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  #1  
Old 13-12-20, 11:35
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Default Some DNA questions

Hi,
I have never really understood DNA and the ethnicity indicators, but have used it before to make links with other people and confirm relationships. I do understand they change sometimes

I have a couple of questions about my Dad/Grandmother's DNA results.

Dad's ethnicity is:
68% England and North Western Europe
16% Scotland
10% Wales
4% Norway
2% Sweden


Grandma's ethnicity estimate is:
68% England and North Western Europe
15% Scottish
15% Irish
2% Nigeria (this was originally Benin and Togo but changed after an update).


My question is around the differences - as my Grandma doesn't have any Welsh, Norwegian or Swedish DNA, I can assume they come from my Grandfather's side.

My Grandad didn't have any Welsh ancestry, but his GG Grandad was Irish, so my dad's ggg grandad was Irish, but there is no Irish DNA.

I think I read elsewhere that Irish/Welsh/Scottish DNA are all interchangeable - is this correct?

One other point that I find really interesting - the vast majority of my dad's matches are also matches with my grandma, meaning that there are very few people on my grandad's side who have their DNA on the system. I think the closest match that will be on there from Grandad's side is a fourth cousin to my dad.

And finally... the Nigerian DNA for my Grandma intrigues me. Her great grandmother was born in the Caribbean and as yet, I haven't been able to find out anything about her parents (other than that dad was in the army and I know mother's name). Do you think this is likely to be where the Nigerian DNA comes from and is a suggestion that her great grandmother was descended from slaves?

Thank you for looking!
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Old 13-12-20, 11:54
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Tom

I know less than most people about dna, lol, but the 2% Nigerian rings a bell. I remember reading a post somewhere from someone who was baffled about a 2% native american dna which had shown up. The answer was that he merely SHARED that 2% dna with a smallgroup of native americans and that the common ancestor was much further back and not necessarily native american.

Of course, you could be right and slavery could have been involved somewhere. I am dealing with that very thing at the moment, although in my case, the slave involved was given her freedom and property and her son was acknowledged by his father. We cannot change the past as muchas we would care to.

OC
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  #3  
Old 13-12-20, 16:20
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Ethnicity estimates aren't always very accurate, so I don't think you can be certain that the Welsh, Norwegian and Swedish come from your grandfather's side, but it seems most likely. I think they have managed to separate out Irish, Welsh and Scottish from each other more than they used to be able to. But of course there are a lot of Irish people descended from Scottish ancestors.

The Nigerian DNA could well come from the Caribbean line.
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Old 13-12-20, 20:26
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Thank you OC and Kate.

I’m still slightly confused by the lack of Irish on my dad’s side and really do need to do some more reading around it all.
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Old 13-12-20, 21:13
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Tom

My father was English, my mother was Scottish. DNA showed we are 50% English, 50% Irish! Unless my mother was a foundling it simply does not make sense, neither does a non parental event. So we concluded that Irish means Scottish in our case because all the research on the Scottish side, back to the mid 1600s shows Scottish births, marriages and deaths. Perhaps ALL my Scottish ancestors ultimately came from Ireland, who knows, certainly not me!

OC
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Old 13-12-20, 23:41
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Each update gives me a different marginal amount of DNA. It has been French, Swedish and now it is Welsh 2% The actual range may be 0-8%, so I am awaiting the next update.

I remain struggling with my Scottish DNA. I have no known scottish ancestors and only one illegitimacy nearly two hundred years ago. Yet cousin, with genuine Scottish ancestors, has 15% DNA compared with my 11%. If the labelling is correct (and it is probably based in part on Ancestry trees) then much of it must involve very very very distant ancestors.
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Old 14-12-20, 07:23
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i don't really have much faith in Ancestry ethnicity estimates, because that's all they are - estimates based on a reference panel of some 3000 people. These people are determined to live in the same place as their ancestors over many generations. Nothing to do with DNA matches or information in trees on-line.

I can trace my Dad's ancestors back to Somerset, Sussex, Hampshire/Berkshire, Surrey, Warwickshire/Shropshire and Norfolk. Nothing north of the Midlands, so I don't know where they get an estimate of 17% Scottish - perhaps a proportion of people who are part of the Scottish reference panel have DNA that originated further south ?

I can understand his small percentages of Wales (6%) via his Shropshire ancestors and the 4% Norwegian and 4% Swedish maybe from his Norfolk and Sussex lines.

Mum has an estimate of 39% Scottish, and some Germanic Europe which I cannot fathom. She has only one great-grandparent from Scotland and one from Ireland, so I would have thought that her Irish and Scottish percentages were about the same. The rest were from Manchester(3) Cambridgeshire (2) and Warwickshire/Bedfordshire (1). For someone with great grandparents from Cambridgshire, I would have expected at least a trace of Norwegian/Swedish.

Their 2 grand-daughters also have Ancestry DNA samples (but I dont) and again, their Scottish ancestry is particularly high (42% for one and 39% for the other). Their Irish is low at 2% and 5%. As I know their ancestry back at least 6 generations, I would have estimated the amounts of Irish and Scottish should be about the even, and more than the 10 and 6 % Welsh.

I think Ancestry has changed the reference panel, but I do know that their earlier estimates were more in line with my thinking coming via my research and knowledge of their family tree.
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Old 14-12-20, 07:42
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I'm on my third set of Ancestry ethnicity, I started of mainly English, some Scots and a bit of Swedish, then was 100% English, currently 77% English/NW Europe, 10% Welsh, 9% Scots and 4% Swedish so I tend to think of it as just an expensive parlour game.
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Old 18-12-20, 09:03
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Thank you all for your comments. So far, I haven't been overly impressed with anything that has come from the DNA matches.
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  #10  
Old 18-12-20, 09:51
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Tom

I think it's down to luck, mostly. I have seen some incredible results that would not have occurred through any other medium, but for me (well, my brother) it hasn't produced anything useful. Three matches with people we already knew about, one match with a womanwith 24,000 people in her rubbish tree. We could not find a common ancestor and frankly, I gave up trying because her tree was so inaccurate that I doubted the match was on there anyway.

But - you never know!

OC
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