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?

After my son did the test I concluded it goes by the dna of the people who've also done the test and where they live now.

I'm white but my DC are three quarters white. Their one non-white grandparent wasn't 100% sure where she was from (adopted) and she thought maybe Surinam but there were other stories. My children's dna came back 18- 20% Indian. After some googling we read that indian people had been brought to work on sugar plantations in surinam and so there is still a population there that is genetically Indian rather than south american. So, my son's DNA comes back with about 15% indian & 13% Danish! No Norwegian apparently even though his mother has Norwegian.

13.8% of the Danish population is non-Danish according to wikipedia and Pakistan is one of the countries their immigrants come from.

So now I think all you're getting when you do one of these tests is where have we seen this dna before (recently). What you want to know is where does this dna come from, but I really don't think that's the information you're being given.

My mum did hers recently and she got 3% Swedish, I imagined it was due to a close genetic link with so many scandinavians coming over to Scotland/NE England - as others have said it isn't exact and the companies don't publish their methodology on any of this.

She also got small % Benin/Nigeria/Ghana - which was a surprise as we are paler than pale, although my grandfather was a little darker and got an amazing tan in the summer. Turns out my 5x great grandfather was from Martinique - was captured by the British in the Nepolionic wars and taken as a POW, settled in Kent - who'd have thought! No family knowledge of it at all.

Wow, so did you find that out from digging the old fashioned way after the t3st came back mentioning ghana/nigeria

My mum did, through Ancestry. Really helpful that ancestor has a very unusual surname and one child of there’s had significant military career which means an obituary was published for him.

After being on here I looked up National Archives and found some documents exist on admission to Greenwich Hospital School. Other ancestors with very common surnames are going to be much more difficult.

Mum is keen to travel to Martinique to see what she can find there.

@Haffdonga

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.

This.

@wonderstuff that sounds amazing. Hope she gets to go!

It’s very interesting! Definitely need to be cautious on ancestry as some people put complete nonsense on their trees, there’s a picture allegedly of my 2x great grandmother that seems very unlikely to be her, there’s one up listing my grandfather as having completely different siblings to those he actually had, so you need to carefully look for provenance but fascinating, especially to find African heritage.

DS did one of these tests and came back 97% from the midlands UK. This was a surprise because we are Irish and also because it was such a high percentage, it seems that most people are far more mixed than this. The last 3% is Irish.

So now I think all you're getting when you do one of these tests is where have we seen this dna before (recently). What you want to know is where does this dna come from, but I really don't think that's the information you're being given.

That’s EXACTLY how it works.

I find it a bit of q nonsense that they can claim to distinguish so absolutely between british and irish dna. Same for norwegian and swedish.

So. In summary 100 well spent 🤣

I assumed my Scandinavian dna was due to Vikings but many of my matches have full Scandinavian dna and or family trees stretching back with only Scandinavian ancestors, suggesting to me that there are some more recent links.
My ancestors are from various coastal cities and regions e.g. Cork, Kerry, East London, Newcastle upon Tyne etc. I think it’s likely that sailors coming into port and having one night stands might be the reason for my various Scandinavian links.

Or maybe northern european dna is not as easy to categorise precisely.

The whole time i lived in the uk i was told i looked irish. Nonsense. My dna came back mostly English, norwegian and irish. It's all much of a muchness.

I have a Scandinavian grandparent, so welcome. We are lovely. 😊

I'm Scandi/English/Iberian and Eastern European
God knows who I'm supporting in the next World Cup

My DNA results match pretty much what I know via research about my relatively recent ancestors and where they were from but it gets confusing when we all have 4 grandparents, 8 x great, 16 x 2 great, 32 x 3 great etc. Endless gene pools!

From my family research I was expecting 50% West Wales, 36% Staffordshire and 12% Lancashire. The Welsh bit was spot on, but the English half came out as 15% English Midlands, 11% Norse, and up to 20% Scottish. I'm assuming that the Norse is a longstanding relic of Viking interbreeding rather than a single recent ancestor, and that the Scottish just comes from there being so many genetic similarities with Lancashire - or alternatively, loads of Scottish people migrated to Lancashire in the 18th century to work in the mills.

Amusingly, we always assumed that Irish DH would have more overlap with Norse DNA through the Viking settlement there, but he has a measly 2%!

Since Ancestry publishes updates once or twice a year and the exact percentages change each time, we're playing a game whereby whoever has the lowest Norse percentage at each update has to buy the other one a meal at a local 'Viking' restaurant. You can tell we're taking this really seriously!

The DNA matches are definitely the most useful part of the whole thing, I've just got in touch with a wonderful cousin once removed (didn't know she existed beforehand) and we've been exchanging family tales.

@MarshmallowFondant one fantastical explanation for the unexpected asian gene is that you could be 3% Sarmatian - people from the Steppes of Georgia/armenia/Iran, who travelled across Europe, some roman legions posted to the north of England consisted heavily of them, graves and amazingly advanced jewellry has been found, and there are fun theories about their assimilation
(A pinch of salt for the imprecision of these testa nd how many gaps there still are in the puzzle)

Do Ancestry DNA ever discount their tests? My DH did one recently and i'd like to do one too. Despite having a ongoing subscription they don't seem to offer me any discount.

@WhatHaveIFound

Do Ancestry DNA ever discount their tests? My DH did one recently and i'd like to do one too. Despite having a ongoing subscription they don't seem to offer me any discount.

Presume you mean ancestry.co.uk? Yes they do, usually before and after Christmas. They normally email with offers so bit odd you've not been sent these deals. Otherwise check out wowcher or Groupon special offers.

Presume you mean ancestry.co.uk? Yes they do, usually before and after Christmas. They normally email with offers so bit odd you've not been sent these deals. Otherwise check out wowcher or Groupon special offers.

Thanks, i'll check those two options out. I'm not very active on the site but I haven't had any email offers. Maybe I should check my junk folder!

When I logged onto ancestry (Canada) today, it is on sale. Also, I have purchased a couple from Amazon using Prime, and that knocked off $20. (Canadian) in shipping.

I was thinking of doing this for my sister for a birthday present. Do you think it's worth it? And which company would you recommend me going with (if any!)?