Comments on: DNA Testing: A Case Study With Staggering Conclusions

By: sunwharf

sunwharf — Thu, 26 May 2022 16:21:03 +0000

Oh that’s southern Germany so that probably won’t roll into England although I suppose it counts towards the rather nebulous NW Europe. Interesting Living DNA result as they are usually credited with accurate UK but weaker on other countries that Ancestry. All goes to show it’s best to rely on document based research as far back as possible rather than doubtful ethnicity estimates as a guide.

By: Ron Rowland

Ron Rowland — Wed, 25 May 2022 22:26:25 +0000

In reply to sunwharf.

Black Forest on the French border. LivingDNA has me at 27% German.
https://rowlandgenealogy.com/dna-ancestry-heritage-tests-complete-farce/

By: sunwharf

sunwharf — Wed, 25 May 2022 18:52:42 +0000

I wonder why no German, quite a lot of Germans have tested so it’s not lack of data. Is your German from NW Germany, if so it might get rolled into the Eng & NW Europe being so close to Angle and Saxon DNA?

By: Ron Rowland

Ron Rowland — Wed, 25 May 2022 18:26:56 +0000

In reply to sunwharf. My most recent update shows little change: 52% Scottish, 37% Eng & NW Eur, 5% Norway, 3% Sewden, 2% Ireland. Additionally, it still has my German at 0%, when I believe it should be 25%-27%.

By: sunwharf

sunwharf — Wed, 25 May 2022 10:19:13 +0000

Just an update on how fluid Ancestry ethnicity origins swing in the wind. I am now 68% England predominantly East Anglia, 16% Sweden and Denmark, 9% Scottish, 3% Germanic Europe, 2% Wales, 2% Irish. It’s now closer to my real ancestry as my family is heavily East Anglia but the rest is still strange. 16% Denmark/Sweden sort of fits with my paternal Norse origin but that was 1000 or so years ago. Autosomal tests are said to only go back accurately maximum 500yrs. Irish and Scottish sort of fits with the Norse but the %ages are small and within error zones. My only conclusion so far is to assume the largest % is probably about right and treat the rest with a degree of doubt. I think a lot of these analyses are based on where living populations were born and I suspect this will get less indicative over time as population is much more mobile now.

By: DNA Ancestry Heritage Tests Are A Complete Farce - Rowland Genealogy

DNA Ancestry Heritage Tests Are A Complete Farce - Rowland Genealogy — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 12:27:38 +0000

[…] Part 1, DNA Testing: A Case Study With Staggering Conclusions, I compared the DNA matching results from six different companies. DNA testing is excellent at that […]

By: Nick+Rowland

Nick+Rowland — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 23:55:29 +0000

Here is my comparison of Y testing results between Living DNA and FTDNA. Living DNA gave me R1a-Z284 and FTDNA Y111 test gave M198, so LivingDNA won that round by going a bit deeper. I then did the FTDNA Y700 test and that gave BY95335 which is far deeper than LivingDNA. End result is you pay your money and make your choice, for deepest results Y700 is best, value for money and a guide to origins Living DNA wins,

Cheers
Nick

By: Nick Rowland

Nick Rowland — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 14:13:17 +0000

In reply to Ron Rowland.

My Ancestry result has also changed Ron but I am very suspicious of the results. Suddenly I have 17% Scottish (previously Zero) and 10% Welsh (also previously Zero), I am now only 58% English. Those numbers do not stack up with my known last 500 years ancestry, which is almost exclusively East Anglia and predominantly Suffolk. I am fairly lucky that my Ancestors (Paternal and Maternal) were mostly farm labourers and hardly moved for hundred of years, in fact my Rowland family lived in the same village for almost 400 years (some still do).

The LivingDNA result stacks perfectly with my research and the old Ancestry profile was also very close, now it is apparently way off.

From what I have seen on Social Media a large number of folk have had the same sudden appearance of (or large increase in) Scottish ancestry. I am not sure how far back Ancestry claims to analyse but it all seems very odd.

I have a suspicion that they have a Scottish Viking reference sample (or samples) which they are assuming means anyone similar has Scottish roots, East Anglia also has strong Viking roots (it was under Danelaw for a couple of hundred years) and I am guessing Ancestry have assumed that DNA is Scottish in origin rather than the East Anglian Vikings and Scottish Vikings having shared Scandinavian DNA roots. (if you see what I mean)

There are certainly a lot of confused English people at the moment 🙂

Cheers
Nick

By: Ron Rowland

Ron Rowland — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 16:03:11 +0000

Ancestry just notified me that my admixture heritage results have been updated.
My prior 18% Scotland & Ireland is now 52% Scotland and 2% Ireland.
My prior 67% England and NW Europe is now 35%

By: Jamie Fish

Jamie Fish — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 15:46:49 +0000

Good observations! I can only speak for FTDNA, but for their YDNA Ancestral Origins report, they merely use the information provided by those testees that match to you as for where they believe their earliest paternal ancestor originated. They ask that one not list “United States” if the earliest known ancestor is found in the US (unless one is Native American) but people do it anyway! Also many times people love to make fanciful guesses as to their ancestry with no proof, so in my opinion this report should be taken with a grain of salt! The YDNA Haplogroup information is much more reliable for ancestral origins but probably not as specific as a lot of people would like.

The Autosomal test, however, is correlated to scientific genetic testing of representative populations from 26 specific regions. This should be more reliable but obviously there are very few “pure” populations in the world any more! This is why, for instance, they only report British Isles as opposed to Scotland or Wales. Clearly the population of Ireland or Scotland or England is not genetically homogeneous, so I’m not sure how a test can scientifically pinpoint one’s origins that specifically. Just my thoughts!
Jamie