Hi! I was hoping that someone could please shed some light on whether or not my father's AncestryDNA results are indicative of our supposed Turkish ancestry? Long story short, there is a family legend that we are descended from a Turkish princess. I don't buy the princess part, but I always thought that the Turkish ancestry was legit. However, after digging into a family tree that I found on FamilySearch for that particular branch of the family, I can't seem to find anything showing that (although, there were branches I couldn't get past the early 1830s on.) And it may be on a different part of the family, but unfortunately, I can't ask my grandfather to clarify whether it was through his father or mother. With that being said, a few years ago my father and I did AncestryDNA. I should have asked this question a few years ago, but it didn't cross my mind until this just recently that this may be a good place to ask my own questions. The results I am about to show below are from December 2016, but I figured that they are still decently good. For context, my father is of Scottish, colonial American, Irish (most likely around Cork based off his grandmother's surname before she was adopted,) and possibly Turkish on his father's side, and on his mother's side- his grandfather was from Devon, England, and grandmother from Roscommon, Ireland.
Results:
Ireland & Scotland- 74% (Range: 56%-86%)
England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe- 10% (Range: 0%-28%)
Scandinavia- 8% (Range: 0%-19%)
Europe West- 3% (Range: 0%-12%)
Europe South- 2% (Range: 0%-7%)
Middle East- <1% (Range: 0%-4%)
Iberian Peninsula- 1% (Range: 0%-4%)
Caucasus- <1% (Range: 0%-2%)
Also, under other regions tested, he did have a 0%-1% Central Asian show up that wasn't on his report.
When AncestryDNA updated in 2018, his results changed to just Ireland & Scotland at 72% and England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe at 28% (I remember this was the update that everyone complained about how known chunks of their ancestry were missing.)
In 2019, his results were Ireland & Scotland at 73%, England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe at 26%, and European Jewish at 1%.
We deactivated our accounts after that, so unfortunately I don't know how it would look now.
I also played around a bit with GEDMatch- on mixed mode populations, he would generally get a combination of a British Isle population + a Caucasian or Middle Eastern population, and on the Oracle-4s, he would sometimes get either a southern European or a Balkan population in addition to the other three being from the British Isles. However, after looking at some other people's GEDMatch results from the British Isles and Ireland, it doesn't seem to be uncommon for some people to get a Caucasian population in their mixed mode calculations (although, after comparing on Vahaduo, they generally seem to shift towards South Asia, whereas my father's and mine results still stay around the Black Sea coast.)
For reference as well, my dad's Eurogenes K13 breaks down as the below:
North Atlantic: 50.12%
Baltic: 21.16%
West Med: 14.42%
West Asian: 8.03%
East Med: 4.05%
East Asian: 0.88%
Amerindian: 0.70%
Siberian: 0.35%
Oceanian: 0.29%
We also did DNA Land, My True Ancestry, and FamilyTree DNA, and none of those provided any results that wouldn't be common outside of the British Isles, with the exception of the very random <1% Magyar result on FamilyTree DNA. However, I wouldn't trust any of those from what I've read.
My questions are, would you think that my father's results would prove our supposed Turkish ancestry? I know I'm working with an old dataset, but I don't think I've seen primarily British people getting Middle East or Caucasian on their results, and I don't really think that it would be that erroneous and inaccurate to show Middle Eastern and Caucasian, even with a lot less reference populations than there are today. Also, do you think that the European Jewish could be a proxy for the Turkish ancestry? I may be over-simplifying it, or misunderstanding it in general, but from I gather, Jews are a mix of southern European and Middle Eastern, which is similar to how Turks are. And I don't know anything about any Jewish ancestry on his side at all. I can provide some more GEDMatch results as well to help. Thanks for your assistance!
Results:
Ireland & Scotland- 74% (Range: 56%-86%)
England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe- 10% (Range: 0%-28%)
Scandinavia- 8% (Range: 0%-19%)
Europe West- 3% (Range: 0%-12%)
Europe South- 2% (Range: 0%-7%)
Middle East- <1% (Range: 0%-4%)
Iberian Peninsula- 1% (Range: 0%-4%)
Caucasus- <1% (Range: 0%-2%)
Also, under other regions tested, he did have a 0%-1% Central Asian show up that wasn't on his report.
When AncestryDNA updated in 2018, his results changed to just Ireland & Scotland at 72% and England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe at 28% (I remember this was the update that everyone complained about how known chunks of their ancestry were missing.)
In 2019, his results were Ireland & Scotland at 73%, England, Wales, & Northwestern Europe at 26%, and European Jewish at 1%.
We deactivated our accounts after that, so unfortunately I don't know how it would look now.
I also played around a bit with GEDMatch- on mixed mode populations, he would generally get a combination of a British Isle population + a Caucasian or Middle Eastern population, and on the Oracle-4s, he would sometimes get either a southern European or a Balkan population in addition to the other three being from the British Isles. However, after looking at some other people's GEDMatch results from the British Isles and Ireland, it doesn't seem to be uncommon for some people to get a Caucasian population in their mixed mode calculations (although, after comparing on Vahaduo, they generally seem to shift towards South Asia, whereas my father's and mine results still stay around the Black Sea coast.)
For reference as well, my dad's Eurogenes K13 breaks down as the below:
North Atlantic: 50.12%
Baltic: 21.16%
West Med: 14.42%
West Asian: 8.03%
East Med: 4.05%
East Asian: 0.88%
Amerindian: 0.70%
Siberian: 0.35%
Oceanian: 0.29%
We also did DNA Land, My True Ancestry, and FamilyTree DNA, and none of those provided any results that wouldn't be common outside of the British Isles, with the exception of the very random <1% Magyar result on FamilyTree DNA. However, I wouldn't trust any of those from what I've read.
My questions are, would you think that my father's results would prove our supposed Turkish ancestry? I know I'm working with an old dataset, but I don't think I've seen primarily British people getting Middle East or Caucasian on their results, and I don't really think that it would be that erroneous and inaccurate to show Middle Eastern and Caucasian, even with a lot less reference populations than there are today. Also, do you think that the European Jewish could be a proxy for the Turkish ancestry? I may be over-simplifying it, or misunderstanding it in general, but from I gather, Jews are a mix of southern European and Middle Eastern, which is similar to how Turks are. And I don't know anything about any Jewish ancestry on his side at all. I can provide some more GEDMatch results as well to help. Thanks for your assistance!
