Sunday, May 31, 2015

Ethnicity Estimate - Tests at FT DNA, Ancestry and 23 and Me compared

I now have three Ethnicity Estimates looking at my autosomal DNA.

FT DNA
European 96%
British Isles 51%
Scandinavia 33%
Western and Central Europe 12%
Asia Minor 3%
North Africa 1%

Ancestry
Europe 99%
Great Britain 64%
Ireland 14%
Europe West 11%
Scandinavia 6%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Europe East  less than 1% Italy/Greece less than 1% Finland/Northwest Russia,  less than 1% Melanesia

23 and Me
European 99.9%
British and Irish 54.2%
French and German 14.4%
Scandinavian 2.0%
Northern European 27.9%
Southern European 0.3%
European 0.8%
Ashkenazi 0.2%
Oceania 0.1%
North Africa 0.1%
Undetermined 0.1%

A bird's eye view of my results says that I have 51%-78% British Isles Ancestry, I have 2%-33% Scandinavian Ancestry, I have 11%-42.5% Northern European Ancestry with the rest all being less than 1%.

The largest ancestry is my British Isles Ancestry and 14 of my great great grandparents were born, lived and were buried in England (two exceptions buried in Canada although both born in England) and their ancestors for the most part going back in time except for two brickwalled lines where I do not know their ancestry. Comments have been made that 23 and Me comes the closest to accuracy with their estimation. A French and German component of 14.4% is huge although compares to 11% Europe West at Ancestry and 12% Western and Central Europe at FT DNA. I think that my results do rather merge together although Ancestry has given me a very high percentage of British Isles at 78%.

Time frame for these estimations would be rather interesting to look at but I do not think it will necessarily break down those brick walls that I have with  firstly my maternal grandmother's mother although knowing the mtDNA may one day help with that particular line and secondly my 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller's parents. They are definitely a mystery and quite a formidable brickwall at least they appear to be given the amount of research I have put into that line at London Metropolitan Archives. However, I have a new piece of information that may be helpful the next time we are there.

I can not resist thinking of these brickwalls when I look at these estimates! I do not yet have my matches at 23 and Me. They are to come in the next week or so. But I have already uploaded my Ancestry and my FT DNA Family Finder results to Gedmatch so do not expect to find anything but the database at 23 and Me is huge. It is just that I know all of my American cousins on the Buller line but I do not know if any of them has ever tested.

All in all I am probably finished testing myself unless I do do BritainsDNA. That would be a late fall project as I save up my loonies. Would I really learn anything more? Well, I have done my brother but we are not close matches at FT DNA in terms of shared cMs - we are at the far limit for full siblings which is a good thing because we do not have our parent's DNA results and having a variety of results from siblings can help us to look at what the parents might have been. So doing myself at BritainsDNA might paint a rather interesting picture of our ancestry.

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