With three of us tested at Ancestry I thought I would publish the Ethnicity Estimates which we received. Reading posts from others I had read that a lot of people who were testing in England were finding that individuals in North America were being given higher estimates of Great Britain Ethnicity than people who actually lived in Great Britain. Mind you our toehold here is small with just my mother, her father and his mother being born in Canada. Just going back to 2x great grandparents we have documentation for all eight couples with one set being from Devon and Somerset, a second set with both from Hampshire, a third set with both from Dorset, a fourth set from Cumberland and Yorkshire, a fifth set with one from Wiltshire and one from Hampshire, a sixth set with both from Warwickshire, a seventh set with Hampshire and Wiltshire and the eighth set both from Birmingham, Warwickshire (with one having London/Surrey roots and the other having Staffordshire/Leicestershire roots). We are coming from six distinctly different areas of England.
In my case I had received a high percentage of Great Britain ethnicity when I tested 3 years ago; these two results have just been received:
Myself one Brother second Brother
Great Britain 64 1 27
Ireland 14 17 19
Europe West 11 76 21
Scandinavia 6 5 26
Iberian Peninsula 1 1 5
Europe East 1
Finland/Northwest Russia 2
Italy/Greece 1 1
I am actually the most different in my family so this difference may not be surprising.
I do like the analysis at Ancestry and their results fitted nicely into mine although I have far more 4th to 6th cousin matches then they do but they both fitted nicely into our one and only DNA Circle of the Pincombe family. We are the linch pin that brings the others into the group because we match both of them. Our mother was a Pincombe.
But having tested at five of the major companies FT DNA, 23 and Me, AncestryDNA, BritainsDNA and National Genographic, I can see a lot of value in all of them. It just depends on what you are looking for and how valuable you consider DNA testing to be.
I was surprised at the difference between you and Brother 1 regarding GB and Europe West. It's about as wide a divergence as the uncertainty bars show. I wonder if he inherited more of the southern England DNA while you got more for the midlands. You are fortunate as between you it gives a wider range of DNA with which to make connections.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was also surprised John. 23 and Me and FT DNA were not as pronouced in the differences (but it is the differences that help to separate out all these matches actually). Absolutely Brother 1 has more Devon/Somerset and Wiltshire/Dorset/Hampshire than I do and since my mother's lines were Devon/Somerset and my fathers Wiltshire/Dorset/Hampshire it is a really strong possibility that he inherited more on those two DNA sets than I did. It does appear that I have more of the London/Surrey, Warwickshire/Staffordshire/Leicestershire and Yorkshire/Cumberland than he has since he doesn't match known cousins there to the degree that I do. Brother 2 and I share more of the Midlands but he too is fairly different from me as he also shares some of the southern England matches with Brother 1. Having all these siblings and all of us being quite different from each other is really great for DNA work.
ReplyDeleteI think that DNA will occupy all of us for the rest of our retirement! My husband has had really good results with his AncestryDNA testing as well. He has 101 shaky leaves (all really handy) and nine DNA circles already and his results just came up two months ago.