If you have Iberian DNA (German, Irish, German, Jewish)
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.
"It is well-known in Ireland that dark features of those from west coastal counties are attributed to bloodlines who survived Spanish Armada’s untimely shipwrecks..."
From https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/h...nd-black-irish
Surnames might not be much help, since any Spanish survivors would have to hide their identity or risk death.
There's no European country with no dark haired people, just like many Southern Europeans are blond or brown haired.
Also people went back and forth in Europe over the centuries. The Romans, Vikings, French all settled in Britain.
Mine shows Iberian 24% and Italian 10% but it's misleading. My ancestors were French; I know who they were going back for centuries. Very few French have taken DNA tests so there is nothing to compare. It's showing me the populations that are most similar to my DNA. Any chance you have French ancestry?
As more French or more people in general take those tests, the results will likely change. Again and again.
I see why traditionalists like paper trails/archival research. It gives you a lot more information and it give it in context. The issue with records is the only go so far back (varies dealing on the nation, the group of people, etc).
Mine shows Iberian 24% and Italian 10% but it's misleading. My ancestors were French; I know who they were going back for centuries. Very few French have taken DNA tests so there is nothing to compare. It's showing me the populations that are most similar to my DNA. Any chance you have French ancestry?
How do you know very few French samples are in the reference panel? It sounds like you tested with either 23andMe or MyHeritage. 23andMe have 950 samples for "French & German" - this is among the higher numbers of their samples, but we don't know how many of them are French and how many are German. I don't think MyHeritage publicize their reference panel details so we have no idea how many French samples there are. Although it doesn't sound like you tested with them, AncestryDNA has an exclusive French category with 998 samples, which is somewhere in the middle (their smallest group in Europe is 31, the highest is 2,126).
Do you know who your Spanish or Portuguese ancestors are?
I suspect where my Iberian comes from, but not 100% sure. The thing is Europeans moved all around. And as more people take DNA tests the more your results will change. Until a few months ago I was 100% European. No longer. I now have "noise" from the Middle East.
I had one grandmother who sort of looked Spanish, but her surname wasn't Spanish and her family tree going back a few generations, I couldn't find any Spanish names. Perhaps my grandmother's ancestors took anglicized names at Ellis Island when they immigrated. That's the only thing I can figure.
What is looked sort of Spanish? Can you tell a bit more?
Not all Spanish names are spanish, there exists strange spellings.Uncommon surnames.
Rare surnames.
There are blonde/blue eyes but most are brown eyes/dark haired.
Last edited by Nerys52SoSilver; 12-09-2020 at 03:25 PM..
This reminded me of something. We see "Iberian" tossed around but the maps at different testing sites have different ways of defining the region. That's true of other regions, too. But Iberia as we know it has been home to so many different groups going back to cave painters, Basques, Celts, Phoenecians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Jews, Arabs, Berbers, Crusaders, and probably others. What does Iberian really mean? Myheritage shows I have 2.2 percent Iberian but their map shows a region stretching from Croatia to Cornwall and across North Africa from Tunisia to western Morroco. That includes Italy and France. The core area goes from Gibralter to just north of the Pyrenees. Can they tease out the Iberian components? Two people who are "Iberian" could be French, Sicilian, or Tunisian.
My Iberian is more than just noise, it's almost 30%. I don't think that much would be considered "noise". I was hoping to hear from people who had a substantial percentage of Iberian, as to whether or not they have any known Spanish, Portuguese or Hispanic ancestors.
I show up as being 30-40% Iberian it varies between one program and another. My paternal grandparents were from the South of France. They spoke Basque, French and Spanish, I have traced their lineage back to the 1700's and I have relatives still living in the area.
This reminded me of something. We see "Iberian" tossed around but the maps at different testing sites have different ways of defining the region. That's true of other regions, too. But Iberia as we know it has been home to so many different groups going back to cave painters, Basques, Celts, Phoenecians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Jews, Arabs, Berbers, Crusaders, and probably others. What does Iberian really mean? Myheritage shows I have 2.2 percent Iberian but their map shows a region stretching from Croatia to Cornwall and across North Africa from Tunisia to western Morroco. That includes Italy and France. The core area goes from Gibralter to just north of the Pyrenees. Can they tease out the Iberian components? Two people who are "Iberian" could be French, Sicilian, or Tunisian.
That's essentially true for almost every area and every DNA ethnicity report - there's just too much genetic overlap among neighboring regions to always be able to accurately narrow it down to just "Iberia". I think the map is merely representing that. The heat map shows Iberia is primarily just Spain, Portugal, and part of France. The rest of it shows there's still some chance that a wider region could fall into this group due to the fact that DNA isn't bound by political borders. This is true for every company, because it's the nature of DNA, I just think other companies are less honest about just how broad of an area each population can potentially cover.
I also don't think any map is supposed to be taken very literally, it's just supposed to give you a general idea of the area. There might be a sliver of Croatia covered on the map but if you read the description for "Iberia" it certainly doesn't mention it.
"The region of Iberia, which encompasses Spain and Portugal, has been historically shaped by multiple civilizations and distinct populations starting with the ancient Iberian tribes to modern-day Spanish and Portuguese people. In 1492, Jews were expelled from the region, and Christopher Columbus set sail for the Americas, kicking off the age of exploration and conquest in the New World. Iberian explorers spread across the Americas, parts of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Portuguese islands of Azores and Madeira, and the Spanish Canary Islands, leaving their genetic mark on these areas. Modern surgery was pioneered in Spain during the Golden Age of Islamic Iberia, around 1000 CE."
The cool thing about MyHeritage that no other company does is they show you the data on what percentage of testers in a country get results in a certain ethnicity, and it includes all countries. So if you look at Iberian ethnicity and find Croatia on the list, only 7.5% of Croatians get results in Iberia. That's not a lot, and we don't know what those people's backgrounds are. If you look at that list, you'll see a lot of far flung countries where a small percentage of people get results in Iberia, but it doesn't mean they are realistically included in "Iberia".
AncestryDNA don't even have an Iberian category anymore because they've split up Spain and Portugal, which probably makes it even less reliable.
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.
