Help please

[newfloorplease]

My great great grandfather is supposed to have been born in Germany back in the early 1850s and moved to the UK where he became a naturalised British citizen in 1870 approximately.
But on Ancestry my DNA test does not show any German ancestry.
Perhaps he was not the father of my great grandmother ?
My great grandmother was born 9 months after my great great grandparents got married. My gg grandmother was only 16 when she married, her German spouse 7 years older.
They remained married and had further children.

Please don’t worry. Obviously there’s always a chance he’s not actually related to you, but German is a funny one to show up on dna tests. Also, your ancestor’s ancestors may have come from elsewhere. My mum has a German father, but has very little German in her dna test. Fortunately other matches have confirmed that her father definitely was related to her. Have you checked out the National Archives for the citizenship documents?

I was really disappointed with what the Nation Archives provided re his naturalisation certificate. It just noted name, address and his place of birth - which probably couldn't be validated at that time.
Perhaps if I go to Kew to the National Archives I would get more information ?

Sounds like you got the certificate. If you’re lucky, there may be a whole file as well. This should be searchable on the website (although you’d have to order copies/go there to view).

Remember that “Germany” (or at least the German Federation” pre WWI was much bigger than the modern country. It included parts of what is now Poland, Denmark, Czech Republic and other Central European states.

No dna link to Germany, Poland etc.
A tiny amount of Swedish and Norwegian = 2% and Denmark = 2%
But if my ancestor was from Germany as he stated he was, then it should show up shouldn't it ?

So we all only share on average 6.25% DNA with a great great grandparent. So if your gp accounts for the scandy at 4%, that sounds about right. European populations have migrated over time, so his ancestors may have been further north.

Thank you.

Forget the "ethnicity estimate" which is just that, an estimate. Rather than getting caught up in wondering why you don't have German DNA at an exact percentage, start looking at the people you have matched with, starting with the strongest matches first. Classify them into maternal/paternal matches. Then start slotting them into your family tree.

After a while it will become fairly apparent if there are a whole pile of matches which can't be slotted in - there might be a wrong parentage somewhere.

Naturalisation petitions are usually amazing and have stacks of genealogical information. I think you might have just seen an index card or similar.

Go here https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and in the search box type naturalisation and then the ancestor's surname. If it's a common surname you might have to narrow the search using the years function. Then look for the naturalisation petition which is the letter/statement written to support the naturalisation which usually gives date of birth, parents names, home town in Germany, year of arrival in Britain, occupation and lots more. If it's there you can download immediately, sign up for an account (free) or pay £3.50.

And stating the obvious - just because someone was born in Germany, it doesn't mean they were German. Swedish family moves to Germany, lives in a community with lots of other Swedish people who all marry each other and have children who are German nationals but with wholly "Swedish" DNA.

Someone born in the German empire or federation or whatever is was called I’m the 1850s could easily be ethnically scandinavian though. Does ancestry give you any information about how accurate this ethnicity estimator is? I’d guess the answer is “not very”!

My whole family come from England. But I have 0% uk Dna
Your great great grandfather might be from Germany but that doesn't mean he has German dna.
It's also normal to skip dna. My sister has different dna to me as she does has some English Dna. I therefore skipped it.

He may well have been born in Germany, but it doesn't follow that his parents were German. They could have been from anywhere.

You didn't "skip it". That's not how DNA works. Your sister may have inherited a different 50% from your mum and 50% from your dad, but nothing is "skipped".

Ethnicity estimates were developed primarily for the North American market where everyone knows their ancestors are originally from somewhere else. (Except Native Americans, obvs). So it was designed to help these people target their genealogical research. If you have no idea about where your grandparents were from, do a DNA test and find that you have a large percentage of Irish, Swedish or Russian Jewish DNA, that gives you clues and a focus to start researching rather than just going into the world of genealogy with no idea what country or even continent you might be exploring.

@GenieGenealogy

I'm well aware of how dna works thanks.
I meant 'skipped' very loosely, not literally.
For example my husband and I both carry a rare genetic disorder our two eldest 'skipped' these genes and our youngest didn't 'skip' then.
Hope that helps with you understanding how some people might use the word skip or skipped.

If your whole family came from England how come you have no UK DNA ?
Where dies it show as coming from ?

@strongcupofTea the problem is that other people talk about characteristics 'skipping' generations eg if your family genetic disorder is recessive your son may be fine, but the disorder may reappear in a future generation ie skip a generation. Whereas you have not inherited the UK dna so that will not reappear. I'm sure you understand all this but best not to use 'skip' to avoid confusion.
@newfloorplease we share loads of the same DNA with our Northern European neighbours. The English talk about being Anglo-Saxons - these are both Germanic tribes. The DNA analysis looks out for area specific markers but there is a good chance the bit of dna from your German ancestor just contains generic northern European dna, so analysis won't identify it as being specifically German.

The % of ethnic/country DNA that gets chucked out is based on very limited/unreliable data so you can take it with a pinch of salt. The ethics of these tests really do worry me, there’s no counselling or support for people finding out family secrets and similar, albeit I think there’s some proportionality involved here as you are talking about several generations back, which is a bit different to when you discover that “Dad” isn’t your father.