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My aunt figured her father was Syrian (just a few miles north of Lebanese border), and
her mother's mother was from family in this country since 1750 from West German stock, NS
her mother's father emigrated as a child from Paris France in (BORN April 04, 1886).
Her great grandparents are listed as
Louisa Bia (Du Forest) Also Known As: "Louise" Birthdate:circa August 1860 Birthplace: France
Julius Bia Birthdate: 1862 Birthplace: France
To the best of her knowledge she was 50% Middle East, 25% French and 25% German.
Her Ancestry DNA came back
41% Italian
24% Middle East
10% England, Wales & Northwestern Europe
8% Ireland and Scotland
8% Turkey and Caucasus
7% France
2% Germanic Europe
I suppose that Paris in the 1880s may have attracted European immigrants, and possibly our ancestors immigrated from Italy to Paris before coming to America.
But before we try and track down 19th century migrations, how accurate is this test?
Last edited by PacoMartin; 05-23-2019 at 01:55 AM..
It is an estimate only and should not be taken literally. This could just reflect that areas of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean have some genetic overlap that can be difficult to tell apart, so it's not unusual for people to get results in neighboring regions of their known ancestry.
From what I have read in various forums, some people will try to track down the genealogy for those ethnicities that show the highest percentages. And let the lower ones alone... because those are more subject to change when the DNA companies update their methods.
I disagree with PA2UK - I think you can take the results literally but you have to look at the region around where they say your ancestry is from. Italian could include people from many areas around the Mediterranean Sea, for example. And don't depend too much on today's maps. If you know a great grandfather came from the Syria/Lebanon border, look at some old maps of the area from the time he left there. Borders are always changing. Someone who "came from" a place or even was "born in" a place, might come from parents who came from somewhere else.
From what I have read in various forums, some people will try to track down the genealogy for those ethnicities that show the highest percentages. And let the lower ones alone... because those are more subject to change when the DNA companies update their methods.
I disagree with PA2UK - I think you can take the results literally but you have to look at the region around where they say your ancestry is from. Italian could include people from many areas around the Mediterranean Sea, for example.
Well, that's not really taking it literally then, lol. The very definition of "literally" means if it says "Italian" it means "Italian", not many areas around the Mediterranean.
Her Ancestry DNA came back
41% Italian
24% Middle East
10% England, Wales & Northwestern Europe
8% Ireland and Scotland
8% Turkey and Caucasus
7% France
2% Germanic Europe
My point is that prior to the test if you asked my aunt, she would have said I am ZERO percent Italian. She had one grandfather that immigrated from Paris in 1880s, and there are notices on the web that BOTH of his parents were born in France in the 1860s.
If the results had come up 15% French and 10% Italian that might not have been so shocking since it is possible there was some border crossing prior to the mid 19th century.
Has anyone else received a majority percentage from a nationality that they expected ZERO?
My point is that prior to the test if you asked my aunt, she would have said I am ZERO percent Italian. She had one grandfather that immigrated from Paris in 1880s, and there are notices on the web that BOTH of his parents were born in France in the 1860s.
And our point is that both Syrian and French ancestry could turn up in an ethnicity report as Italian, especially if you only have documentation of those locations back to the 1860s. The ethnicity report can be more representative of a few hundred to a thousands or so years ago. Do you know where her ancestors were from about 1000-1500 AD?
Combining her results for Middle East and Caucasus, assuming that's her Syrian ancestry, that only adds up to 32%, when she should be half Syrian. The missing 18% very easily could have been categorized under Italian.
The remaining 23% Italian is probably coming from her French ancestry. Combine that number with the 7% French and you get 30%, which is a very plausible number for what she might get from a grandparent (we do not necessarily inherit exactly 25% from each grandparent). Additionally, if you look at the percentage ranges (click on each category for a possible percentage range), that could make these numbers even more plausible. Do you know what percentage range she gets for each category?
Having said all that, I have to point out that you originally said your aunt "figured" her father was Syrian, which makes it sound like she doesn't know for sure. Maybe he wasn't, maybe he was Italian, or half Syrian and half Italian. You can't know that for sure just from the ethnicity report though - the report is still plausible even if he was Syrian. How much reliable research has actually been done on her ancestry? Because I'm not sure what you mean by "notices on the web", but just because something is on the internet doesn't make it true, you'll need to research her tree with reliable sources.
Has anyone else received a majority percentage from a nationality that they expected ZERO?
Yes, it can and does happen. I did not get a majority but I got 23% Italian from MyHeritage while I am zero % Italian and get zero Italian at the other testing sites. Some of your aunt's German and French might be showing up as Italian, or it could be that her French grandparents in turn had Italian ancestry.
What does it say under "Additional communities" in her DNA Estimate? This is usually where Ancestry picks up common regions in the trees of DNA matches. Does it show a particular area within Italy?
I would look at her DNA matches. Do you find matches to people who are close to 100% Italian? Unfortunately very few people with Italian ancestry take DNA tests compared to other European ethnicities, but you should at least expect to find a few Italian matches if your aunt really does have 41% Italian ancestry.
Has anyone else received a majority percentage from a nationality that they expected ZERO?
Looking back over my kits, yes - my grandfather is German and Scots-Irish (maybe a little bit of English) but definitely no known Scandinavian and no Southern European and his tree has been researched back to colonial times on all branches. But at FTDNA, he originally got 0% in West/Central Europe (Germanic) and 48% (his highest percentage) in Scandinavia and 32% (second highest percentage) in Southern Europe. It was obvious his German ancestry was showing up entirely in Scandinavia instead, which isn't surprising since those groups share a lot of DNA, but the Southern Europe results was pretty out there.
They eventually did an update to the ethnicity which thankfully saw the complete removal of Southern Europe results, a major decrease in Scandinavia (reduced to 8%) and a huge increase in West/Central Europe (84%), but then they also removed his British Isles results altogether (previously 11% - now 0%). They basically can't tell British, Germanic, and Scandinavian apart very well, at least not in my grandfather's case.
And sometimes people get an unexpected ancestry that is real, they just didn't know about it, either because of insufficient research/records, or someone's father wasn't who they thought. On an episode this season of Finding Your Roots, author George R.R. Martin thought he was 1/4 Italian because of an Italian grandfather. It turned out that the man he knew as his grandfather was not his biological grandfather. His test showed 1/4 Ashkenazi instead of 1/4 Italian.
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