heather_genealogy
Junior Member
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Location
- Paris, France
- Ethnic group
- English, Scottish, Irish, French and German
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- I-Z140
- mtDNA haplogroup
- H24
Hi there,
This is a message for those of you who are more scientifically inclined than me in the field of genetics/the trend of DNA testing to find out ethnicity. I'm interested in genealogy and I figured doing a few DNA tests could perhaps help me discover new information about my ancestors. I've done tests with FTDNA (1st test) and 23andme (2nd test), and recently I decided to upload my 23andme raw data to MyHeritage DNA.
To give you some background on me, my paper trail points to mostly British Isles ancestry (tipping slightly more towards Scottish background, although I've got a healthy chunk of English and Irish in there), but I have one great-great grandfather who was from the island of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France) and his background seems to have been "French" (as indicated by the surnames in his family and based on a newspaper article that indicates him as being of French descent, which he must've told the person who wrote the article). Family lore suggests that my Guernsey family previously hailed from Normandy (they were Protestants) going back prior to the 1600s. My Y-DNA haplogroup, which traces back to this same GG-grandfather, is I-Z140, which seems to be associated with Scandinavia, so I suppose my "French" origins may go back to Vikings that came from Scandinavia to Normandy, and later migrated to Guernsey because of religious persecution.
I also seem to have some German ancestry, although my paper trail is very spotty/unsure going back beyond 1841. Concerning that particular line, my grandfather claimed to have an ancestor that he described as being "Prussian Jew", but again, I haven't been able to go far enough back to confirm this. Lastly, there is also a possibility (based on family lore and my DNA test results) that I have a Native American ancestor, but my paper trail doesn't go far enough back for me to verify the existence of this ancestor.
So, here are my FTDNA results:
European: 97%, breaking down as:
West and Central European: 41%
British Isles: 29%
Scandinavia: 13%
Iberia: 9%
Southeast Europe: 5%
Trace results, breaking down as:
Finland: < 2%
North and Central America: < 1%
West Middle East: < 1%
My 23andme results (note that both of my parents have tested with this company, so these results reflect the phasing process):
British and Irish: 63.3%
French and German: 22.8%
Scandinavian: 0.3%
Broadly NW European: 13.1%
Broadly European: 0.2%
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0.3%
Congolese: 0.2%
Nigerian: 0.1%
East Asian & Native American: 0.1%
Broadly Chinese & Southeast Asian: 0.1%
Before the phasing process, I had a small percentage of Southern European ancestry (coming from my dad, it seems) and some trace Balkan ancestry...the East Asian & Native American only came after the phasing process, and interestingly, it says it comes from my dad's side (which makes sense based on family lore), but did not actually show up in my dad's results! I was surprised to see the African result, which seems to stick around when I change the confidence level to 90%, and this is also the case for my parents. No other test has shown any African ancestry for me, however...
Finally, here are my MyHeritage results (based on raw data from 23andme), which have confused matters more for me:
Europe: 100%
North and West Europe:
Irish, Scottish and Welsh: 38.9%
England: 30.8%
Scandinavian: 12.8%
East Europe: 15.9%
Ashkenazi Jewish: 1.6%
Taken together, I'm not sure how to interpret these results! Two companies claim I have some non-European origins (with FTDNA saying Native American and 23andme saying Chinese & Southeast Asian along with African, even at 90% confidence level) while one doesn't, and one company claims that I have a significant percentage of Eastern European ancestry and a small percentage of Ashkenazi ancestry, while the other two don't... I'm not sure what to believe. It's intriguing that MyHeritage suggests the possibility of Eastern European and Ashkenazi ancestry since my grandfather claimed to have had an ancestor who was from Prussia and Jewish, but the FTDNA and 23andme tests don't really reflect that (with the exception of the trace "Middle East" result from FTDNA, which I understood to be noise).
I don't know if it's significant, but among my 23andme "DNA family", 13% have Eastern European origins, 9% have African, 4% have Native American and 2% have Ashkenazi Jewish.
For now, I don't have the paper trail to back up such DNA test results, so I'm skeptical of what I see. It's intriguing, all the same. I'd be interested to hear how you would interpret these results/if you have experienced similar issues with your results!
Thanks in advance for your replies!
Heather
This is a message for those of you who are more scientifically inclined than me in the field of genetics/the trend of DNA testing to find out ethnicity. I'm interested in genealogy and I figured doing a few DNA tests could perhaps help me discover new information about my ancestors. I've done tests with FTDNA (1st test) and 23andme (2nd test), and recently I decided to upload my 23andme raw data to MyHeritage DNA.
To give you some background on me, my paper trail points to mostly British Isles ancestry (tipping slightly more towards Scottish background, although I've got a healthy chunk of English and Irish in there), but I have one great-great grandfather who was from the island of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France) and his background seems to have been "French" (as indicated by the surnames in his family and based on a newspaper article that indicates him as being of French descent, which he must've told the person who wrote the article). Family lore suggests that my Guernsey family previously hailed from Normandy (they were Protestants) going back prior to the 1600s. My Y-DNA haplogroup, which traces back to this same GG-grandfather, is I-Z140, which seems to be associated with Scandinavia, so I suppose my "French" origins may go back to Vikings that came from Scandinavia to Normandy, and later migrated to Guernsey because of religious persecution.
I also seem to have some German ancestry, although my paper trail is very spotty/unsure going back beyond 1841. Concerning that particular line, my grandfather claimed to have an ancestor that he described as being "Prussian Jew", but again, I haven't been able to go far enough back to confirm this. Lastly, there is also a possibility (based on family lore and my DNA test results) that I have a Native American ancestor, but my paper trail doesn't go far enough back for me to verify the existence of this ancestor.
So, here are my FTDNA results:
European: 97%, breaking down as:
West and Central European: 41%
British Isles: 29%
Scandinavia: 13%
Iberia: 9%
Southeast Europe: 5%
Trace results, breaking down as:
Finland: < 2%
North and Central America: < 1%
West Middle East: < 1%
My 23andme results (note that both of my parents have tested with this company, so these results reflect the phasing process):
British and Irish: 63.3%
French and German: 22.8%
Scandinavian: 0.3%
Broadly NW European: 13.1%
Broadly European: 0.2%
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0.3%
Congolese: 0.2%
Nigerian: 0.1%
East Asian & Native American: 0.1%
Broadly Chinese & Southeast Asian: 0.1%
Before the phasing process, I had a small percentage of Southern European ancestry (coming from my dad, it seems) and some trace Balkan ancestry...the East Asian & Native American only came after the phasing process, and interestingly, it says it comes from my dad's side (which makes sense based on family lore), but did not actually show up in my dad's results! I was surprised to see the African result, which seems to stick around when I change the confidence level to 90%, and this is also the case for my parents. No other test has shown any African ancestry for me, however...
Finally, here are my MyHeritage results (based on raw data from 23andme), which have confused matters more for me:
Europe: 100%
North and West Europe:
Irish, Scottish and Welsh: 38.9%
England: 30.8%
Scandinavian: 12.8%
East Europe: 15.9%
Ashkenazi Jewish: 1.6%
Taken together, I'm not sure how to interpret these results! Two companies claim I have some non-European origins (with FTDNA saying Native American and 23andme saying Chinese & Southeast Asian along with African, even at 90% confidence level) while one doesn't, and one company claims that I have a significant percentage of Eastern European ancestry and a small percentage of Ashkenazi ancestry, while the other two don't... I'm not sure what to believe. It's intriguing that MyHeritage suggests the possibility of Eastern European and Ashkenazi ancestry since my grandfather claimed to have had an ancestor who was from Prussia and Jewish, but the FTDNA and 23andme tests don't really reflect that (with the exception of the trace "Middle East" result from FTDNA, which I understood to be noise).
I don't know if it's significant, but among my 23andme "DNA family", 13% have Eastern European origins, 9% have African, 4% have Native American and 2% have Ashkenazi Jewish.
For now, I don't have the paper trail to back up such DNA test results, so I'm skeptical of what I see. It's intriguing, all the same. I'd be interested to hear how you would interpret these results/if you have experienced similar issues with your results!
Thanks in advance for your replies!
Heather