Ancestry DNA Update

[Jovialis]

[Salento]

Alone, All by itself, :) I guess Salento is the Frontier, no Man’s Land, where West/East S. Europe meet.

Nobody gets Salento, not even the Salentini (me).

[Salento]

@Jovialis, thanks for sharing :)

[Auld Reekie]

I just received the Ancestry DNA update, looking for an opinion. My background on my father's side is German/British Isles and my mother's it is Italian from Campania/Molise/Lombardy. My previous results were closer to what I thought it should be where my Italy was at 36% and it assigned me to Italy South region. My mother also tested 100% Italy and is assigned Molise and Campania. Her results have changed also. My mother's isn't a drastic change. Her Balkans/Greece make sense being that 75% of her family is from south Italy and the French she gets I'm guessing is from her side in Lombardy. But mine? Almost all of my Italian has disappeared and has been absorbed to another population. I'm thinking because I'm from several populations it's hard to determine what I am confidently with their algorithm but also I've noticed companies do a really lousy job at assigning Italians genetic results (with FTDNA's 17% Sephardic). At least I still have my south Italy region. I would really like to know what people think. I am unable to post our previous results so I'm writing them here to compare with my updated results. My mother's results: 100% Italy, my results: Germanic Europe 39%, Italy 36%, England, Wales & NW Europe 17%, Ireland and Scotland 5%, Norway 3%. Here the updated results:
AncestryDNAStory-results-151119.jpgAncestryDNAStory-results2-151119.jpg

[Angela]

^^
When someone is really mixed it can indeed be difficult for these companies to get it right. It winds up that only people with all four grandparents from one place are correctly labeled, and they usually don't need a test to tell them their ancestry. :)

That said, companies should do a better job on people who have 50% ancestry from one place. That's one of the reasons I'm not fond of ancestry.com. It doesn't have a history of doing a good job for those people, in my experience. Have you done 23andme? The people I know who are half Italian, or at least half southern Italian, usually get decent results.

I think ancestry does a really bad job with Northern Italians/Tuscans in general. In my prior version they had me as 45% French and 55% Italian. That's obviously silly, since I know my ancestors have been in certain specific areas of Italy for at least 900-1000 years, and probably much longer than that. If I were adopted and didn't know my genealogy I could be thinking one of my parents was "actually" French.

Now it has changed. The French has gone down a bit and I gained maybe 5% Greece and Balkans. Still wrong, but whatever...

As you can see, this leaves far Northern Italy and Provence sort of in limbo, like, I might add, Normandy and Brittany and Picardy and Alsace in France as well.




When I look for more detail on my supposed "French" ancestry, this is what I see:




This time the quasi French ancestry takes in a piece of Switzerland, which makes sense, all of Northern Tuscany, and Catalonia as well.

Fwiw, I've been saying for years that I thought that there was a genetic link between Liguria (and northern coastal Toscana), the French Mediterranean Coast, and Catalonia. I've traveled that coast innumerable times, lived for a while in Barcelona, go to Provence every year, and see it in the food, the similarities when people speak in dialect, even in the "look" of the people. Now genetics seems to support that.

Perhaps it goes all the way back to Cardial, then to the Ligures, then the Romans/Greeks. I don't know, but it's there; slightly different proportions, but still there.

To call it "French" is a little much, though.

Interestingly, although ancestry sees me as part French, all my ged match calculator results see my closest populations after Northern Italy and Tuscany either as northern Balkans like the Bulgarians, or Spanish.

[Auld Reekie]

It's just weird though how it had me with higher Italy percentage before and then, poof, disappeared or absorbed into another. I see my Germanic has risen but could it have absorbed so much Italy? I think using national name references is a mistake because it can confuse people, maybe use only regional terms and share which country/countries they're found in and explain why they are connected for example Balkans and Greece being found in Italy. They should explain ancient connections and use ancient migration maps. There is also the pressure for companies I think to dumb-down their explanations for a wider audience and maybe they think, at least with Ancestry, that people only understand simple labels which is unfair if it's true.

Interesting what you said about Northern Tuscany, Liguria, the French Mediterranean and Catalonia. My wife is from North Sardinia which is where I live now and she says the same thing. Here in Sardinia, in the north coast of Gallura and Sassari were settled by Pisans and Genovese colonists. They left their mark everywhere, but especially the dialect, though I reckon that in Gallura it is more of a southern extension of Corsica which is dialect of Tuscan and Sassari is a heavy mix of the ancient dialect of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonian/Spanish plus Logudorese. The west coast also has a lot of Catalan influence as well, like Alghero. I can travel 15 minutes outside this "zone" to a Sardo speaking village and you can see the differences in their faces, especially in Barbagia. Or maybe I have been living here too long. I have a hunch that there was a major migration, or migrations of neolithic, copper and bronze age peoples who travelled from north Italy, some south to Tuscany, then hopscotched to Corsica and Sardiana, the others west through Liguria all the way to Catalonia. I personally think that one migration, maybe in the bronze age were the parents of the Nuragic people, first coming from the north of Italy, then colonised Corsica and then over into Gallura, then dispersed throughout the rest of the island. Then of course in the middle ages the same migration patterns persisted. I could go on and on about this. I'll try to discuss this more at length on a separate thread.

[Angela]

It's just weird though how it had me with higher Italy percentage before and then, poof, disappeared or absorbed into another. I see my Germanic has risen but could it have absorbed so much Italy? I think using national name references is a mistake because it can confuse people, maybe use only regional terms and share which country/countries they're found in and explain why they are connected for example Balkans and Greece being found in Italy. They should explain ancient connections and use ancient migration maps. There is also the pressure for companies I think to dumb-down their explanations for a wider audience and maybe they think, at least with Ancestry, that people only understand simple labels which is unfair if it's true.

Interesting what you said about Northern Tuscany, Liguria, the French Mediterranean and Catalonia. My wife is from North Sardinia which is where I live now and she says the same thing. Here in Sardinia, in the north coast of Gallura and Sassari were settled by Pisans and Genovese colonists. They left their mark everywhere, but especially the dialect, though I reckon that in Gallura it is more of a southern extension of Corsica which is dialect of Tuscan and Sassari is a heavy mix of the ancient dialect of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonian/Spanish plus Logudorese. The west coast also has a lot of Catalan influence as well, like Alghero. I can travel 15 minutes outside this "zone" to a Sardo speaking village and you can see the differences in their faces, especially in Barbagia. Or maybe I have been living here too long. I have a hunch that there was a major migration, or migrations of neolithic, copper and bronze age peoples who travelled from north Italy, some south to Tuscany, then hopscotched to Corsica and Sardiana, the others west through Liguria all the way to Catalonia. I personally think that one migration, maybe in the bronze age were the parents of the Nuragic people, first coming from the north of Italy, then colonised Corsica and then over into Gallura, then dispersed throughout the rest of the island. Then of course in the middle ages the same migration patterns persisted. I could go on and on about this. I'll try to discuss this more at length on a separate thread.

I completely agree.

They could include Corsica and that slice of northern Sardinia in that graphic of people who are similar.

You see the patterns, the similarities but also the differences precisely because you've lived there.

It's the kind of knowledge that people whose experience is a one week vacation to one or maybe two cities in Italy, where they have no idea anyway of the ancestry of the people they're seeing given the massive internal migrations, can never have.

That's why it's so amusing when they set themselves up as "experts". Some of them, indeed, have never been there at all.

Sardegna is where my Massa Carrara family go to escape the foreign tourists on the Riviera. :) It's so beautiful there, and more "authentic", providing you get away from the glitzy coastal resorts.

[Joey37]

This is mine; my German went up, which makes sense, since my paternal grandfather was half German, and my paternal grandmother about 3/16 to a quarter.Attachment 11584

[Salento]

On my iPhone, the Ancestry app messed up the spelling for Apulia.

... and I thought I was the only one who couldn’t spell around here! :)

[torzio]

On my iPhone, the Ancestry app messed up the spelling for Apulia.

... and I thought I was the only one who couldn’t spell around here! :)

latest......the more I look at it the more french I get .....gained 12% french and lost 6% italian.....


Ancestry is a lost cause

• Ethnicity Estimate
  
  You're viewing the latest update to your ethnicity estimate.
  Learn more about this update.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • France 47%
  • Italy 29%
    
  
  
• 
  
  • Northern Italy
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
• Germanic Europe 13%
• Greece & the Balkans 7%
• England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 2%
• Sardinia 2%

[srdceleva]

On my iPhone, the Ancestry app messed up the spelling for Apulia.

... and I thought I was the only one who couldn’t spell around here! :)

They didn't mess up the spelling they messed up the language Apulien is the region in German.

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk

[Salento]

They didn't mess up the spelling they messed up the language Apulien is the region in German.

Thanks, that may be so, but everything else is in English :)

[torzio]

Thanks, that may be so, but everything else is in English :)

your more Italian than I in Ancestry................i am just a snail muncher

[Salento]

your more Italian than I in Ancestry................i am just a snail muncher

Italy went from 79 to 75. They increased Greece and the Balkans and I lost Sardinia and Spain.

[TardisBlue]

your more Italian than I in Ancestry................i am just a snail muncher

I never understood that clich�. We don't eat more snails (or frog legs) than anybody (I personally hate them).

[Angela]

I never understood that clich�. We don't eat more snails (or frog legs) than anybody (I personally hate them).

Diaspora Italians, along with foreigners who come to Italy and eat only pizza and pasta, another cliche, don't have a full understanding of Italian culture or they'd know that we eat snails as well. So do the Spanish, and for all I know, others. I don't like them myself, even though Ancestry says I'm a mix of Italian and French. :) I like the sauce, but the snail itself has a peculiar flavor for me.

The Italian version:


I like the French version better if I have to eat them for politeness' sake, because I can just dunk bread in the sauce and disguise that I'm not eating the snails.

The Romans loved them, btw, so we can blame them. :)

https://carolashby.com/snails-cochleas/

"During the late Republic and the Empire, the Romans loved eating snails. Fluvius Hirpinus has been credited with making snails a popular dish shortly before the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey (49 BC). While the common people might eat snails gathered in a garden, the elite ate snails raised in special enclosures called choclearia and carefully fattened.Some were fattened with sapa, the honey-like liquid produced by boiling freshly pressed grape juice to reduce it to one third the original volume. The sapa was mixed with flour before feeding to the snails.
Others were fattened with milk, as in the following recipe from Apicius."

Truth be told, I'm sure they were eaten in all countries as a source of protein, before everyone got so squeamish. Some countries kept these old foods, probably because they knew how to make them palatable, like "tripa", cow intestines.:)

[davef]

I had snails and I loved them!!! Very fun to eat, we need these on the menu more often

[bigsnake49]

Salento, that's pretty good localization of your ancestry!

[bigsnake49]

Mine just got updated. Previous estimate:

Greece & the Balkans 62%
Eastern Europe & Russia 29%
Turkey and the Caucasus 6%
Italy 3%

The new estimate:
Greece & the Balkans 70%
Eastern Europe & Russia 25%
Turkey and the Caucasus 1%
Italy 2%
Baltics 1%
Malta 1%

The new estimate is almost the exact opposite of the Living DNA estimate which has Eastern Europe 70% and Aegean ancestry at 27%.

[Tutkun Arnaut]

Diaspora Italians, along with foreigners who come to Italy and eat only pizza and pasta, another cliche, don't have a full understanding of Italian culture or they'd know that we eat snails as well. So do the Spanish, and for all I know, others. I don't like them myself, even though Ancestry says I'm a mix of Italian and French. :) I like the sauce, but the snail itself has a peculiar flavor for me.

The Italian version:


I like the French version better if I have to eat them for politeness' sake, because I can just dunk bread in the sauce and disguise that I'm not eating the snails.

The Romans loved them, btw, so we can blame them. :)

https://carolashby.com/snails-cochleas/

"During the late Republic and the Empire, the Romans loved eating snails. Fluvius Hirpinus has been credited with making snails a popular dish shortly before the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey (49 BC). While the common people might eat snails gathered in a garden, the elite ate snails raised in special enclosures called choclearia and carefully fattened.Some were fattened with sapa, the honey-like liquid produced by boiling freshly pressed grape juice to reduce it to one third the original volume. The sapa was mixed with flour before feeding to the snails.
Others were fattened with milk, as in the following recipe from Apicius."

Truth be told, I'm sure they were eaten in all countries as a source of protein, before everyone got so squeamish. Some countries kept these old foods, probably because they knew how to make them palatable, like "tripa", cow intestines.:)

the only way I can try snails is for them to be chopped, so it would be hard to tell what is it, and very important, not to be told what I am eating. I tried once breaststroke, I throw the hell right on spot, spoiling the dinner of people who were eating that night.

[Jovialis]

I love snails, we go to pick them right out of the sea at the beach down in Florida. We bring them home, pull them out, clean them, and cook them in a red sauce on pasta.

[Salento]

Salento, that's pretty good localization of your ancestry!

Good Localization of my Ancestry? Almost! I'm OK with Puglia, but my roots are in the grayed out area.

Unless you're being sarcastic, lol


I compensate my sorrow with the joy of my “Deep Dive” Romans :)

[Angela]

Good Localization of my Ancestry? Almost! I'm from the grayed out area.

Unless you're being sarcastic, lol


I compensate my sorrow with the joy of my “Deep Dive” Romans :)

I've never understood why you're not in the Salento, or why it's greyed out, either.

On the other hand, I've never understood how they could have made me almost half French, no offense to the French.

[torzio]

Good Localization of my Ancestry? Almost! I'm OK with Puglia, but my roots are in the grayed out area.

Unless you're being sarcastic, lol


I compensate my sorrow with the joy of my “Deep Dive” Romans :)

Was not the dark area Doric lands before the eventual messapic/iapyges pushed them out ?

[Salento]

I've never understood why you're not in the Salento, or why it's greyed out, either.
On the other hand, I've never understood how they could have made me almost half French, no offense to the French.

I’m with the Italians:


Salento is in limbo, they don't assign it to anyone.

imho The oracle gets confused ’cause of the Italians, the Griko and Albanians all living in the same small area.