13% Norwegian??!!

[alienbaby]

Did Ancestry DNA and got over 50% NW England (correct!), 25% Irish, tiny scraps of Scottish and Welsh, all expected being British....

...and then 13% Norwegian! 😳 There is no known Norwegian connection in my family. Is it me or is 13% too high a percentage to be some kind of distant Viking invasion link? What does 13% mean, aka where within the tree is this likely to have come from?

We got 40% Scandinavian, 35% Irish / Scottish / Welsh, 15% Iberian and 10% Baltic states on our MyHeritage test, which was a bit surprising given that virtually all our ancestors traced back to about 1750 were English and from Yorkshire or the Midlands. Our thought was it gives you a broad indication of where your ancestors may have originated way, way back,

The Viking invasion wiped out enormous populations across the North of England and essentially replaced the Anglo Saxon populations, so it's very likely Scandinavian genetics make up a significant proportion of the genetic heritage here.

Norwegian vikings mostly came around the north of Scotland to the west coast (they ruled west Scotland for many generations) so it's reasonable me that many genetics in the north west might be influenced by them

I have 18% Sweden and Denmark, which was also unexpected, but if you click on it, it says ‘Your ethnicity estimate is 18%, but it can range from 0—31%.’ So 0% is possible!

My DSis got a tiny bit if Norwegian, which wasn't as surprising as the 20% Irish.

Have no qualifications in any related field , so completely disregard but great grandparents? 8 of them , so 8x13 is 104 % . Maybe paperwork family tree isn’t quite true 🤫🤐 plot thickens!

In my experience, getting some Scandinavian "ethnicity" is quite common for northern Brits.

The "ethnicity" is widely disregarded in genealogy groups as anything other than a curio (or marketing ploy). Your DNA matches are where the excitement is

The % are largely going back between 500 and 1000 years ago. The DNA test tells you where your realtively distant ancestors come from.
Have you traced your family back that far?

My results were very accurate as far as I can tell. Southern England, Europe, Scotland and a bit of Irish. It went with what my research had already found out. I haven't found any French or German ancestors, but not surprised to find that in my DNA.

My husband had a far bit of Scandinavian heritage because he comes from Yorkshire and that's where lots of the population comes from, way back.

"relatively" - typo, sorry.

If you look on the page with your DNA result, it has solid circles and dotted circles. The dotted circles are more recent ancestry, so has areas for regions of this country (for me anyway). It usually relates to the last 300 years or so. The solid circles are for your history between 500 and 1,000 years ago, which is probably beyond your ability to create a family tree for.

Strangely it said that on the page when I first looked, but not sure the explanation is there now. It may be on another page.

Are we cousins?! I too am NW england, bit irish, bit scottish and 14% Norwegian?!

I got 2% Norwegian.
Irish and Scottish heritage.
It's spot on re the area my recent ancestors are from.

I am 2% Norwegian, 11% Scottish and 87% Irish. Not surprising since I'm an Irish Colleen! Just have a bit of Viking in me too

@Ilikepalindromes
I read somewhere that Irish people have a huge % of Irish ethnicity (like your results) whereas English people will tend to have a much lower % of English ethnicity on average

Just had mine done I'm 38% Scandinavian!

@Popetthetreehugger

Have no qualifications in any related field , so completely disregard but great grandparents? 8 of them , so 8x13 is 104 % . Maybe paperwork family tree isn’t quite true 🤫🤐 plot thickens!

Obviously your entire DNA adds up to 100%. And you do get 50% from each of your parents.

But after that the percentages will depend on recombination. So although on AVERAGE you get 25% from each grandparent, it might be 24.5% from paternal grandfather and 25.5% from paternal grandmother. As you go back in time this can mean that although you are most definitely related to a gggg grandparent, you have no DNA from them at all.

The Ancestry "ethnicity estimate" should be taken with a bit of salt. My ethnicity shows i'm 88% Scottish, but if you look at the circles for how they define that, the circles take in all a huge chunk of Northumberland, Cumbria, Durham, Teesside, plus the Isle of Man and a big chunk of Northern Ireland. I have 3% Welsh, which also includes north Somerset, Merseyside, and the border counties like Gloucester, Hereford and Shropshire.

I have 2% Norway too - I think this is fairly common for people who have known ancestors in the north of Scotland. I also have matches (quite far down the list) with people living in Norway and Sweden.

The really weird one is when I exported my results to My Heritage. Their ethnicity estimate has me at 3% West Asian (Turkey, Iran, Iraq) even though I have no links at all to those areas and have never matched - even distantly - with one person from that part of the world.

Agree it's weird. I have 9% norwegian dna and 8% swedish. But like others my family come from the north - in my case north and east Yorks. In fact the test accurately pinpointed another area (east midlands) where only a small section of my family originated from !
Funnily enough I also had a Norwegian dna match ( 4-6 th cousin) so who knows how recently it goes back ?

You can upload your dna to gedmatch and use their special tools, chromosome browser ect and maybe learn more. They have tools for your ancient ancestry that may help.
There is a gedmatch Facebook group that could probably guide you.

One gedmatch tutorial. (Basic)

It doesn't mean you're related to a Norwegian person. Just that a proportion of your genes are most commonly found in people who live in that area of the world. Not surprising when you remember the vikings not only raided the north coast but settled permanently and intermingled with much of the population in the UK.

13 is 12.5 rounded up? That's an eighth, or a great grandparent. If one is from a location that is perhaps rural, experienced little population inflow most of the time, is in a Norwegian Viking area of these islands... you have a plausible explanation. I'm sure there are others.

Same! Im irish and my brother and i are both about 15% norwegian.
But i dont know if it means that i haveca great grandparent from norway. Norway has a small population and it could just mean irish people living in norway took the test.

My 15% gernanic/swedish dna comes from one individual in 1776. In your case however it could be from several individuals that comes together in you.

Cork, Wexford, Dublin, Limerick, Waterford - all key Viking settlements in Ireland. If you think you have Irish heritage on all known lines of descent, you are more likely to have (mostly coastal and 'urban') Viking ancestry in the mix. It is unlikely to be a more recent visitor.

These results can change as the genetic data gets better and more people test. E.g. I was around 5% Norwegian and 2% Moroccan 2 years ago on Ancestry.com. That got updated to zero for both a year later but now I'm 3% Danish 1% Swedish. I know the Danish comes from mum's side.
My freind used another DNA testing site and the results are nonsense. Her kids came out all wildly different ethnicities and they're definitely all hers & her DH's.

My parents are Hungarian. I did the ancestry DNA test last year. I am 5% Scottish, 2% Norway, 8% England & NW Europe. Well, that would explain my grandmother’s Scottish maiden name. Though, she didn’t speak any English, it was my great grandfather’s surname, so who knows. I’d suspect a move happened during the Austro-Hungarian empire.