Things to Bear in Mind (watch this video, focus especially on his explanations after the comparisons).
1. DNA test are new, sketchy, and general and humans are dumb.
2. In order to determine ethnicity matches, we must have reference populations. These are MODERN, so may/probably don't reflect when my ancestors came over. For non-Europeans, the modern reference groups are much smaller or non-existent which distorts their results.
3. It only takes a few generations back before you reach ancestors from which you receive 0 DNA because DNA is halved every generation.
BUT
4. DNA is random. Don't expect a perfect halved percentage of your ancestor's ethnicity and don't expect your siblings ethnicity percentages to match yours closely.
OKAY. So I bought my DNA test through ancestry.com via a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. I had previously built a tree with a free trial plus got an extra two weeks for this. So hopefully I will get some matches.
Now, I want to try and predict my results based on what I know from my grandparents and my research and estimating with help from this previously mentioned study. Like I've mentioned before, from what I've seen on my ancestry, my family REALLY matches the patterns described in David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed.
I'm looking at the averages for European Americans and then at the charts plus factoring in what I know.
~60-70% British
~30-40% Western Europe (Germany and Switzerland for me specifically because I know)
~Above average (0.19%) African American
~Average (0.18%) or below Native American
<1 american="" native="" p="">~Wondering about European Jewish?
I realize anything less than 1% isn't going to show on the test, but I really don't have anything in my family stories to safely assume anything more. The alleged Native American ancestor was quite far back plus I saw a photo, she looks European to me. And my European percentages are variable because like I said, ancestry doesn't equal exact ratio. And my Dad's history is empty of immigrants after the 18th century, so I assume a massive if not entirely British heritage from that fact and their locations.
<1 american="" native="" p="">
Labels: Genealogy