Mildly surprised by Ancestry DNA results...

[Chuck S]

I mean, there was nothing major...my parents were my parents and such, and I found a first cousin on my Dad's side. He died when I was 4, so didn't have contact with his side of the family. I contacted her she sent me pics of relatives. It was nice.

The surprise was my ethnicity. I always thought I was strongly of German heritage. Nope, only 20%. 54% UK, 20% German, 18% Swedish, 4% Norwegian, and 4% Finnish. Never knew there was Swedish in there, but that explains a lot. like my blond hair and blue eyes. when most of my family was slightly deeper skin toned and most had brown hair.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I wasn't surprised by my results. I was only slightly suprised by my husband and kids. My husband had always said his family was a true melting pot and the DNA tests defintely proved that. Quite the variety including indigenous DNA.

 

[kiddo76]

No surprises for me. I thought I was 75% Irish and 25% French Canadian. Ancestry has the split as 82%/18%, so pretty close.

 

[design_mom]

My mom did hers... She thought she was mostly German with German surnames going back on both sides of her family, maybe with a little French thrown in. One of my cousins claims to have traced their genealogy back to Germany. (Although, honestly, I'm not sure how much I'd put into this particular cousin's research skills.) Her ancestry results came back mostly England/Wales/Northwest Europe and Ireland/Scotland. Only 2% from Germanic Europe, France is not listed at all, unless it's grouped as part of Northwest Europe.

 

[mjkacmom]

I though I was half German, nope just about 10%. My FIL thought her was 100% Italian (only spoke Italian at home growing up) he’s half French. Ds21 just texted me asking why he’s not Italian (got a test for Christmas (FIL is 30% Italian). I am mostly English (instead of 1/4 irish and 1/4 Scottish, and my grandmother was born in scotland).

 

[JimMIA]

I did mine with LivingDNA and was surprised by a couple of things:

• One of the things they show is recent ancestry (for the last 300 years). Mine showed as all European (mostly English, Scottish, Irish but some Scandavian), but we have unbroken lineage going back to the early 1700's in the US. No mention of US. When I questioned that, they said "recent" actually meant 300-500 years.
• Then they updated their database and I am now 100% English, Scottish, Irish. The databases are constantly being updated by new customer DNA, so there probably will be changes as you go along.
• My wife had a similar result -- at first kind of all over the place, but then more Italian/Spanish/Portuguese. Her mother's side of the family is 100% Italian.

One of the difficulties for women is that you only get the maternal geneology because you don't have the dreaded Y chromosome.

 

[Praying Colonel]

I'd say mildly surprised. I was mainly Irish and British as I expected, but my 23 and Me results said I had 2.1% African ancestry. As time has gone on and they've refined their results, I'm down to 0.8%, but at the same time, I've gone from 0% Scandavian ancestry to 2.2%, and I've yet to find a Scandanavian ancestor. (Ancestry DNA has me with 0% African ancestry and 1% Scandanavian.) So I continue to be surprised.

 

[tvguy]

So, I have to ask, none of you were concerned that submitting your DNA could expose a family member as a criminal? We have several major cases here where police linked DNA information from the testing sites to relatives of those who submitted the DNA who committed crimes and left DNA behind.

 

[JimMIA]

So, I have to ask, none of you were concerned that submitting your DNA could expose a family member as a criminal? We have several major cases here where police linked DNA information from the testing sites to relatives of those who submitted the DNA who committed crimes and left DNA behind.

Not in the least, no...lol.

 

[tvguy]

Not in the least, no...lol.

It has certainly caused huge issues in some families.

 

[JimMIA]

I'd say mildly surprised. I was mainly Irish and British as I expected, but my 23 and Me results said I had 2.1% African ancestry. As time has gone on and they've refined their results, I'm down to 0.8%, but at the same time, I've gone from 0% Scandavian ancestry to 2.2%, and I've yet to find a Scandanavian ancestor. (Ancestry DNA has me with 0% African ancestry and 1% Scandanavian.) So I continue to be surprised.

Well, if you look at the history, some Scandavian ancestry for those of us who are mostly English/Scottish/Irish should not be a surprise. If you look at Scandanavian expansion to Iceland and Greenland (and eventually to North America), you pretty much can't get there without passing right by the UK.

 

[JimMIA]

It has certainly caused huge issues in some families.

I'm sure it has, but if one of my relatives got identified as committing some major crime from my DNA, that's their problem, not mine.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Well, if you look at the history, some Scandavian ancestry for those of us who are mostly English/Scottish/Irish should not be a surprise. If you look at Scandanavian expansion to Iceland and Greenland (and eventually to North America), you pretty much can't get there without passing right by the UK.

Yeah I thought about that but I thought it would be rolled into the British/Irish DNA results since that all happened 1100 years ago or so. But you may be right.

 

[Chuck S]

Why? If they committed the crime, and the DNA proves it, they should do the time. I have criminal cousins, none of them took the test, so they didn't match up....but still it is not your circus, it is theirs.

 

[jeff_h]

The surprise was my ethnicity. I always thought I was strongly of German heritage. Nope, only 20%. 54% UK, 20% German, 18% Swedish, 4% Norwegian, and 4% Finnish. Never knew there was Swedish in there, but that explains a lot. like my blond hair and blue eyes. when most of my family was slightly deeper skin toned and most had brown hair.

I had this same surprise when I had mine done in April 2018, thought I was Irish and German and yeah there was some of that but a lot of Scandanavian and even some Italian and Spanish, which was a real surprise.

Then in September 2018 I got another email from ancestry.com saying "here are your updated results" which then showed overwhelming Irish and German like my parents and grandparents had always said.

So I then wondered if the first set of results tends to have some additional groups in there as a marketing strategy from ancentry.com (or similar providers) to give the customer some surprising results and thus make them more likely to buy an enhanced website subscription in order to find out why.

 

[Praying Colonel]

So, I have to ask, none of you were concerned that submitting your DNA could expose a family member as a criminal? We have several major cases here where police linked DNA information from the testing sites to relatives of those who submitted the DNA who committed crimes and left DNA behind.

Nope. Not after we did away with...never mind.

 

[Chuck S]

I had this same surprise when I had mine done in April 2018, thought I was Irish and German and yeah there was some of that but a lot of Scandanavian and even some Italian and Spanish, which was a real surprise.

Then in September 2018 I got another email from ancestry.com saying "here are your updated results" which then showed overwhelming Irish and German like my parents and grandparents had always said.

So I then wondered if the first set of results tends to have some additional groups in there as a marketing strategy from ancentry.com (or similar providers) to give the customer some surprising results and thus make them more likely to buy an enhanced website subscription in order to find out why.

Possibly. I don't have a paid subscription, but I did find the Scandinavian connection through my father's side, using the non-paid info available. It's back a few generations, and the cousin I found knew about it. We look so much alike, we could be siblings.

 

[loves to dive]

Not as far as my own DNA results, it's funny that my brother's (full brother) results are different than mine. I know it's because he gets that male DNA that I don't get and my results are slightly different on another website then they are on Ancestry. I have had fun tracing all my family, found some really interesting things there. DNA has revealed two first cousins I was unaware of. One doesn't have a tree and the other has such a small one it's hard to tell how we are related. Of course, when you dig into them they both share DNA with each other as well. I've thought about contacting them to try to figure out who their parent is but don't want to cause any trouble for them. Say they are adopted and don't know it or if they thought their father was someone else. I know all my uncles and aunts and thought I knew all my cousins but do have one uncle that traveled a lot and I know he had a number of wives, we just didn't know how many or who they were. One son of his managed to trace our grandmother and got in touch with her before she died so we met him. He had our same last name though so that was easy. I also have a third cousin who is showing his father as unknown. I know who it was because my Granny told me years ago but again don't want to contact him because, well let's just say his parents weren't married and his father is related to him in other ways. Oh what a tangled web. I've also found both sides of my family were distantly related many times over and my honey and I are as well. I guess you can't be from the south and your family be part of the first settlers in Virginia without being related. There were only so many of them so cousins married cousins, etc.

 

[JimMIA]

Not as far as my own DNA results, it's funny that my brother's (full brother) results are different than mine. I know it's because he gets that male DNA that I don't get

We each get half our DNA from our father and half from our mother -- but the DNA we get is random. In other words, you got different DNA from the same parents than your brother did. That's why siblings, even twins, look different.

and my results are slightly different on another website then they are on Ancestry.

I believe that is caused by the databases the company is comparing against. As the databases grow, the results theoretically get more accurate, and will change over time.

 

[fla4fun]

So, I have to ask, none of you were concerned that submitting your DNA could expose a family member as a criminal? We have several major cases here where police linked DNA information from the testing sites to relatives of those who submitted the DNA who committed crimes and left DNA behind.

Yes, that’s why I won’t take a DNA test. I don’t know of any criminals in the family but don’t need the police waking me up at midnight trying to locate some third cousin four times removed because they murdered their spouse.