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!

Allname, I was happy to. As long as people make an informed choice that's fine. it is for mutual benefit in a sense. A bit like the covid 19 Big State track all citizens app which by the way I don't support. We each make our own choices as we are not in China so not all forced to have the same views and to obey.

Ylfa. Thanks I didn’t know that about how far different companies can go back. Some family members have Far Eastern shaped eyes and a couple have very curly, virtually Afro hair. Some look Middle Eastern. I was surprised at the 100% Eastern European result.

Yes, mine was Ancestry DNA too

Are Ancestry DNA still doing tests during the lock down?

Looks like it, @clawdy

www.ancestry.co.uk/dna/

Still the usual 6 - 8 week timing

@Ravenclawgirl your dh could well have londoner parents. It's only genes it looks at, not where they lived! There are "full blooded" Irish families in London that have been living there for 100 years or more. Lots of tests don't even distinguish between English and Irish because there's so much intermingling.

I have a friend who looks Greek or Italian but gets her colouring from Welsh ancestry.

I would love to do my mum's dna and find out where her dad's family came from but she won't have it. Don't think I inherited much wrt appearance from her so not sure if there's any point me doing it.

Thanks Aridane, will be looking at it now.

I got a shock as I’ve never been furnished with the details of my biological father.

Once I knew what I was doing and I also had a close maternal relative to compare paternal matches to, I was able to start tracking the bugger down.

The ethnicity estimates are something of a parlour trick, but your matches are the proof of the pudding, as it were, because they’re (usually) real people with (sometimes) reliable trees.