Are DNA kits to test ethnicity mostly accurate or a rip off!

[QueenArnica]

So backstory is...

This is long as it contains statistics...

DS (now 13) asked for one of these kits for Christmas a couple of years ago. His results came back as follows:

North and West European 73.5%
Sardinian 13.2%
Irish, Scottish, Welsh 6.4%
Iberian 4.5%
Italian 2.4%

We were pretty impressed as my DH is half Italian, my FIL is from Sardinia.

Now me... all my life people have assumed I’m either Italian, Spanish, Portuguese due to my colouring. My DC have Italian names and again the assumption is because I have Italian roots. My DF has the same colouring as me and never knew who his father was so I always curious as to my background.

So my results came back:

English 70.6%
North and West European 14.2%
Scandinavian 5.8%
Finnish 1.7%
East European 7.7%

So my AIBU is looking at the 2 sets of results is the whole thing a scam as they lack similarity? Also AIBU to be sad that it didn’t come back identifying me as a Spanish Princess?!

Congratulations if you got to the end of this and apologies if it bored you to tears!

I’m very dark too - probably welsh blood! Be careful though, they link you to others with the same dna (usually second cousins twice removed) DH did the test as a Christmas present and found out he had a half brother conceived and born when his mum and dad were still married!

It’s not a scam, but it is not an exact science.
They test for gene markers associated with ethnicities. Its possible that genes your son inherited from his father, drowned out the genes from you. I think 123Me tests for mostly paternal genes but Ancestry tests mostly for maternal genes.

@thegreenlight yes I’ve been emailed details of lots of 3rd-5th cousins!

Mine was impressively accurate.

I’d love to do mine but I think it’s expensive.
I have family from all across the world , the most interesting being Dutch-Malayan.
Might ask for one as a Christmas present

If it makes you feel any better, my husband basically paid £80 to be told he was Irish! We kind of knew that (he did have a bit of Viking though so was pleased!) he said the Finnish was interesting as they are a group all by themselves and quite genetically distinct.

Mine was accurate and has led to some very interesting discoveries. It’s such a pity my great-grandmother (who was adopted) never knew she had a sister who lived a few miles away - she was also adopted. I only found out about her sister when someone who had taken a DNA test (which suggested we were distant cousins) contacted me wondering how we were related. After a bit of research we found the answer. The DNA tests are so useful if you’ve hit a brick wall with research.

Mine was pretty accurate too, pinpointing my dna to a fairly specific area of the uk which fitted in with my paper family tree. Also had 10% norwegian element which I'm presuming dates back to the viking influence - most of mum's side were from york/ east riding. You can download your results to other companies free - mine were pretty similar on gedmatch and again showed a scandinavian influence.
What's interesting too is the connection with cousins, anything from 2nd to 6th in my case. I discovered that at least 2 siblings of great grandfathers emigrated to the US/Canada or australia. I was able to see photos of these distant rels on their public family trees and put them on mine. Thing is none of us knew about these relations overseas !

It’s good that you can upload your DNA results to other sites to find different matches that way.

These tests work by comparing your results against everyone else who has done the test.

I don't think it's particularly scientific to assume that your heritage is from the Mediterranean just because you have dark hair and eyes. Any more than it would be to assume everyone with read hair / blue eyes is Scottish. Genetic quirks pass through families some stronger than others.

If your DS's is very accurate based on facts you KNOW, why the immediate leap to assume that yours isn't? It's showing you have general European heritage.

I'm very dark and I have a small percentage for The Basque area of Spain. I also have gypsy ancestors, although this doesn't really show in the DNA, it's from census and church records. I'm also a fair percentage Welsh so the Celt figures highly.

So any of those could account for my colouring. I've been taken for Anglo Indian many times. But DNA says not.

Lastly I have 10% Scandanavian, which I guessed as my grandmother had a Viking surname and several on that branch have the Danish thing that makes your fingers curl in.

Each time it's updated it refines it more.

DNA tests are fantastically useful if you are interested in creating your family tree, the cousin matching will confirm lines on your paper research (or disprove them) however as previous posters have said, be prepared for some surprises. You can group cousins together based on shared DNA and work out from which 3rd or 4th great grandparent the shared DNA comes from. Some shared DNA though can come back from as far as 10 generations and that is much harder to trace!

If you're only interested in them for ethnicity, you honestly won't get as much out of it. Testing companies base each ethnicity on a sample group of people confirmed to be from that region. These are different for each company and Ancestry for example updates these every year. Brothers and sisters will also have different ethnicity estimates because we inherit a different 50% of DNA from each parent. Estimates may become more accurate over time as more people test and the sample groups increase.

Partner and I did ours at the same time. She has a parent of full Greek heritage and the test came back accurately for that, so we were confident the tests were not a scam. I expected mine to be of the 'you're English, sorry to be so boring' variety, but I was thrilled to be told I had just under 40% Scandinavian heritage and a lovely cocktail of a load of others.

The best bit for me was the world map I got with the dots showing my bits of DNA - it was like a trail out of Africa, across Europe via two different routes to end in Britain.

It’s ridiculous and aimed at Americans and how they define ethnicity.

What does it mean to have English genes? From what period in English history are these genes supposed to have emerged?

My husband did this and although he was adopted he believed his parents were both Londoners. Instead it turns out that he's Irish which was a shock for him. Strangely enough it didn't surprise me as I'm Irish and always suspected that he had some Irish blood in him.

He's not upset to be Irish but he's now trying to get hold of his birth records because everything he thought he knew about his birth parents is probably wrong. Tbf he was adopted at a time when virtually no information was given to adopters.

Our adopted son has also done this test and it seems pretty accurate from what we knew about his background.

You do have to read all the info you get with the results to help you interpret them properly.

Remember that your son would have been tasted on the X and Y part of his genetic makeup but you only got tested on the X. I got an Ancestry kit, which was super interesting, but there was an option to get a brother to do the spit test for you, as long as he signed a load of permission stuff.

My dads came back as 85% Scottish/Irish but we knew that! It did pinpoint the exact areas his ancestors were from so that was good.

But be prepared to find stuff out that you may not want to! He found out he's got another half brother. And there's another match that could be another half nephew but they haven't responded to a message.

We assumed that my dad might have some Italian or Spanish ancestry as he's so dark, but no! Scottish.

The results also change. Mine said French, but then changed to German. Both cover the part of Switzerland that we know we have ancestors from though.

I was impressed that it was accurate enough to pick up a Derbyshire grandparent line but disappointed it was lumped in as '70% English' (& 30% Welsh/Scottish/Irish).

It doesn't go back far enough to pick up the Norman/ Saxon/Viking/older British etc; fine for an American client, not long enough for an indigenous English one.

Again though, what is English dna? People who have been in England for a thousand years don’t all have the same dna. Some of them are descended from the Angles and Saxons (many in Norfolk), some from Scandinavia, and most from the ancient British, which is the same genetic group as the Irish.

So you could get back a result that says 75% Irish but actually your ancestors have never been to Ireland and have been in Oxford for 10,000 years.

Mine was amazingly accurate (and I have tracked just about every ancestor back to the 1700s)

Separately years ago I had the female ancestor test done which takes me back to the Caucasus mountains 25,000 years ago on the maternal side and is pretty likely too. In fact Xenia came from that - my user name.

sites.nd.edu/niovino/2019/11/29/xenia/

It’s ridiculous and aimed at Americans and how they define ethnicity

What does it mean to have English genes? From what period in English history are these genes supposed to have emerged

I think you should read up about these tests before you make assertions like this. If you did you would understand that it doesn't say you have English genes, it says that your genes are prevalent in a particular area, so they don't define ethnicity as such but instead locations where your genes are very common.

I want one for my birthday who would recommend which company they used please

Raven, I am basing that on the OP’s post saying what % of her genes are English and what % Scottish/Welsh/Irish.

Those are nonsensical groups in genetic terms.

If you say that it refers to areas where your genes are very common, why is nobody in the US being told they are 60% Californian?

The groups must be in some sense related to the ancestral locations of people.

I tried it twice and they couldn't get enough DNA from me, the same with the nutritional one. And I've had issues with them getting enough cells from a smear.

Shame I'm not an international jewel thief or something