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I think you are digging to deep into it lol. All it is really saying is that of the DNA analyzed for you, 20% of it resembles the DNA gathered for their British/Irish reference samples. I think they just throw out the 500 year number because it is probably too diluted to pick up DNA from an ancestor beyond that.
Oh good. I'll just leave it at that and not stress over it anymore. Okay, it's just really general and it shows where we originally came from a looooooooong time ago. They don't even offer their testing in the UK anyway so how could they find matches in the UK? They are only finding matches in the US who have some UK blood, but it's not the same as mine. The End. Thank you.
Oh good. I'll just leave it at that and not stress over it anymore. Okay, it's just really general and it shows where we originally came from a looooooooong time ago. They don't even offer their testing in the UK anyway so how could they find matches in the UK? They are only finding matches in the US who have some UK blood, but it's not the same as mine. The End. Thank you.
So it would probably benefit you to better understand autosomal dna and the different types of your DNA.
We all have 24 chromosomes:
22 = autosomoal, we inherit them roughly 50/50 from each parent
2 = sex chromosomes... Men have Y that they got usually as an exact copy of their father (and from father, and from his father, etc)... and an X they got from their mother which is usually an exact copy of their mothers (and her mothers, etc). Women instead of a Y chromosome get an X chromosome from each parent.
The X and Y chromosomes don't change very often. This allows you to look at markers in them that can date back thousands of years of your ancestry, though purely up your maternal and paternal lines (which means the "center" of your tree is not accounted for).
Your haplogroup is derived from those sex chromosomes. This means you can get a good guess of your ancestry up those individual lines of your ancestry. This gives you a very deep and long history of a very limited amount of your ancestors, though ones you inherited nearly an entire chromosome from.
The key is to think of haplogroup in a big range of ancestry, hundreds to thousands of years... far beyond who even your great great grandparent was.
If it inherited down equaly then that would mean you have roughly only about 3% of DNA from each 3x great grandparent. It dimishes beyond that to less than 1% beyond 5x.
It doesn't inherit equally. For example you have roughly 50% of your autosomal DNA from your mother. Which 50% of her DNA did you get? That means you don't have about 50% of her DNA. That also means that she didn't inherit 50% of her parents DNA each either. This half that you inherit is more or less "random"... Mostly in that we don't know how it passes down, but it isn't equal to each ancestor.
For example though the average DNA from a 3X great grandparent is 3%... you may actually have 0% from that 3x great grandparent, or maybe even 12%. Since each generation it passed down randomly.
That's why they say your autosomal DNA results represent your last "500 years"... They basically picked an arbitrary number. You have DNA from some ancestors 500 years ago, but you also don't have DNA from some that existed 200 years ago.
They then take your autosomal DNA and look for markers... they then compare these markers and the patterns of markers to other ethnicities. Often they try to compare them to other living people in those regions with a long ancestry there.
For example if they compare you to an Irish persons DNA they'll find someone who lives in Ireland with all 4 grandparents being born in Ireland and having a strong lineage there.
This gives them a good "guess" as to the DNA makeup of people in Ireland for the past 100-200 years or so.
So when they guess your DNA ethnicity, it is purely that, a statistical and data comparison with a "most likely" guess of your DNA.
This can produce false positives. For example Family Tree DNA often pegs a lot of Americans as "Orcadian". Orkney is a small island off the norther coast of Scotland. It probably does this since those people have a higher percentage of Scandinavian blood than the rest of Britain and Ireland, so an American that has possibly a lot of Irish + English, with maybe a bit more Scandinavian with some immigrant ancestors in the last 200 years or so will "look" like an Orcadian. That doesn't mean they should really start thinking they had any ancestors on the small Orkney island.
You also have to keep in mind that they use DNA samples of living people, those they try and identify as having a long ancestry in the region... but an Irish person 100-200 years ago probably has a bit different DNA than say 500 years ago. This varies by region, some regions have a lot more intermixing with other genetic data. This makes certain places a bit easier to narrow down, while other regions are very hard to guess.
So it would probably benefit you to better understand autosomal dna and the different types of your DNA.
snip for brevity.
At first I didn't think I wanted to know but this makes it clearer. It's pretty random and a lot of averaging goes into it--and guessing. Just a general idea. Thank you.
We all have 24 chromosomes:
22 = autosomoal, we inherit them roughly 50/50 from each parent
2 = sex chromosomes... Men have Y that they got usually as an exact copy of their father (and from father, and from his father, etc)... and an X they got from their mother which is usually an exact copy of their mothers (and her mothers, etc). Women instead of a Y chromosome get an X chromosome from each parent.
The X and Y chromosomes don't change very often. This allows you to look at markers in them that can date back thousands of years of your ancestry, though purely up your maternal and paternal lines (which means the "center" of your tree is not accounted for).
Your haplogroup is derived from those sex chromosomes. This means you can get a good guess of your ancestry up those individual lines of your ancestry. This gives you a very deep and long history of a very limited amount of your ancestors, though ones you inherited nearly an entire chromosome from.
Although I agree with the gist of your post, this part about the sex chromosomes is not accurate.
The Y chromosome is inherited intact from father to son, as you describe, but it is not always an exact copy, since mutations do happen.* Men also inherit the X chromosome from their mothers, though again it is subject to mutation and may not be exact. A male has two haplotypes determined, including one from his Y DNA. More about the second below.
However, the two X chromosomes behave like autosomes during the process of meiosis in a female. They undergo a process called crossing over, or recombination. The two X chromosomes exchange small bits of DNA, so the female offspring's two X chromosomes both contain DNA from each parent. The degree of recombination is a bit less than that undergone by the autosomal chromosomes but it is not zero. A woman does not have one X identical to her father's and one identical to her mother's. It might be possible for there to be no recombination between the two X chromosomes, but that is probably pretty rare. The X, therefore, does not give deep ancestry.
Both males and females also have a haplotype from mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria have their own petite little chromosome: Mitochondrial DNA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .That chromosome has nothing to do with the sex chromosomes, however it is inherited intact from a person's mother. That means both males and females have mitochondrial DNA that does give the deep female ancestry. It just does not come from the X chromosome.
*Just as a side note, the X and Y in a male do undergo recombination, but it is very limited. There is actually a gene that determines whether an embryo will be male or female. If the X and Y do recombine in such a way that that particular gene is transferred to an X from a Y, it is possible to get a male body with two X chromosomes and a female body with an X and a Y.
Although I agree with the gist of your post, this part about the sex chromosomes is not accurate.
The Y chromosome is inherited intact from father to son, as you describe, but it is not always an exact copy, since mutations do happen.*
This is why I said "usually". Every once in a while it will in fact mutate and certain markers will mutate at more predictable rates etc.
Quote:
Men also inherit the X chromosome from their mothers, though again it is subject to mutation and may not be exact. A male has two haplotypes determined, including one from his Y DNA. More about the second below.
However, the two X chromosomes behave like autosomes during the process of meiosis in a female. They undergo a process called crossing over, or recombination. The two X chromosomes exchange small bits of DNA, so the female offspring's two X chromosomes both contain DNA from each parent. The degree of recombination is a bit less than that undergone by the autosomal chromosomes but it is not zero. A woman does not have one X identical to her father's and one identical to her mother's. It might be possible for there to be no recombination between the two X chromosomes, but that is probably pretty rare. The X, therefore, does not give deep ancestry.
Both males and females also have a haplotype from mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria have their own petite little chromosome: Mitochondrial DNA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .That chromosome has nothing to do with the sex chromosomes, however it is inherited intact from a person's mother. That means both males and females have mitochondrial DNA that does give the deep female ancestry. It just does not come from the X chromosome.
*Just as a side note, the X and Y in a male do undergo recombination, but it is very limited. There is actually a gene that determines whether an embryo will be male or female. If the X and Y do recombine in such a way that that particular gene is transferred to an X from a Y, it is possible to get a male body with two X chromosomes and a female body with an X and a Y.
I stand corrected. I was confusing X with mitochondrial DNA. Beyond that the further details of recombination I simply figured there was no need to dig that far into the details.
I think maybe they are talking about the haplogroup in general after reading this and seeing this map. This would be where most of this haplogroup was 500 years ago. Still, how does this apply to me? Very few of mine could have been living in Europe at that time. This would be my maternal side, right? Since I do not have a male relative that's all I can get, the maternal haplogroup. This does not represent any of my paternal side? My maternal side is practically proven to have been mostly in England 400 years ago and it seems far fetched that all of them hopped over the English channel in a matter of 100 years.
In_newengland, you stated that 23andme has you listed as 99% northern european yet only 20% british/irish in the Sub-Regional-Resolution feature however is that the ''Standard'' or ''Speculative'' listing in the Ancestry-Composition feature at the top of the page? If your 20% british/irish is from the ''Standard'' then click on the ''Speculative'' as that will change around the percentages and list more countries that your autosomal dna has in common with and so it ''might'' give you a better idea as to what part of northern europe you can identify with.
In_newengland, you stated that 23andme has you listed as 99% northern european yet only 20% british/irish in the Sub-Regional-Resolution feature however is that the ''Standard'' or ''Speculative'' listing in the Ancestry-Composition feature at the top of the page? If your 20% british/irish is from the ''Standard'' then click on the ''Speculative'' as that will change around the percentages and list more countries that your autosomal dna has in common with and so it ''might'' give you a better idea as to what part of northern europe you can identify with.
In standard it says 99.9% northern European, 0.1% unassigned. In speculative it says 99.9% northern European, >01% south Asian, 0.1% unassigned.
Pretty dull. One tiny bit of a fraction of a part of the world. There is that map and a list of the counties that the haplogroup comes from originally, like present day Finland, Germany, Turkey--all of Europe originally as they were migrating.
I'll take genetic diversity over national pride any day.
I wish I had some diversity. Not 99.9 northern European. I thought it would be about 85% British and then there'd be some Native American (family rumor) and maybe even Afro-American thrown in.
But this is all very general and only based upon the data base that 23andMe has built up so far.
Maybe my 0.1% unassigned, that turns to >0.1% Asian could be the native American.
My ancestry includes: Irish, English, German, Scandanavian, with a little Cherokee thrown in for good measure.
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I'll just leave it at that and not stress over it anymore. Okay, it's just really general and it shows where we originally came from a looooooooong time ago. They don't even offer their testing in the UK anyway so how could they find matches in the UK? They are only finding matches in the US who have some UK blood, but it's not the same as mine. The End. Thank you.
but this makes it clearer. It's pretty random and a lot of averaging goes into it--and guessing. Just a general idea. Thank you.