I am not usually an early adopter. In fact, my middle name could very well be Cautious,
with a capital “C.” I will research an
expenditure, an acquisition, or an impending experience until I have become a
walking encyclopedia on my latest interest. For most people this would suck the
joy out of the venture, but for me it is a source of added pleasure. Insane, right?
Occasionally, however, the “Frenzy Fairy” will hit me with
her pixie dust, and I will plunge into something without so much as a backward
glance. That is my only explanation of
why, in 2012, when I received the email from Ancestry about being a beta tester
for their new DNA product, I signed up immediately. Well,
that and the fact it was only going to cost me $9.99 for shipping. (Don’t worry, Ancestry has more than made
bank from me with that little investment.)
So, I spat into the tube and waited. At the time, I had been
working on my family history for about a decade.
As I was digitally rummaging to see if I
had the original screenshot of their ethnicity predictions, I found my own
prediction of what I thought the results would be.
My predictions were:
73% Central European (All that German ancestry, plus some
Swiss, Dutch and a wee bit of French)
25% British Isles
(English and Irish)
1% Native American
1% African American
Okay, the final two were a stretch, but one could always
hope.
Wait! Where were they
getting the Scandinavian ethnicity, or the Southern European?
I asked my mom to do the test, so I could see where these
regions were coming from.
Um, mom pretty much had the Ancestry I thought I should
have. Shouldn’t she and I at least be
half a match with our ethnicities? I looked quickly to see what relationship
they had assigned to us. Okay, I could
relax, we were parent and child.
At the end of 2013, a new estimate for ethnicity came out
from Ancestry.
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33% Eastern Europe?
Mom only had 3% Eastern Europe with this update, so that meant it came
from Dad’s side of the family. Dad’s
mother was 100% German, and there was no Slavic ancestry to be found in the
rest of his family tree. So, I took a
second look at his German ancestors.
To my surprise, I found that before Germans
settled in the area near the Baltic Sea, two Western Slavic tribes had lived in
the region. The two groups had
intermingled and more importantly, intermarried. Up until 1795, the very
church where my ancestors had worshipped had a service given in a Slavic
language. Ancestry had pointed out a part of my ethnic history that I hadn’t
even known existed. I still couldn’t
account for the Scandinavian heritage.
Of course, Ancestry has had many updates since. On one update, I was happy to see Welsh
listed among my ethnic roots. The next
one, the Welsh was gone from my results, and my brother suddenly found a bit of
Welsh in his.
Below are my latest ethnicity estimates from three different
vendors.
ANCESTRY
FAMILY TREE
My Heritage
They don’t agree on much except that I still have that darn
Scandinavian in my estimates.
Each vendor uses their own reference populations. They each
have their own procedures that ultimately become their estimate of your personal ethnicity. Family
Tree and Ancestry have white papers explaining exactly what is involved in
making estimates. Remember, if a portion
of your DNA does not fit perfectly into one of their identified regions, that
bit of DNA will be put into an ethnicity that it most closely matches.
My point is that you do not necessarily need to panic if
your results do not match your expectations, or even your own family members. There
could be valid reasons. As Ancestry says, “It’s not an exact science.” However, if your DNA matches are not what you
expect, then there could be an issue. Ancestry has prepared a page to go over
those issues along with links that may help. That page is here.
As for my Scandinavian mystery, there were Viking
settlements in England, Ireland, along the Baltic coast, some parts of Central
Europe, into Russia, and as far south as present-day Kyiv. My ancestors lived in many of those regions. Maybe
the answer to the mystery is this: I
have Viking DNA that is still circulating in my genes a thousand years after
the fact. To that I say, “SKÅL!”
Sources:
1. Ancestry
Ethnicity Results, www.Ancestry.com, Accessed 18 June 2012.
2. Ancestry
Ethnicity Results, www.Ancestry.com, Accessed 29 March 2013.
3. Ancestry
Ethnicity Results, www.Ancestry.com, Accessed 3 Oct 2013.
4. Kashubia,
Home of the Baltic Slavs – written originally in Polish by Jaroslaw Ellwart,
translated to German by Peter Oliver Loew, and abridged and supplemented English
translation by John M. Hingst and Liesel Herchenroether Hingst, 2000. PDF
version Accessed 20 July 2020.
5. Ancestry
Ethnicity Results, www.Ancestry.com, Accessed 27 Dec 2022.
6. Family
Tree Ethnicity Results, www.Familytreedna.com, Accessed 28 Dec 2022.
7. My
Heritage Ethnicity Results, www.Myheritage.com, Accessed 28 Dec 2022.
8. AncestryDNA®
White Papers, https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/AncestryDNA-White-Papers,
Accessed 28 Dec 2022.
9. myOrigins
3.0 White Paper, https://blog.familytreedna.com/myorigins-3-0-white-paper/,
Accessed 28 Dec. 2022.
10. Discover
more about DNA matches, https://www.ancestry.com/c/dna/unexpected-dna-matches,
Accessed 4 Feb 2023.
11. Britannica,
The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Viking". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1
Dec. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Viking-people, Accessed 27 Dec 2022.
© 4 February 2023, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L.
Snyder
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