twice removed has a cousin who was Cherokee. But not proof of it or any other family history or relics being passed down they can point to.

Also I can imaging a lot are more comfortable saying some of their ancestors have been here thousands of years than saying their great, great grandfather strayed from his wife for some black booty.

R176, my impression was that it wasn’t about who was more Americaner than the other person.

I have always seen the faux Native American card played when a white guy or gals wants to opine about minorities and also wants to be granted impunity for it. They trot the Cherokee grandma out as a disclaimer: I can say XYZ about X ethic group because I am an oppressed minority MYSELF:

“I’m sick of listening to Spanish announcements at American soccer games. Mexican people need to learn some motherfucking English. My Cherokee grandma didn’t have a Cherokee language option, she learned motherfucking English, yo.”

An equally popular reason would be for a white guy to attempt to ingratiate himself with minorities. Usually the same “Cherokee” asshole in response to anything bad about white people. Apropos of nothing, they can’t help but seize the opportunity whenever in the company of black people in particular:

“Ayo, that George Floyd man, that was some sickass bullshit. I’m about to crumble some crackers, you know? Alotta people think I’m white, but my grandma is 100% Cherokee, yo. A hunnerd percent. I used to stay over at her house when my mom was drunk, we got that alcohol gene, you know? My Cherokee Grandma, her name was English House Sparrow, she used to get up in the morning and fix me some Indian Fry Bread [french toast, actually. Editor]. You ever have Indian fry bread? Are you Indian? A lotta black people got Indian blood and they don’t know it. I like to tell ‘em because they don’t know. I know because I AM Indian. I seen some at the powwows. Either way, we’re brothers, yo. An’ we gotta stick together because crackers be fixin to bust our skulls.”

My Spanish percentage keeps going up (just 4%, but that's news to me), though my parents are at 0%.

Some woman submitted her dog's DNA to a pet site and was surprised her chihuahua mix came back as border collie and Labrador so she submitted her own DNA and found out she is a mix of poodle, boxer and beagle.

r178 is adopted.

Ha, no, R180, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary.

jajaja!

Has anyone taken uploaded their DNA to Geni for the world family tree thing?