Surprised by AncestryDNA results (germanic, natives, search, percentage)
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A late uncle, a cousin and I have mapped a lot of the family tree. We've gone back several hundred years on our common grandparents' side and expected the profile to be mostly German, English, Scottish, and Irish. My mother's family looks similar, though I have much less info. But my profile came back:
Estimated:
33% Western Europe
16% Scandinavian
15% Iberian Peninsula
12% Ireland
9% UK
8% Italy/Greece
3% Finnish/Russian
<1% Native Am
<1% Caucasus
<1% Melanesian
We know who the NA and Melanesian ancestors are, and had clues about some Scandinavians on Mom's side, but were surprised by the high %s and have no clue where the Iberian and Balkan area folks sneaked in.
I have been checking history of migration patterns but is there more I should consider?
A late uncle, a cousin and I have mapped a lot of the family tree. We've gone back several hundred years on our common grandparents' side and expected the profile to be mostly German, English, Scottish, and Irish. My mother's family looks similar, though I have much less info. But my profile came back:
Estimated:
33% Western Europe
16% Scandinavian
15% Iberian Peninsula
12% Ireland
9% UK
8% Italy/Greece
3% Finnish/Russian
<1% Native Am
<1% Caucasus
<1% Melanesian
We know who the NA and Melanesian ancestors are, and had clues about some Scandinavians on Mom's side, but were surprised by the high %s and have no clue where the Iberian and Balkan area folks sneaked in.
I have been checking history of migration patterns but is there more I should consider?
Yes it could be very deep ancestry that is thousands of years back.
Thanks. But Ancestry says they focus on recent ancestors--usually less than 1000 years--unlike other testing. We've traced a few of the lines back nearly that far.
Thanks. But Ancestry says they focus on recent ancestors--usually less than 1000 years--unlike other testing. We've traced a few of the lines back nearly that far.
All autosomal tests are the same in regards to "how far back they go". The autosomal DNA test is more recent than Y-DNA or mtDNA, especially in terms of the cousin matching. The ethnicity can be representative of, for example, the early Middle Ages - so yes, about 1000 years, give or take a bit, is about right. In comparison, Y-DNA and mtDNA goes back to prehistory. The suggestion that the autosomal test represents something thousands of years back is perhaps an exaggeration but the point was that it's probably representative of an ancestry that long pre-dates your research or the ability to research that far back. You've been able to trace back to nearly 1015 AD? That seems unlikely unless you have legit royalty or nobility in your tree. Regardless, you have not traced every line, let alone most lines back that far so you have no idea what they might contain.
I especially wouldn't think much of the Scandinavian results - they are particularly similar to British and Europe West categories, because these three groups were so intermixed in the early Middle Ages. The Scandinavians are descendants of Germanic tribes, and both the Germanic tribes and Scandinavians infiltrated Britain. In some cases, it can be impossible to tell the three groups apart genetically. I have 55% British results from AncestryDNA, and 0% British results from FTDNA. Why? Because FTDNA is putting all DNA from my British ancestors into Scandinavian and West/Central Europe instead. Given that FTDNA's British Isles category seems most representative of Celtic DNA, and I have less than 1% in AncestryDNA's Ireland category (which is basically their Celtic category), the two tests are actually saying the same thing: I have no Celtic ancestry, my British ancestry came from Vikings and Germanic tribes.
Take a look at the details of each category on AncestryDNA - note that they actually give you a percentage range, not just a hard number. This is because they run several different analyses and then average out the results to get the main percentage number... but the range tells you the lowest and highest numbers they had from their multiple analyses. I will bet that your possible range for Scandinavian and Iberian is within the trace amounts, maybe even at 0%? That means they may not be as significant as it initially appears. The percentages are very much an estimate and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Also look at the map for each region - note how there is a lot of overlap between the maps? The category for Great Britain covers areas of mainland Europe, the category for Scandinavia covers parts of Germany, and the UK, etc. The Iberian Peninsula especially covers a lot of Western Europe and the UK.
Additionally, look at where it shows "Other regions commonly seen in people native to this region" in each category details. The Iberian Peninsula shows that 38% of people native to the Iberian Peninsula also have some amount of results in the Great Britain Category. Equally, 24% of British natives have some results in Iberian. There is a theory that the Celts originated from the Iberian Peninsula - there are others who refute this theory, but the fact is that there is a strong genetic relation between the British category and the Iberian category, as proven by these stats. Note the other top results for regions commonly seen in British natives include Europe West and Scandinavia.
All autosomal tests are the same in regards to "how far back they go". The autosomal DNA test is more recent than Y-DNA or mtDNA, especially in terms of the cousin matching. The ethnicity can be representative of, for example, the early Middle Ages - so yes, about 1000 years, give or take a bit, is about right. In comparison, Y-DNA and mtDNA goes back to prehistory. The suggestion that the autosomal test represents something thousands of years back is perhaps an exaggeration but the point was that it's probably representative of an ancestry that long pre-dates your research or the ability to research that far back. You've been able to trace back to nearly 1015 AD? That seems unlikely unless you have legit royalty or nobility in your tree. Regardless, you have not traced every line, let alone most lines back that far so you have no idea what they might contain.
I especially wouldn't think much of the Scandinavian results - they are particularly similar to British and Europe West categories, because these three groups were so intermixed in the early Middle Ages. The Scandinavians are descendants of Germanic tribes, and both the Germanic tribes and Scandinavians infiltrated Britain. In some cases, it can be impossible to tell the three groups apart genetically. I have 55% British results from AncestryDNA, and 0% British results from FTDNA. Why? Because FTDNA is putting all DNA from my British ancestors into Scandinavian and West/Central Europe instead. Given that FTDNA's British Isles category seems most representative of Celtic DNA, and I have less than 1% in AncestryDNA's Ireland category (which is basically their Celtic category), the two tests are actually saying the same thing: I have no Celtic ancestry, my British ancestry came from Vikings and Germanic tribes.
Take a look at the details of each category on AncestryDNA - note that they actually give you a percentage range, not just a hard number. This is because they run several different analyses and then average out the results to get the main percentage number... but the range tells you the lowest and highest numbers they had from their multiple analyses. I will bet that your possible range for Scandinavian and Iberian is within the trace amounts, maybe even at 0%? That means they may not be as significant as it initially appears. The percentages are very much an estimate and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Also look at the map for each region - note how there is a lot of overlap between the maps? The category for Great Britain covers areas of mainland Europe, the category for Scandinavia covers parts of Germany, and the UK, etc. The Iberian Peninsula especially covers a lot of Western Europe and the UK.
Additionally, look at where it shows "Other regions commonly seen in people native to this region" in each category details. The Iberian Peninsula shows that 38% of people native to the Iberian Peninsula also have some amount of results in the Great Britain Category. Equally, 24% of British natives have some results in Iberian. There is a theory that the Celts originated from the Iberian Peninsula - there are others who refute this theory, but the fact is that there is a strong genetic relation between the British category and the Iberian category, as proven by these stats. Note the other top results for regions commonly seen in British natives include Europe West and Scandinavia.
Thanks very much for this detailed response. It almost seems as if, with the large ranges, overlap, and different approaches to grouping, etc., that separating the groups makes little sense.
With regard to your questioning the truthfulness of what I said about the tree, I guess it depends on how you interpret my "almost" and Ancestry's focus on "recent" ancestors going back "hundreds of years" up to a thousand. We have documentation to the 14th century (in Switzerland) on one line, and nearly that far on some others. So, to me, ~ 700 years seems to fall into the Ancestry range--without making any inferences about nobility. As I said in my earliest post, we do not have nearly this much information on many of the lines.
All autosomal tests are the same in regards to "how far back they go". The autosomal DNA test is more recent than Y-DNA or mtDNA, especially in terms of the cousin matching. The ethnicity can be representative of, for example, the early Middle Ages - so yes, about 1000 years, give or take a bit, is about right. In comparison, Y-DNA and mtDNA goes back to prehistory. The suggestion that the autosomal test represents something thousands of years back is perhaps an exaggeration but the point was that it's probably representative of an ancestry that long pre-dates your research or the ability to research that far back. You've been able to trace back to nearly 1015 AD? That seems unlikely unless you have legit royalty or nobility in your tree. Regardless, you have not traced every line, let alone most lines back that far so you have no idea what they might contain.
I especially wouldn't think much of the Scandinavian results - they are particularly similar to British and Europe West categories, because these three groups were so intermixed in the early Middle Ages. The Scandinavians are descendants of Germanic tribes, and both the Germanic tribes and Scandinavians infiltrated Britain. In some cases, it can be impossible to tell the three groups apart genetically. I have 55% British results from AncestryDNA, and 0% British results from FTDNA. Why? Because FTDNA is putting all DNA from my British ancestors into Scandinavian and West/Central Europe instead. Given that FTDNA's British Isles category seems most representative of Celtic DNA, and I have less than 1% in AncestryDNA's Ireland category (which is basically their Celtic category), the two tests are actually saying the same thing: I have no Celtic ancestry, my British ancestry came from Vikings and Germanic tribes. I seriously doubt Anctestry currently can distinguish very ancient vs more recent dna contributions to a given population.
Take a look at the details of each category on AncestryDNA - note that they actually give you a percentage range, not just a hard number. This is because they run several different analyses and then average out the results to get the main percentage number... but the range tells you the lowest and highest numbers they had from their multiple analyses. I will bet that your possible range for Scandinavian and Iberian is within the trace amounts, maybe even at 0%? That means they may not be as significant as it initially appears. The percentages are very much an estimate and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Also look at the map for each region - note how there is a lot of overlap between the maps? The category for Great Britain covers areas of mainland Europe, the category for Scandinavia covers parts of Germany, and the UK, etc. The Iberian Peninsula especially covers a lot of Western Europe and the UK.
Additionally, look at where it shows "Other regions commonly seen in people native to this region" in each category details. The Iberian Peninsula shows that 38% of people native to the Iberian Peninsula also have some amount of results in the Great Britain Category. Equally, 24% of British natives have some results in Iberian. There is a theory that the Celts originated from the Iberian Peninsula - there are others who refute this theory, but the fact is that there is a strong genetic relation between the British category and the Iberian category, as proven by these stats. Note the other top results for regions commonly seen in British natives include Europe West and Scandinavia.
Actually further back I'm pretty certain my myorigins results are picking up admixture more than 2,000 years ago. Iberians frequently get significant percentages of Scandinavian, British Isles and Western & Central Europe. The Celtic invasions from central Europe ocurred approx. 600 bc and the Suebic and Visogothic invasions 5th to 6th century ad these results are being picked up across the board.
Actually further back I'm pretty certain my myorigins results are picking up admixture more than 2,000 years ago. Iberians frequently get significant percentages of Scandinavian, British Isles and Western & Central Europe. The Celtic invasions from central Europe ocurred approx. 600 bc and the Suebic and Visogothic invasions 5th to 6th century ad these results are being picked up across the board.
The timeline is certainly not exact. My point was merely that the autosomal test does not represent prehistorical migrations like the y-DNA and mtDNA test do. But what it's actually representing is that certain regional groups are similar or the same genetically. The sample groups are from modern people, not from people thousands of years ago - so all it's really saying is "this part of your DNA is most similar to our samples from this region".
The timeline is certainly not exact. My point was merely that the autosomal test does not represent prehistorical migrations like the y-DNA and mtDNA test do. But what it's actually representing is that certain regional groups are similar or the same genetically. The sample groups are from modern people, not from people thousands of years ago - so all it's really saying is "this part of your DNA is most similar to our samples from this region".
Yes I agree although I don't think nearly enough samples are used for the reference populations and it would be nice to have a more robust numbers of samples from ancient remains to compare with.
A late uncle, a cousin and I have mapped a lot of the family tree. We've gone back several hundred years on our common grandparents' side and expected the profile to be mostly German, English, Scottish, and Irish. My mother's family looks similar, though I have much less info. But my profile came back:
Estimated:
33% Western Europe
16% Scandinavian
15% Iberian Peninsula
12% Ireland
9% UK
8% Italy/Greece
3% Finnish/Russian
<1% Native Am
<1% Caucasus
<1% Melanesian
We know who the NA and Melanesian ancestors are, and had clues about some Scandinavians on Mom's side, but were surprised by the high %s and have no clue where the Iberian and Balkan area folks sneaked in.
I have been checking history of migration patterns but is there more I should consider?
You have quite a varied ancestry but that is expected from an American. The Iberian and Italy/Greece is quite high for someone of your ancestry.
I've done Ancestry as well and here are my results to compare. I'm only of Irish ancestry though but it gives an idea. Not surprisingly Ireland is the major part of my results. The most interesting thing is the Europe East and European Jewish but I've tested at 23andMe and FTDNA and Ancestry is the only place this shows up.
Ancestry
Ireland 91%
Trace Regions 9%
Europe East 3%
Europe West 2%
Great Britain 2%
European Jewish 1%
Scandinavian 1%
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