23 and Me

I have now completed testing for 23 and Me for both my brother and myself. As it turns out we are as far apart as two siblings can be and still be full siblings. The usual range for siblings is 2640 to 3400. We match at 2646 at 23 and Me. So I can expect to see displayed the greatest variety between the two of us for our ethnicity and the results did not disappoint in that regard.

Myself                My Brother                       %  Region
99.9%                    99.8%                               European
98.5%                    97.2%                               Northern European
54.2%                    47.3%                               British and Irish
14.4%                    20.9%                               French and German
  2.0%                      1.0%                               Scandinavian
27.9%                    28.0%                               Broadly Northern European

  0.3%                      0.9%                               Southern European
                               less than 0.1%                  Italian
  0.3%                      0.8%                               Broadly Southern European
  0.2%                      0.2%                               Ashkenazi
  0.8%                      1.5%                               Broadly European
  0.1%                      0.1%                               Oceanian
less than  0.1%        less than 0.1%                North African and Middle East
                                Less than 0.1%               Sub saharan Africa
   0.1%                     0.1%                               Unassigned          

One does hear that 23 and Me are meant to have the best ethnicity estimatations. They do use 31 populations worldwide.

I think perhaps what I like best is that we are very close the only really big differences are in the estimate of British and Irish and in French and German.  Thus far our ancestry has proven to be 100% English back to the 1500s but I have a couple of lines that are brickwalled where the possibility of something different may be hiding behind that wall. Plus my Routledge line is definitely Scot prior to 1400 making me an ancient Scot. Is British and Irish just a heading used for you whether you have British or Irish or does it mean that you have both British and Irish (where British refers to England, Scotland and Wales). I will read up to understand that. The Italian in my brothers was totally unexpected. Every DNA test has found Ashkenazi so I know that somewhere in my distant past I do have Jewish ancestors. Not sure how far back but a couple of us are working on that as I have a number of Jewish matches in all my projects. The African and Middle Eastern shows our roots and it is amazing that 60,000 years have passed since my lines left Africa but still a tiny amount clings to one gene (I suspect that is my mother's side because her lines were in Devon and it has been mentioned that one does find Middle East/Africa/Southern Europe in Devon and Cornwall DNA results). Wouldn't it be nice if we could know which of the two genes is our father's donation and which is our mother's donation. That may come gradually as I understand the matches.

I highly recommend testing at all the major companies so that you are in their databases. It is my genealogy money well spent I think especially Family Finder at FT DNA, or test at Ancestry or 23 and Me where autosomal testing is always done. I started out on my genealogy buying fiche of parishes and wills but now all of that is online in the various databases (or coming online). The next stage of genealogy does appear to be DNA.