To think these DNA ancestry tests make no sense

[CarolineFields]

So you get back a score of 40% Nigerian. Meaning out of the tiny scrap of DNA tested - less than 0.1% -40% of that matches the average population in Nigeria. But if those Nigerians are tested, they won't come back as 100% Nigerian, so 40% of 0.1% matches people who are likely to be told they are 50% not Nigerian?

And if you are in Iceland when you have that test, you are told you are 40% Nigerian, but someone in Australia can be told they are 80% Icelandic due to being compared to you and you cohort?

Very much looking forward to the forthcoming series of Who Do You Think You Are which concentrates on tracing a minor celeb back to a single-celled bacteria rather than exploring Victorian illegitimacy, the first world war, or enslaved people in the Caribbean.

It would really put things in perspective, wouldn't it

Not trying to tell you your job.

It's just that there is so much more than the last couple of generations.

It's a mere glimpse into who we really are.

Mine was very accurate indeed even down to areas of the countries that my family comes from. It's good to see how much you've inherited from each part of your background.

@Misthios I’ve been thinking of doing a Strathclyde genealogy course, maybe even the MSc. Mainly for interest and to bring a bit of rigour to my own research. Do you have any experience or opinion on it?

Wouldn't German and French have the same genes though?

@Misthios That’s a very important public service announcement and I’m sorry that your profession has been ridden roughshod over in this thread by people who can’t spell it. Genealogists perform an important and unique service and I’m sure your clients are very grateful.

I would like to do one because my maternal grandfather never knew who his father was, not even a name. He had dark olive skin and so does my mum, and me although to a lesser extent as my dad was pale.

I also don't know anything about my dad's father as he deserted him as a child, and my dad wouldn't talk about him.

It would be interesting to know more about my heritage and the unknown sides of the family. The tests are expensive though, and I can't quite bring myself to fork out for one.

Hmm. No. I’m sick and I’m done engaging. If you want science to back you up, don’t just share a theory; go out on the internet and find something in a scholarly journal to prove what you say. The onus isn’t on me to prove you’re right. I took my responsibility to provide a starting point for proving OP was wrong. Of course my links aren’t the be all or end all; unlike OP (or apparently you?), I don’t claim infallible personal knowledge with no backup. It was meant to be my last post in the thread. I warned others, I provided a starting point for research, and I said this thread isn’t much good for people who want individual advice about DNA tests, which is the most important part. I’m done with my points, I’m too sick to prove yours too, and I just came back to thank @Misthios for the work she does. Have a good one.

The myheritage one is £35 atm,

I’ve read up on how the various companies handle data and I decided I would only use Ancestry or 23andme as they’re more transparent about what they do with it. MyHeritage seemed to be one to avoid and I’m suspicious of its low price.

I've messaged you as I do.

If people want to look at their ancestors from up to 200 years ago, then fine.

But the point is - we have way more ancestors than that so when people get excited about "where they come from", it's a bit meaningless as it just tells you the last couple of generations.

Humans are much more complicated than the last few generations.

I don't need to go on the internet.

There are loads of chances for at least 1 chromosome from Edward I or whoever from 800 years ago to be passed down to people who are alive nowadays.

This is Adam Rutherford on the tests and royalty

DNA ancestry tests may look cheap. But your data is the price | Adam Rutherford | The Guardian

"In short: if you really want to spend your cash to discover that you are descended from Vikings (spoiler: if you have European ancestry, you are) or you have blue eyes (try a mirror), go ahead"

So you’re related to Charlemagne? You and every other living European… | Adam Rutherford | The Guardian

And this also makes it more interesting -

"Each subsequent generation, the contribution from an individual from your lineage becomes less. Professor Mark Thomas from University College London describes this dilution as “homeopathic”. After a few rounds of preparation, homeopathic dilutions contain no molecules of whatever the active ingredient is imagined to be. Genetic inheritance works in a similar way. Half of your genome comes from your mother and half from your father, a quarter from each of your grandparents. But because of the way the DNA deck is shuffled every time a sperm or egg is made, it doesn’t keep halving perfectly as you meander up through your family tree. If you’re fully outbred (which you aren’t), you should have 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. But their genetic contribution to you is not equal. Before long, you will find ancestors from whom you bear no DNA. They are your family, your blood, but their genes have been diluted out of your bloodline. Even though you are directly descended from Charlemagne, you may well carry none of his DNA."

They are your family. Your blood. But their genes have been diluted.
But you can still trace them as an ancestor as a direct descendant

And some more science

Most Europeans share recent ancestors | Nature

Whether they are a Serb and a Swiss, or a Finn and a Frenchman, any two Europeans are likely to have many common ancestors who lived around 1,000 years ago. A genomic survey of 2,257 people from 40 populations finds that people of European ancestry are more closely related to one another than previously thought, and could help to bring about new insights into European history.

And

"One company offered a service whereby it would tell you the precise village location of your genetic ancestry 1,000 years ago. It’s a peculiar thing to claim, as you will have thousands of ancestors 1,000 years ago, and I’m pretty sure they won’t have all come from the same village. Their algorithm clearly needed some work: it placed the genetic origin of one paying customer in the depths of the Humber estuary.
The truth is that we all are a bit of everything, and we come from all over. If you’re white, you’re a bit Viking. And a bit Celt. And a bit Anglo-Saxon. And a bit Charlemagne. This is not to disparage genetic genealogy and ancestry. Done right, it is an immensely powerful tool for studying families and human migrations. DNA can disclose unknown cousins or parents"

Which is true:

It can be useful to find cousins, families and recent history.

But it's also true we are a "bit of everything and we come from all over"

But the point is - we have way more ancestors than that so when people get excited about "where they come from", it's a bit meaningless as it just tells you the last couple of generations.

It may be meaningless to you but it's obviously not to the people who are excited about finding out about their ancestors.

I get that many people are just not interested at all at dead people and consider them to have no relevance at all to their life today. I'm married to one of them! Whereas I find it fascinating to be able to name all these people and know that I and the people that I knew in person (my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles) were all born because of the life decisions of those ancestors. When researching them I find myself wondering what kind of person they are, and whether I would have liked them and they like me. What was their life like. And it leads me to then look up the social history of the time and location and research that.

I hated history at school, learning about the Romans and Verulamium just left me completely cold. Now I love it, because I can look at it through the eyes of my ancestors. Whether that is tin miners in Cornwall, or cotton weavers in Lancashire, or soldiers ending up in London Workhouses, or tallow chandlers from Derbyshire. Fascinating.

it placed the genetic origin of one paying customer in the depths of the Humber estuary

There's a whole bunch of villages that have been lost due to coastal erosion around the Humber estuary, that sounds perfectly feasible. Ravenser Odd is one of the better known ones but there are others. http://www.hullgeolsoc.co.uk/gordon.htm#:~:text=Those%20villages%20named%20above%20were,%2C%20drawing%20by%20Wendy%20Munday).

Seriously, we’ll be at this forever the way we’re going.

I say you need some back up. You say you don’t need the internet. Then you share pieces from the BLOODY INTERNET. Then I point out two of them are opinion pieces and the other is an overview of several studies, one of which ACTUALLY says,
“We find that a pair of modern Europeans living in neighboring populations share around 2–12 genetic common ancestors from the last 1,500 years, and upwards of 100 genetic ancestors from the previous 1,000 years.”
So 2-12 genetic common ancestors since before the Vikings. And 100 back to the time before Christ. Ok, then. But… obviously Edward I was one of those 2-12? And that’s ONLY neighboring populations. And sticks within Hunnic and Slavic population migrations, according to the study authors, so no Vikings at all, depending on the area. Sad Vikings.

If you will not be moved by anything, that’s fine. You can always agree to disagree. But I do think it’s been INCREDIBLY poor form on your part to continually put down the work that genealogists do. It means a lot to a lot of people and perhaps if you were adopted or abandoned or had no family left, like some of us, you’d feel differently.

Now truly. I’m sick, I see nothing to gain by further attempting to discuss this with you. I’d gently recommend that you also learn when to agree to disagree, which is what I’m doing now, and putting this to bed.

I think it's the last few hundred years that are really interesting anyway. Or at least it is in my family. I've traced several lines back quite a long way and as far as I can tell, pre early 1800s they were all farm labourers and stayed within very small geographical areas. I'm sure it was a very tough life and some of them probably had more interesting personal lives than others, but records are restricted to parish records with minimal detail so I will never know. There was nobody interesting or rich enough that far back in my family for anyone to have recorded more than when they were baptised, married and died.
But from the 19th Century on it gets a lot more interesting, far more records are available and my ancestors start to feel like real people that I can relate to. I don't really care what patch of soil my distant ancestors were tilling in the 15th century to be honest, or whether I have Roman or Viking ancestry but I can see how the lives of my dead but more recent forebears have actually impacted on my life. That's why I traced my family tree and that's why I did a DNA test. In my experience that's what many, probably most people on Ancestry and similar sites are interested in.

Does anybody on here fancy having a go at solving an unknown father case I'm stuck on? I was helping an elderly adopted friend and have got DNA and Ancestry tree. I believe I've traced it to a couple of potential grandfathers but I need a fresh pair of eyes.
I've done quite a few of these, for myself and for other people but, for some reason, I'm having a mental block with this one and I think I might be missing something obvious...

An aside but Mark Thomas is a hugely knowledgeable geneticist who has been a source of reason and sanity for many years in a field that has often misrepresented and overblown the findings from aDNA - I have nothing but respect for him.

From that study:

"However, as 1,000 years is about 33 generations, and 233≈1010 is far larger than the size of the European population, so long as populations have mixed sufficiently, by 1,000 years ago everyone (who left descendants) would be an ancestor of every present-day European"

In other words - every European today is a descendant of every European from 1000 years ago who had children

And as for genealogists - I suggested that if they really want to find out "who we are and where we come from", then it's evolutionary DNA that holds the key. That's not putting them down - clearly if someone wants to find out about relatives from the last couple of generations, then it's useful. But it's a mere glimpse at what we really are.

So yes, we have ancestors who were Vikings, Celts, etc.

Is she still banging on?

It sometimes feels like we’re being practiced on by AI bots who just repeat the same argument without actually engaging in the meat of the discussion.

Still no response to my question about Brits of heritage from other parts of the globe, and what it means for her statement about “all” Brits having these ancestors.

@nonumbersinthisname Hey, I was going to leave the thread but I wanted to say, I’m sorry about this. Obviously, it’s ridiculous to say that “every Brit is related to Vikings,” when yes, of course, we have British people who came from Jamaica or Nigeria or India or lots of other places, and celebrate being part of both those cultures, and it doesn’t matter whether they’ve been here so long that they have British great-great-grandchildren or if they only arrived a few years ago and received citizenship - they are British. So yes, to cut out a huge swath of the people who make the UK the UK with these assertions, is pretty shortsighted. I’m sorry if it’s made for painful reading.