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Originally Posted by bigbear99
It is ironic because the information you already knew is much more robust than the DNA data, which could be a complete artifice. For example, what if the report said your ancestors were germanic? Or from more southern Europe? That's where anglo-saxons came from if you go back far enough. Evidently the DNA company did not.
So DNA that tells you that your British ancestors were from Britain, just looking back a few generations, is useful?
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I have a lot of colonial branches so we're talking about more than just a few generations. Seeing that collectively, I have results in Great Britain, Scandinavia, West Europe, and Southern Europe/Italy-Greece is useful in confirming that it all lines up with my British, Norwegian, Swiss/German, and Italian ancestry, yes. What's really interesting is that I have no results in Ancestry.com's category for Ireland, which is consistent with the fact that all my "Irish" ancestors were actually Scot-Irish. It not always so conclusive since Ireland and Great Britain share so much DNA but for me, it was. On the other hand, my Great Britain, Scandinavian, and West Europe groups had radically different amounts across the three DNA companies, meaning they're all too similar to tell apart. That in itself is interesting, because it suggests my British ancestry is very Anglo-Saxon and Viking, not so much Celtic.
For my grandfather though, it's been sort of the opposite - he had some oddities in his ethnicity report (and in his DNA matches) that has lead me to dig deeper and have him take the Y-DNA test - I suspect my grandfather's father was not his biological father. The ethnicity report isn't conclusive on it's own, but when he has 10% Caucasus and no known ancestry in that region OR any neighboring regions (on paper, he is entirely German and Scots-Irish), and you combine that with no identifiable matches on his known father's side, and an old family rumor that his father was not his biological father, it is evidence that paying the much higher price for the Y-DNA test is worth it to get more conclusive answers.
I've never claimed the ethnicity reports should be taken literally, but they can be interesting and helpful.
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The other irony is that paper trails like yours are what allow DNA companies to identify markers that they say are British.
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I don't think they use white Americans for the sample groups.