Baffled by my 1st and 2nd Cousins DNA Comparison to Mine (German, search)
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We all did Ancestry. I compared their's to mine. Maternal Cousins. Both of them got double digits from France. I got 0%. My 2nd Cousin's Dad was of Italian heritage same as his Mom, my Maternal Great-Aunt. He got 83% Southern Italy/Greece and 13% France.
My 1st Cousin (Mom's Brother's Son) got 41% Southern Italy/Greece and 11% France. I know his Mom was of Irish/English heritage and he got around the similar percentages that I got from my Dad of Irish/English ancestry.
Can anyone decipher this for me? I have traced my family and never found anyone from France.
I would take the % ethnicity with grain of salt. I have seen full siblings be confirmed by DNA as full siblings but have very different ethnicity percentages. Did you test with Ancestry, so you can get cousin matching?
Here's my and both my parents DNA ethnicity results from Ancestry, remember you inherit 50% of your DNA from each parent.
Me
88% Eastern Europe & Russia
9% Baltic States
3% Ireland & Scotland
Father
59% Eastern Europe & Russia
41% Baltic States
Mother
46% Eastern Europe & Russia
25% Germanic Europe
19% Ireland & Scotland
6% England, Wales & Northwestern Europe
4% Baltic States
As you can see out of my Mom's 19% Irish and Scottish DNA, I got only a little bit of it and a big old fat 0% of her German and English/Welsh/NW Europe DNA. And this is parent/child we are talking about, not even 1st and 2nd cousins!
Like historyfan said, neither of my sisters have had their DNA tested and both have no desire, but who knows what their DNA ethnicity % breakdown would be, I doubt their Eastern Europe & Russia % would be higher than my 88% and they might of even inherited some of my mom's German and English/Welsh/NW Europe DNA.
The thing about % ethnicities from your DNA, it still doesn't change my family tree and who I am!
I would take the % ethnicity with grain of salt. I have seen full siblings be confirmed by DNA as full siblings but have very different ethnicity percentages. Did you test with Ancestry, so you can get cousin matching?
Yes, all of us tested on Ancestry and they showed up in my cousin matching. I can understand where my 1st cousin, as a male, could have gotten DNA from Grandpa's Y chromosome which I didn't as a female but that is still a very large percentage. I have also traced our genealogy. However, that cannot explain my 2nd cousin who does not have those genes. His Dad and ancestors? Just a coincidence?
Yes, my daughters, full siblings, had their's tested and did get different percentages (some by large margins) but they both still had the same ethnicities.
Yes, all of us tested on Ancestry and they showed up in my cousin matching. I can understand where my 1st cousin, as a male, could have gotten DNA from Grandpa's Y chromosome which I didn't as a female but that is still a very large percentage. I have also traced our genealogy. However, that cannot explain my 2nd cousin who does not have those genes. His Dad and ancestors? Just a coincidence?
Yes, my daughters, full siblings, had their's tested and did get different percentages (some by large margins) but they both still had the same ethnicities.
Keep in mind 1st cousins only share about 900cM, 2nd cousins about 250cM. That is a lot for genetic genealogy purposes, but still only like 1/6- 1/12 of your total genome or less. Expect major differences in the ethnicity reports unless all the ancestors are from the same genetic region.
We all did Ancestry. I compared their's to mine. Maternal Cousins. Both of them got double digits from France. I got 0%. My 2nd Cousin's Dad was of Italian heritage same as his Mom, my Maternal Great-Aunt. He got 83% Southern Italy/Greece and 13% France.
My 1st Cousin (Mom's Brother's Son) got 41% Southern Italy/Greece and 11% France. I know his Mom was of Irish/English heritage and he got around the similar percentages that I got from my Dad of Irish/English ancestry.
Can anyone decipher this for me? I have traced my family and never found anyone from France.
The ethnicity report is very much an estimate or interpretation of your DNA and should not be taken very literally. Due to the fact that neighboring regions of Europe share so much DNA, it's often difficult to tell them apart and so it's very common to get results in regions nearby where your known ancestry is from.
Also, even though we inherit 50% from each parent, we do not inherit exactly 25% from each grandparent or 12.5% from each great grandparent. So for example, your first cousin might get more DNA from one grandparent than you did, or vice versa. For that reason, we can't expect even the ethnicity we do share with a cousin to be the same percentage. Additionally, not only do the amounts we inherit vary, but which parts we inherit from the same ancestor won't be exactly the same - your cousins will have some DNA from your shared ancestors that you don't and vice versa. Those different segments can be interpreted by the ethnicity report in different ways, resulting in different regions.
Yes, all of us tested on Ancestry and they showed up in my cousin matching. I can understand where my 1st cousin, as a male, could have gotten DNA from Grandpa's Y chromosome which I didn't as a female but that is still a very large percentage.
The Y chromosome is not (can't be) used for ethnicity estimates.
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I have also traced our genealogy. However, that cannot explain my 2nd cousin who does not have those genes. His Dad and ancestors? Just a coincidence?
If you haven't researched his dad's ancestry then yeah, that's always a possibility.
I remember watching a video from a genealogical conference, I think it was one by Blaine Bettinger who spoke about the differences between our "genealogical tree" versus our "genetic tree."
Basically that your "genealogical tree" includes all your ancestors and you verify via the paper trail/traditional methods in combination with DNA/genetic matches.
The "genetic tree" is basically the ancestors/ancestral couples who you can definitively confirm you have genes from in your DNA admixture.
In the video he used a fan chart and used his cousin matches and I believe DNA Painter (can't remember for sure, watched it this past winter) and wrote in his genealogical tree, then used the DNA to shade in the genetic connections.
I did an experiment using that method after watching it and discovered that I literally have no genetic connection to one of my 3rd great grandfather's. I had been road blocked at his line for probably 15 years but prior to watching that video, I'd confirmed his father. I was hoping my DNA would get me results to that line but I didn't have any. However, I had asked my great aunt, who is a great granddaughter of that ancestor, to test for me and she did. She has about 40-50 matches to people on that surname line and her results have actually added 4 additional lines to our family tree and lead to our first known "from Africa" African ancestor - so it was very exciting. I don't have any of my great aunt's mothers (my maternal great grandmother's) paternal side DNA connections.
They are not a part of my "genetic tree" even though they are for my great aunt and she is one of my closest relatives on AncestryDNA. I also have a lot of DNA matches with her mother's grandmother - my 3rd great grandmother's line, so it is interesting, I don't have the paternal side of that family, but I have the maternal showing in my DNA genetic tree.
Fast forward to last month, one of my great aunts other great nieces (a granddaughter of her brother - I am a granddaughter of her sister) tested. Because, like many she is not a researcher and only wanted to test due to "ethnicity" percentages, she gave me her user/password so I could use her profile in my research. She shares about 12 matches with my great aunt to that line that I have no genetic link to. She also shares 200 more cm with my great aunt than I do even though we are the same degree of relative from each other.
DNA is weird like that and not everyone will get the same except identical twins.
That was a great video and it made me really branch out and ask my cousins who don't ever log into their AncestryDNA accounts for access to their results so that I could compare their genetic tree to mine.
"Before Mendel's experiments, most people believed that traits in offspring resulted from a blending of the traits of each parent. However, when Mendel cross-pollinated one variety of purebred plant with another, these crosses would yield offspring that looked like either one of the parent plants, not a blend of the two."
Our son got so much of my dad's DNA that my mom, his grandmother, comes up as a first cousin. We found a photo of my great grandfather and my brother looks more like him than anyone else.
There's a ton of variables by the time one gets to first and second cousins.
Doesn't everyone learn that in high school biology, or has the curriculum changed? It's always good to have a little refresher course, but I would assume everyone knows this....? Good post, though.
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