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!

@bellinisurge I watched a Canadian documentary where they tested identical twins with the same companies. The results were amusing as their ethnic backgrounds were different.

@xenia you've made me interested in a mtdna test now!
I'd not been considering one due to the limited value for paper records etc, but it sounds like it's given you some really interesting info.

Posters who said they were surprisingly pleased with the results - which kit did you buy? I'm tempted to but one for my DF's birthday but like the OP I was a bit concerned about accuracy having read articles saying some are a con. Thank you!

No idea why people are effectively paying companies to hoard their most personal data - their very genetic code.

I bet hardly anyone looks at the T&Cs when they're merrily gobbing into test-tubes and have literally no idea what they've just allowed a commercial company to do.

This is all going to implode when insurance companies are allowed to mine these databases and start hiking premiums on some dubious basis of increased risk based on a two-bit analysis.

Mine was sadly, accurate.
I have olive skin and darkish hair and eyes - and my grandmother told us tales of Spanish settlers arriving in the Rheinland in Germany (where she is from) so I too was very disappointed to find out I have not one once of Spanish heritage in me

Never mind. Will have to try find another way to be interesting.

I liked all of them, they all offer their own insights. 23andme will give you maternal (and paternal if you’re male or your dad has tested too) haplogroups in addition to the usual ethnicity guesstimates. They all match you with other users, from parent/child to distant cousins. I spend most time on ancestry.com because of the family tree stuff which just gets better and better at helping you test hypotheses - you can see how well the science and the paper trail align with any given dna match (who also has a tree, with common ancestors).

I agree optic. And another upshot of these tests: my DH was contacted by someone who had had the test and was looking for her real father. It wasn't DH - it would not have been possible given the year of birth and location, but has been narrowed down to a cousin of his. We're not in contact with the cousin but I can't help wondering how that news is going down.

This is interesting as I'd read they were pretty inaccurate. Looks like they have validity after all. I might do one. Like others, I have traced my maternal line back to the late 1600s anyway, and paternal back to 1750ish. Be interesting to see the genetic bits of us though.
Interesting thread.
Thus far in my research I'd never end up on WdYTYA as all my ancestors were agricultural workers, then moved to the mines, and those who didn't ran pubs. And a disproportionate number were called Enoch.

My understanding of the ethnicity side of things is that yes, the data is from other people who have been tested, and that the comparisons are made with people in different countries now, now 100 years ago so it isnt really all that useful

Honestly don’t underestimate what it can mean to many people with African American heritage who often have such limited records to draw upon, the dna can be a really helpful angle to trace your origins more specifically.

I suppose England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland are all in NW Europe, so the results are not as different as they look.

My sister had one done that seemed broadly correct, based on what we already knew. It also had 9% Norway/Sweden, which is about right as a great-great grandmother was from Sweden.

For God’s sake don’t let these companies process your dna.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/

Hi OP,

    I've had similar questions all my life and like I expected with the tests I came out as being 85% from the British Isles (mostly Ireland). What surprised me, given all the invasions, is that I am only 2% Scandinavian.  A second cousin had it done and his results came out as 2% Scandinavian too. Apparently the earliest migrants came from Anatolia (Turkey) which actually explains a lot with all the stone circles (which my grandfather always says our ancestors built). 

It's actually a very common look in Ireland but others often don't believe me, especially if they are hung up on the idea of red hair/freckles being the Irish stereotype, so I made this board

pin.it/4otCHct

Which test does anyone recommend?

I’m interested in doing it, especially since one dd has rather different colouring (more Mediterranean) from anyone else on either side. I can’t help wondering about washed-up Armada sailors, since I have GGparents on both my sides from different areas where they might have washed up.

Re really way-back ancestry, at least 15 years ago dh and I did the Oxford Ancestors one, which was said to trace your direct-line ancestral origin, paternal and maternal.

Turned out that we both had the same paternal ancestor (father of about 45% of native Europeans, so they said, so he must have been a busy old goat), origin as far as they knew in the Middle East, some 25 thousand years ago.

But our maternal ones were quite different. Mine was dated back to northern Greece, 45 thousand years ago, shared with 11% of native Europeans, whereas dh’s origin was SW France about 20 thousand years ago IIRC, so a mere parvenu (as I enjoyed telling him) and much more common, around 25% of NEs.

It was very interesting, but obv. I don’t know how accurate it was, and tests must be that much more sophisticated now.

I did one with Ancestry and have connected with cousins who have been able to share photos of my ancestors that I would never have seen otherwise. It also pinpoints accurately where the majority of my ancestors are from in Scotland. Of course, there is a sprinkling of Scandinavia and they do touch on Europe, where I apparently have gypsy blood. It is interesting to do and as there are more tests done, the results change. However, do be aware that you might be in for a skeleton in the closet, too.

Does it count that we had our rescue dog's DNA done!?

She's such a delightful little personality we wanted to know what she was. She was found abandoned at a very young age (vet said she was about 1year old maybe a little younger) and in a very poor state so had no history.

The rescue centre thought she was a cairn cross and we thought she may have some schnauzer in her due to her fur type and colouring but turns out she's a westie x shih tzu. So the rescue centre wasn't far off as cairns and westies look alike and you can see the shih tzu in her face when she's wet. The test apparently does go down to further percentages but i guess she was a 'designer cross' who was abandoned when the novelty wore off.

Living DNA is the most accurate if your family have been based in the UK for some time. It pins you down to an area.

Apparently 23andme can sometimes list cousins as half siblings so it may not always be a family secret slate.com/technology/2019/10/23andme-family-secrets-half-siblings-cousins.html

My husband is half german, half czech and that is pretty much what came back so I think fairly accurate. He was more than 50% German which suggests his Czech mother has some german too but that would not be very surprising.

I can’t believe that people are so keen to hand over their DNA. These companies must be rubbing their hands together because at some point this stuff will be available to anyone.

Would you e.g. agree for the government to take everyone’s DNA? Madness.

Also,these people who say that they’ve found out about half siblings etc, do they ever go on to have professional DNA tests done if they meet up to prove that it’s actualy the case? It wouldn’t surprise me if many of these discoveries are also inaccurate,which itself would cause a lot of issues.

My husband had this done. Turns out he’s 23% canine which explains a lot.

@AlternativePerspective I think if you are considering someone as a half sibling then you would undoubtedly have another dna test done!

@stella I love the idea of the dog dna tests as surely this will help owners understand their dogs traits and behaviours better?

Gypsy blood would show up as South Asian surely rather than as gypsy? I used to get called pikey etc but I don't have a drop of South Asian blood which would point to Romany ancestry. There is 5% East European which is interesting and we have no idea where that came from unless it's residual from migrants from the Eurasian steppes or something.