To think these DNA ancestry tests make no sense

The more people who register and send in DNA, the more it will change an accurately reflect your background.

Dh's came back 70% Scandinavian, so we went to IKEA, stocked up on meatballs and lignonberry jelly. And had a jolly decent meal there too!

Now I know this thread isn’t real. People were Celts if they made Celtic art? “‘Celt’ was just a term for leader.” So it wasn’t the languages, religion, geography, or…, like every single history says? Lulz. This thread, the denial of science and general zaniness, must be a huge joke based on the fact that everyone today thinks that they’re related to Vikings and they aren’t and Viking was just a job description.

I'm an adoptee and have done these tests. I found birth relatives. Parts of the ethnicity results could be matched to areas of the globe where I could see from physical records my ancestors came from. Other categories are hugely broad and don't tell you much. It can vary a lot between testing companies.

I know it's not binary.

But it just takes 1 new person in the gene pool to start a spread of new genes and new chromosome 1 etc

And don't forget - we all started out as a few individuals a long time ago.

I know it's impossible

But it would be interesting.

I agree on the two parents but even today there are people who marry their cousin so the numbers don't always grow in a binary way.

Even if they did you would get to the point that the number of great great great... grandparents exceeded the population.

The choice of who you breed with is also limited by the community you live in. An isolated village might have most people related to each other.

As I said, a family tree of EVERYONE in the UK would be interesting.

It would.

But impossible to create. Because for the bulk of people who were ordinary, working people, once you get into the mid-18th century you start to struggle to document the basics of births/marriage/deaths. You have no census pre-1841. No newspapers. If you can find an ancestor who at that stage was notable or a member of the aristocracy you might be lucky and they have a documented genealogy - but they aren't always accurate.

Autosomal DNA testing is not going to help beyond 5-6 generations. Y-DNA might, but you'd have to test every male, and then you still have to work out the women.

That is terrible

So you are saying that if you did a family tree that traced ALL your ancestors back over 1200 years, not one of them would have been a Viking?

Edward I was around 800 years ago. How many ancestors do you think he has?

Obviously people didn't move around as much and relations / etc were much closer in closed communities but there are many ancestors and it just takes a bit of movement to start a whole new chain of people. Just takes one to marry a "commoner" or for mistresses etc and a whole new tree starts

Which you can see people saying in the comments

And "all descended from" is the wrong word - as we have many descendents and it's likely that a chromosome we have could have come from Edward I. But with all that DNA crossover, who knows how similar it really is.

As I said, a family tree of EVERYONE in the UK would be interesting. Given the typical Brit, how far up the tree could you go to find a common ancestor for say 95% of British people?

Everyone English is a direct descendent of Edward 1 - why dont these so called DNA identity tests tell you that?

FOR THE 95TH TIME....

Because they are looking at 5-6 generations back at best, and Edward I died over 700 years ago. Hope that helps.

I highly doubt we English are all descended from Edward I, some of us will be related to Edward I, but not descended from him.

Whilst looking into this idea I came across this interesting comment (with a discussion following it) from someone on Reddit who pretty much demolishes OP's assertions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/1bcb7ij/no_you_arent_descended_from_royalty_like_edward/

That is wrong though. I have no Viking ancestry. I have Anglo-Saxon and Celtic. The Vikings didn’t reach where I live at all. There are people in Wales who migrated from what was Spain, this is why some Welsh people are dark skinned.

Mine was very accurate. I am not 100% British and it reflected back what I understood of my family history on both sides of the family, including the specific regional areas. I used AncestryDNA.

Good point. I do hope you’re OK, @CarolineFields . If this was just a troll post, no worries. If this is real, and you have this rigidity of thinking, saying the same thing again and again, it’s a bit concerning. Maybe give up the Vikings for a bit, and get some fresh air.

I’m not here to fight or to goad or to share my opinion. I shared an actual scientific study that used the DNA of several individuals known to be Vikings. Results: only 6% of British people have Vikings in their ancestry. What would you like me to do about it? You may have Celt, or Norman, or Saxon, or Moor, or maybe even Nordic - and 6% have Vikings.

If you don’t like it, I would simply recommend you do more research yourself, and who knows? Perhaps you’ll find something that disproves me. But it’s disappointing that no one continuing these arguments has even bothered to look. It’s been quite a few years since I took logic at uni but I somehow doubt they are now accepting the argument, “Well, that’s just how it is, innit?” Because all I’ve seen is people saying all of this with not a solid fact to back them up, OP included. So I really do wish you luck (if you decide to research), but I’m done. i just can’t add anything else helpful.

@CarolineFields Are you OK? Serious question.

That is disappointing. My favorite baseball team uses a "Viking' helmet in their home run celly. As evidenced here by my favorite player.