Taken aback by DNA results!

[DianaCanada]

A couple of years ago I had my brother's DNA done by NatGeo but decided to try mine with Anc* as well as my husband's. His result was pretty much as expected, he is half Scandinavian and then a lot of English with some Irish and traces of Belgian/Germans (Loyalists). The proportions in his results seemed to be accurate.
Now mine! I have never known the identity of my mother's father so when I saw 25% Irish I was thrilled, as this seems to isolate his genetic line (dunno how he ended up in rural Sussex in the 1920's but maybe my grandmother was in a larger place when she met him as she worked as a maid).
What surprised me was the rest - only 5% British (17% Scandinavian which I assume is from Viking settlers, 34% Western European, 8% Iberian which I assume was from the Celtic movement north). But 5% British??! Most natives to the region average at 60%, according to Anc. My parents were both born in England and other than the unknown grandfather, everyone else seems to be English, with perhaps 1 Irish and 1 Scot about 6 generations back.
Anyone have a result like this for a predominantly English (well, 75%) background?

[Ladkyis]

The Western European can also descend from Jewish heritage. The Sephardic Jews came from Spain and Portugal. I think that you are probably average for someone with your background.
I wonder what is meant by 5% British. Does this mean Saxon? or Anglo-Saxon or are we talking pre-history here because British surely means a mixture of every "immigrant" that ever stepped onto these shores

[mikejee]

Personally I think of the DNA results that firms promote are somewhat the product of snake oil salesmen. they claim to be informative , but mean little other than profits for the firm supplying them

[thewideeyedowl]

I suggest that you take the results with a large pinch of salt and a good measure of scepticism.

If you browse the DNA forum, you will find several very informative posts, lurking in several threads, that will help you to understand the problems caused by 'Ethnicity' results; in particular, look for the posts made by Guy Etchells and Lesley Robinson. They both know what they are talking about and have helped many people.

I myself have not done DNA testing, nor do I intend to go along that path. I believe that DNA testing started in the USA (an 'immigrant' country, with people understandably searching for their roots). In my view it is now "Over-hyped and over here" - remember what they said about American GIs in the UK in WW2? ("Oversexed and over here"!)

Please please search out all the informative posts on the subject within existing forum threads. There's lots there already, and the dedicated DNA forum has only been going since the spring.

Swooping off.

Owl

[DianaCanada]

Thank you all for your responses. I too believe that there are questions raised by the DNA tests. Ancestry supplies "contacts" and I was pleased to find in my contacts several family lines I have researched and belong to (and since I found relatives in my father's direct paternal line, at least I know I am is daughter ). I do wish they would leave "Great Britain" out of the picture and limit it to Western Europe, Scandinavia, and Iberian peninsula, because that would take care of the Saxons, Angles, French, Vikings and Celts pretty much...am not sure what Great Britain is supposed to cover anyway in the minds of the people at Anc*DNA.

Since my maternal grandfather was unknown, that 25% Irish might just be right. I did know beforehand 25% of my ancestry is unknown.
My brother has volunteered to do the test, interesting to see if it turned out to be pretty much the same (I know there are some differences between siblings).

Another interesting note, my great grandfather (same maternal line) was born out of wedlock, father unknown. One of the close contacts I was sent showed four sets of the subscriber's great grandparents. They have nothing to do with the maternal side (mine) that I do know, and in some cases go back even farther than those. A couple of the them live right where he would have been conceived. He was born 9 months after the 1861 census and his mother was in service in Warbleton, Sussex.

[kevininlondon]

Henry Gates puts it well, it adds to the sweep of history and shows just what a ish mash of people we are. The problem has arisen because people went to America to recreate themselves and forget but now their grand children want to know who they are. Why DNA simple most of us are unable to go back more than 4 generations yes there are a few who say they know 80% of their ancestors going back 300 years.. scary because this is over 1000 people.
The bottom line is the genalogy companys had to up with something that kept people paying their subscriptions

So enjoy the dna game but just remember Dna does not have a name nor does it have a religeon

[Deeny]

Diana,

I suggest that you upload your raw DNA from Anc* to Gedmatch (for free!) which will give you many more cousin matches from the other DNA providers and also give you access to their "Admixture (heritage)" tool which seems to give a much fuller and more accurate picture of ancestral origins. Gedmatch is well worth doing and the upload process is explained in detail. Gedmatch also has a tutorial to help you get the best from the tools they provide.

Deeny

[DianaCanada]

Deeny, thank you for your encouraging words! I will definitely give that a try.

[jrobbo220]

Please forgive my ignorance as I am Australian. What is the difference between Western European,English and British?

[Lesley Robertson]

Welcome to the British Genealogy Forum jrobbo220.
The simple answer is that there is little difference, if any. There have been so many invasions, refugees and migrants that virtually anything can pop up. Yes, there may be a greater proportion of one gene or another, but nothing so definite as some of these companies claim. Even where an answer is pretty trustworthy, it can still be misleading - for example, my paternal family is all scottish, my mother's is almost entirely north European BUT my mitochondrial DNA would tell you that I'm from India, thanks to a 17th century slave...

Just the major difference between the results from the two companies is an indicator of their reliability. If I win the lottery, I'm going to send the same DNA to all of these companies and publish the comparison!

I suggest that you take a look at the reading material suggested here, and then put it one side for a while and use traditional genealogy to find out about the actual people in your tree... Why not tell us what you know about your missing grandfather (as long as he's dead of course) and let our brick wall demolishers have a go. DNA actually tells you very little!