Ancestry now splits your ethnicity between parents

[Margaret in Burton]

Originally Posted by ElizabethHerts

I wonder if he went into an orphanage?

I did contact Rotherham archives, where he says he was born. They checked workhouse records but they weren’t complete and nothing.

[Margaret in Burton]

Sorry, this is turning into another thread about PHH.

[HarrysMum]

Mine is completely weird. Parent 1 looks like my maternal grandmother and parent 2 looks like paternal grandmother. Although the German bit messes up that idea. I don’t see how they can work it out. The only matches from my father’s side are silly way back ones. 80% of my close matches are from my maternal grandfather.

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by HarrysMum

Mine is completely weird. Parent 1 looks like my maternal grandmother and parent 2 looks like paternal grandmother. Although the German bit messes up that idea. I don’t see how they can work it out. The only matches from my father’s side are silly way back ones. 80% of my close matches are from my maternal grandfather.

In theory, you could inherit all your DNA from two grandparents. It doesn't work like that in practice, but there seems to be far more of my grandfathers' DNA in the mix than my grandmothers'. We only inherit 50% of each parent's DNA. The other 50% is lost to our descendants.

Is 17% Scotland DNA a lot and would it mean that that Scottish connection/ancestor would be quite close? Or am I misunderstanding DNA distribution?

[kiterunner]

It should mean approx a great-grandparent, but I'm not sure that their Scottish estimates are very accurate yet.

[Phoenix]

I rather think that the parent giving me 13% Scottish is quite possibly Dad, and this should really be Irish. But I will say until I'm blue in the face, I have no Scottish names, nobody living above the Wash, nothing inconsistent with my paper trail. So if I share DNA with Scots, it has to be back a very VERY long time ago and not meaningful in family history terms.

[Margaret in Burton]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

I rather think that the parent giving me 13% Scottish is quite possibly Dad, and this should really be Irish. But I will say until I'm blue in the face, I have no Scottish names, nobody living above the Wash, nothing inconsistent with my paper trail. So if I share DNA with Scots, it has to be back a very VERY long time ago and not meaningful in family history terms.

My paper research is 100% English. In fact my very first ethnicity result confirmed that. Now I have Scottish, Irish, Swedish and Germanic Europe.

[Kit]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

It should mean approx a great-grandparent, but I'm not sure that their Scottish estimates are very accurate yet.

My Scottish ethnicity is strange. It was 10% and went down to 1%. My Irish has gone up from 5 to 10% and my Swedish/Denmark has totally gone.

It is likely my Scottish came from my paternal grandfather, rather than my paternal grandmother and I believe my Irish came from my maternal grandfather.

It is interesting to see how the DNA has travelled down. Now if only I could work out which parent is which for OH.

Originally Posted by Margaret in Burton

I can work out on my daughters results which is me and which is their dad by comparing it to mine. OH parent 1 and me parent 2. Don’t have a clue on mine.

Emma has 1% Greek or Albanian.

Originally Posted by Margaret in Burton

My daughters between then have Northern Italy, France and Albania or Greece. That adds up to 16%. Must be connected to their great grandfather Peter Henry Harrison. I recall my father in law telling me that when his dad worked down the pit they called him ‘the little Italian’. He hated it. I reckon there’s some truth in it with his ancestry.

That's interesting but has thrown up more mysteries for you.

Have they got any Irish?