General Chat

Mr Owl and I are both really interested in having dna tests done. What companies have others used and what type of things might they show? My ancestors moved a lot for work so it would be interesting to see how many of places they lived left genetic markers.

I’ve done a test with Ancestry and also uploaded the results to My Heritage.
They both give you shared matches and how closely you match. They both show where most people share your dnacome from but it covers wide areas ( such as southern England) both companies have given me very different results.

I also did a seperate test with Living DNA because they break the results down into smaller areas which is quite interesting. They also now give you shared matches but my best matches have been with Ancestry. The other two give me matches that are far too distant in time.

In a way it is a bit like those Ancestry adverts that mak e people believe you just type in a name and it all falls into place.

Thank you. I’ll have a look at them. My ancestry includes Northern Ireland, Dublin, Cornwall, The Valleys of South Wales, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire in Southern England, Whitehaven, St Bees and Wasdalehead in northern England and both the east and west coast of Scotland.

What are you hoping to find, tawny?

The test basically tells you the areas where your DNA matches best, plus matches with other people who have had a test and share some of those areas.

OH and I had ours tested with My Heritage, mainly because it was a black Friday offer..... and I downloaded it to a couple of other sites too, but not Anc because they don't accept others.

The results can be interesting, mainly because you don't know how far back the link is. So despite a large number of my ancestors coming from the north side of Morecambe Bay, my largest ancestry is Western European, which is France/Germany/Benelux countries. (Normans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings?)
My results don't split the areas any more than this.

OH's mother was descended from 2 Scottish families, but he has zero scottish DNA.

Re matches, I've found some new ones, extra to the family tree matches that we find on normal FH sites, but also have DNA matches with people I already matched trees with.
I have found though that very few people put enough family tree on the DNA sites to be able to identify a match. But as with FH site tree matches, new folk are joining in all the time.

Interesting what you said about Scottish ancestry on MH. I know of someone with strong Scottish ancestry but MH says she has no Scots.

I am mostly British on Ancestry, totally British on Living dna and not very British on MH.

I have 14% Scots, but I do have a FH line from Scotland. I have no English DNA at all, zilch. All the rest is Western European, apart from 1.1%, that is Nigerian....don't know where that comes in!

OH is mostly English, the Scottish families came to Yorkshire about 4 generations back, and he has a lot of Yorkshire. Also matches with Yorkshire folk.

...but isn't 'British' a mixture?
On MH, Scottish would probably come under 'Celtic', even though the Celts of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall have different Celtic genes.

This is an interesting analysis (BBC site)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764

What shouldn't be forgotten, is people move - but DNA stays the same - although it can be spread differently in family members!
I'm 40 odd% Northern European, 40 odd% Celtic and 9.6% Iberian.
Where did the Iberian come from? I haven't found any Iberian type people so far - Cornish, Suffolk and Hampshire - yes, and a 'Doutch' which indicates a Huguenot weaver years back - but that would be the Northern European DNA
Well, one of my g grans was born in Hampshire - as was her father, mother, and Grandparents - but they were from the New Forest, and are actually from a Romany family - very difficult to trace - but could that be where the Iberian comes from?

My sister is similar, with 3% Iberian. Her son is Northern European, Celtic - and Roman! Yet his father was Irish, his grandparents were Murphy's and Kelly's from Dublin - but there have been Italians migrating to Northern Ireland since the 18th Century, and my nephew's grandparents move to England in the late 1940's, so people move around, but, as I say, DNA only changes with marriage and children - and sometimes, not a lot!

I'd love my children to take a DNA test - and their father.
It transpires, his grandmother was also a member of a New Forest Gypsy family'
According to the censuses my great gran, and his gran worked at the same Farmhouse in Sway - but at different times - 10 years apart,
How close are we, DNA-wise?

What is even weirder, both ex and I are from Service families, so moved around a lot. We both ended up living in the New Forest, but never knew each other (different schools), we only met because his mother died, he came back from Cyprus (he was in the RAF) and his best mate at school was the bloke my sister was dating (they later married, as did ex and I)!

The Iberians are the Spanish and Portuguese. During the initial 'migrations', those people travelled along the Atlantic coast to Britain, so their markers are found in what we now call 'Celts'. So Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, plus Ireland and Scotland. That is why you get Welsh people with swarthy skin and black curly hair

I've dug out my files. I am using 'British' in the pre 1920's sense.

Ancestry: England & N W Europe 59% Ireland 13% Scotland 12% (????)
Wales 9% (????) Then too low to be of any account are Norway 3, France 2, European Jewish 2

Using the same test uploaded to My Heritage :English 38%, Iberian 22.5% (?????)
North & West Europe 18.3% Scandinavian 14.4% (???) then too low - Ashkenazi Jewish 3.2 & Irish, Scots, Welsh 3.2

Interestingly I am in contact with someone where we have a 20 cm match on Ancestry - both of us uploaded to MH where we have a 40 cm match.

On Living DNA I am completely 100% British but with NO Scots & NO Northern Irish

Sometimes I think I am more than one person !!

They'd have gone a helluva long way around if they'd travelled via the Pacific, GF!

:-0 :-D

Some travellers just have no sense of direction. :-D

Sorry, it's a bit early for me. Atlantic, of course! Have made a correction.

Is that a pic of you in the purple robe, GF, or one of your rellies? :-)

I'm asking because it looks familiar, by the way.

I have had Ancestry and LivingDNA Tests done and out of the two I prefer Ancestry :-)

Ancestry included areas for my Acadian ancestry whereas there is nothing on LivingDNA! Whereas I appreciate that originally the Acadians came mainly from France, Ireland and Scotland they had been settled in areas of Canada for at least three centuries! I suppose at the end of the day Ancestry must have the bigger database to match and link DNA :-)

I have found two first cousins, one we knew existed but had no idea where or when she was born only a name and the other was a completely new first cousin that nobody knew existed! :-0

My breakdown follows for both Tests

Ancestry:

28% Ireland
28% England & Northwestern Europe
24% Scotland
13% France
5% Norway
2% Germanic Europe

LivinDNA:

52% England
41.5% Ireland
5.5% Wales
1% Northern Ireland & Southwest Scotland

LivingDNA breaks down the English part into Counties although there are Counties listed that I am not aware of having any association with :-0

I bet Tawny is beginning to wish she never asked. Whatever you do do, Tawny, wait for an offer before making the jump.

I like Living dna because it does break thing down to smaller areas. Except they make East Anglia my strongest ‘county’. Ancestry give mr central southern England as my strongest Area and I mostly agree with that.

MH I just don,t understand unless they have put the Channel Islands into Iberia.
I have lots of close matches on Ancestry and only one on MH. There is one close match on Livingdna who is also on Ancestry. Otherwise MH and Living dna jumps to matches around 4th 5th cousins who I can’t work out.

Among other information, my Ancestry DNA results' breakdown show that North Cheshire/South Lancashire/Merseyside is my strongest area which was not unexpected at all.

I knew many of my DNA matches on Ancestry already.

As I was a little dubious about DNA matches, I opened an Ancestry tree specially to receive my DNA results and I put no information on the tree initially - simply putting 'Father', 'Mother' and 'Grandparents' so any matches would be purely on DNA results.

Once I saw matches that I already knew, I began to add a little more information to that tree, knowing that matches were purely on DNA - I am a bit of a doubting Thomas even though I would expect there to be no fraud connected with the process at all ..... but, better safe than sorry!

Because I pay nothing, my own Ancestry site is only used for DNA information, matches and for contacting the people who match with my DNA.

I use my OH's site to search for everything else and that is where I enter updates on my tree.

I agree with names, wait for an offer from a specialist site - my OH and I took advantage of the Ancestry special offer.

JL, that is me in the purple Freemans robe. Not mine, it belongs to my brother, for the use of the 4 Freemen in the family.

You can upload most DNA results to the MyTrueAncestry site which matches it against DNA from ancient sites. The basic match is free but you have to pay for more detailed analysis.

My best match there us Visigoth+Celt. followed by Viking (Danish)+Frank

My OH showed 17% Scottish on Ancestry but having traced her maternal ancestors back for c. 300 years on all lines there are no Scots to be seen.

Her paternal grandfather is unknown so maybe it's in there somewhere.