Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The ethnicity reports are very much an estimate and should not be taken literally. Neighboring regions often share too much DNA to really tell apart with any accuracy, so it is possible for people to have documented Irish ancestry but their Irish DNA all shows up under Great Britain instead of Ireland. That's why Ancestry.com is the only company that even attempts to split Ireland and Great Britain. 23andMe and FTDNA both lump them together as an indistinguishable "British Isles" or "British & Irish".
Just to show you how much variation there is between the companies depending on sample groups and analysis, and just how much of an estimate it really is, these are my results from all three of the big companies. My documented ancestry is British (English and Scottish/Scots-Irish), German, Italian, and Norwegian. Notice with FTDNA, I have zero results in British Isles, despite at least about 1/3 of my tree being British and having significant results in the British categories from the other companies.
23andMe:
French & German 17.9%
British & Irish 17.2%
Scandinavian 4.8%
Broadly Northwestern European 23.4%
Italian 19.3%
Iberian 0.1%
Broadly Southern European 10.1%
Broadly European 6.9%
North Africa 0.1%
Unassigned 0.1%
Ancestry.com:
Africa North < 1%
Asia < 1%
Asia South < 1%
Great Britain 55%
Italy/Greece 31%
Europe West 5%
Scandinavia 2%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
Ireland < 1%
Caucasus 2%
Middle East 1%
FTDNA:
Scandinavia 34%
Western and Central Europe 26%
Southern Europe 20%
Finland and Northern Siberia 3%
Asia Minor 12%
Eastern Middle East 5%
This is why you really shouldn't take the ethnicity reports very literally. Just because you don't get results in a particular category doesn't necessarily mean you don't have recent ancestors from that area. If I had only tested with FTDNA and saw I had no results in the British Isles, it would have been very wrong of me to assume that meant I have no British ancestors, because I actually have many documented British ancestors.
Even looking at PA2UK's results they are really showing the same thing just the category names might be a bit different. They show someone who is half Northern European and half Southern European and this comes through in all 3 dna tests. Most of the UK ancestry looks more "Anglo-Saxon" shifted than more "Celtic". This is where the British & Irish (more Celtic) and Ireland (more Celtic) really differentiates not just literally "Ireland" or "Great Britain". Ancestry and 23andMe look like they incorporate some Middle Eastern in their southern European/Italy/Greece category whereas FTDNA appear to separate it more. I find the subject endlessly fascinating and it is a very interesting time in genetics as well. Lots of old genomes being sequenced which will solve a lot of puzzles and overhaul what was previously thought.
I think a lot of people are also shocked and/or disappointed to find out they aren't really Irish on these DNA ancestry tests. I don't know why, but many Americans seem obsessed with what they believe is their "Irish ancestry" and when pressed for details they have no idea, it's just family lore. Like the Indian stories.
Almost every Caucasian person I know claims to be Irish just like almost everyone I know claims American Indian ancestry.
On the bold, maybe it is where you live but where I am from most of the white Americans I know claim to be German, Polish, or Hungarian in that order. Some claim Irish ancestry but they have recent Irish ancestry from the early 20th century.
Ironically I am black and have some Irish ancestry lol. I "found" a cousin online, who identifies as white who discovered she was 15% black via a DNA test and she was over 30% Irish as well. She is a cousin on my paternal great grandmother's line and her DNA test verified her ancestry. The surname of that line is also an Irish one. Our Irish ancestors immigrated to America in the 1870s.
On the bold, maybe it is where you live but where I am from most of the white Americans I know claim to be German, Polish, or Hungarian in that order. Some claim Irish ancestry but they have recent Irish ancestry from the early 20th century.
Ironically I am black and have some Irish ancestry lol. I "found" a cousin online, who identifies as white who discovered she was 15% black via a DNA test and she was over 30% Irish as well. She is a cousin on my paternal great grandmother's line and her DNA test verified her ancestry. The surname of that line is also an Irish one. Our Irish ancestors immigrated to America in the 1870s.
Sure, lots of people do have Irish ancestry. President Obama, for example, has Irish on his mother's side. But lots of people don't. Even some people with red hair don't have Irish in them.
I think because there is a fascination and romanticism about Ireland in American culture (although I'm not really sure why) that many people want to believe they are Irish. My husband is from Scotland and sounds Irish and people, even total strangers will come up to him and tell him "I'm Irish too!" and I suppose that has started to annoy me over the years. Yes, it might just be where I live.... but I live in Texas, but we actually have a much larger population of German, Czech and Mexican ancestry here. Many towns in Texas were settled by Germans and Czechs, almost none that I know of by Irish.
Despite certain regions having higher cases of it being accurate from all the data out there it still seems like it is indeed a myth more often than not. In fact people who have ancestors who come from those regions that intermixing did in fact happen, I've found have a much stronger stories passed down but with only slightly higher statistics of it being accurate.
It's understandable those stories happened in some of those regions since some people did in fact intermix... then when you consider the massive melting pot aspect of a variety of other ethnicities that contribute traits that make someone think someone might be part Native American (such as a bit of African mixed into a white ancestry or a bit of European mixed in the African ancestry, as well as certain southern and eastern European ethnicities that have darker skin etc). Stories about an uncle who married a native american woman can easily turn into a grandfather, or this other cousin who looked indian, etc.
I have a lot of roots in some of the areas that heavily intermixed, including Georgia right as the lands were being taken away from the Cherokee (that triggered the trail of tears) etc. I've also found at least two non-blood related native american relatives. One was an many times great uncle back in north/north west georgia who married a native american woman and had part native american children. In a census he is listed as white and them NA, and I also found his application to join the cherokee nation by marriage. Now some people up that line might have heard about that and it passed down as we have native american ancestry.
I have 3-4+ branches of ancestry that have *strong* stories of native american. I have yet to find a single paper trial to any NA. In fact the only two pieces of supporting evidence I have is:
1) They lived in areas where intermixing happened and some relative did intermix
2) My aunt has 0.2% NA at a 75% confidence level on 23andme (but not my mother)... so it's possible but was quite far back
In any case, how small the NA DNA is that looks to be valid dismisses all of the actual stories passed down, of a great grandmother that looked *heavily* native american. Obviously she didn't have any sizable amount of DNA or I'd see it in the DNA passed down... I have those from various branches and have read it in a family genealogy book.
With all that said it looks like I might have some NA far back, in fact wouldn't be surprised if it was actual Cherokee from those ancestors in Georgia in the late 1700s and early 1800s right up in Cherokee land areas. But the stories definitely have grown over generations and people still say that someone only a couple generations up looked heavily cherokee. Which just shows you how bad we are at looking at someone and guessing ethnicities like that.
Most of the general findings of that article applies to white people too
Thanks, my son's maternal grandma said her dads mother born about 1878 NJ to a Drumond White is supposedly Cherokee from a tribe in NA but it's not showing in my son's DNA. I want to get her tested to see if it shows
Even looking at PA2UK's results they are really showing the same thing just the category names might be a bit different. They show someone who is half Northern European and half Southern European and this comes through in all 3 dna tests.
It's more like 2/3 Northern European and 1/3 Southern (I had one Italian grandparent). But yes, the test is only accurate at a broad level like this - try to narrow it down to the specifics that people actually want like "Irish" and it's not really accurate or reliable. The true value of the test is with the DNA matches - if someone is taking the test purely for the ethnicity report and they are expecting precise and accurate regions/countries, they are going to be sorely disappointed and I would recommend they do not take the test.
Quote:
Most of the UK ancestry looks more "Anglo-Saxon" shifted than more "Celtic".
That was my feeling too, and that in itself is fascinating to me, but it's not what most people want or are expecting from their ethnicity report.
Personally, I've never come across someone who believed they were Irish but it turns out they aren't. It's true a lot of people claim to be Irish and I have no way of knowing whether they are or not - maybe some aren't. But it's also true a lot of Americans are indeed Irish. From colonial times up to the 21st century, there have been about 4.8 million Irish immigrants to the US. In any case, a DNA ethnicity report that doesn't include Ireland is NOT definitive proof that one doesn't have Irish ancestry. Likewise with Native American.
Sure, lots of people do have Irish ancestry. President Obama, for example, has Irish on his mother's side. But lots of people don't. Even some people with red hair don't have Irish in them.
I think because there is a fascination and romanticism about Ireland in American culture (although I'm not really sure why) that many people want to believe they are Irish. My husband is from Scotland and sounds Irish and people, even total strangers will come up to him and tell him "I'm Irish too!" and I suppose that has started to annoy me over the years. Yes, it might just be where I live.... but I live in Texas, but we actually have a much larger population of German, Czech and Mexican ancestry here. Many towns in Texas were settled by Germans and Czechs, almost none that I know of by Irish.
Yes Obama has a whopping 3.91% Irish ancestry. He actually has a lot more English ancestry. It is also obvious that with Americans that they very rarely have ancestry from just one country so all those "Irish Americans" are most likely to have English, German etc as well. So I do agree that it is misleading. What I was surprised to recently learn is that Muhammad Ali who received such a rapturous welcome in Ireland due to an apparent ancestor Abe Grady being from Co Clare does not in fact have any Irish ancestry at all.
The only well known Americans that have nearly all Irish ancestry are Stephen Colbert, Bill O'Reilly (and they both also have a very small amount of English ancestry) and Conan O'Brien. It is very rare to find Americans of full Irish ancestry especially in this day and age.
It's more like 2/3 Northern European and 1/3 Southern (I had one Italian grandparent). But yes, the test is only accurate at a broad level like this - try to narrow it down to the specifics that people actually want like "Irish" and it's not really accurate or reliable. The true value of the test is with the DNA matches - if someone is taking the test purely for the ethnicity report and they are expecting precise and accurate regions/countries, they are going to be sorely disappointed and I would recommend they do not take the test.
That was my feeling too, and that in itself is fascinating to me, but it's not what most people want or are expecting from their ethnicity report.
Yes they are fascinating but you have to do a lot of research on what they actually mean. I also agree that you have to be to a certain extent objective and accept what the test shows. I initially wanted to find something a bit more "interesting" but after a few years looking into the subject I'm more interested in broader population movements and genetics is answering these questions.
Personally, I've never come across someone who believed they were Irish but it turns out they aren't. It's true a lot of people claim to be Irish and I have no way of knowing whether they are or not - maybe some aren't. But it's also true a lot of Americans are indeed Irish. From colonial times up to the 21st century, there have been about 4.8 million Irish immigrants to the US. In any case, a DNA ethnicity report that doesn't include Ireland is NOT definitive proof that one doesn't have Irish ancestry. Likewise with Native American.
It does happen due to people's confusion with terms like "Scots-Irish". Some people have mistakenly thought they were Irish when they were actually more Scots. You can also get results with the "Ireland" category and not actually have any Irish ancestry at all. I do think people need a solid paper trail but it will be interesting to see what LivingDNA come up with. There are quite a few people waiting on results that have a pretty solid paper trail of where their ancestry is in England, Wales etc. I'm waiting on results myself and LivingDNA use the PoBI dataset.
I think a lot of those southern families eventually (once it became hip) claimed Native American just to cover up what was once thought to be the worst DNA to have: Native African.
I love the fact that modern science is making
a lot of those racist, overly proud, idiots eat humble pie.
It is about time.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
