Question of the Week: What are your DNA ethnicity estimates? [closed]

Question

If you have taken a DNA test, what does the testing company report for your ethnicity? Is it what you expected?

Please tell us about it with an answer below, or answer on Facebook, or use the question image to share your answer with friends and family on any social media.

P.S. Don't forget to select which test you have taken so it can be connected to your ancestors' and cousins' profiles.

Comments

AncestryDNA:

33% Germanic Europe

Ireland - 31% (specifically Donegal/Inishowen) 

Eastern Europe - 17% (specifically Slovenia) 

Scotland - 16%

England & NW Europe - 3%

Other communities: 

-Early Pennsylvania Settlers

-Early Settlers of Pennsylvania 

-NJ & Eastern Pennsylvania Settlers

-Mid-Atlantic Settlers

-St Louis, Missouri, & Western US Settlers

Generally, this feels accurate based on what I know, though I am surprised to see that much Germanic Europe. I thought it would be less based on my research. I am surprised no community came up for Jamestown/Virginia colony settlers, or northern settlements near Plymouth as I have many ancestors that came in there and lived there thru the 1700s. 

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MyHeritage:

Irish, Scottish & Welsh - 60.6% (eastern Ireland & England)

Balkan - 28.8%

Finnish - 5.2%

English - 3.3%

West Asia - 2.1%

Additional genetic groups: 

SE South Carolina 

NJ, PA, & NY

This also makes sense. Not sure where the Finnish or west Asia would come from for certain. Balkan would be from my paternal Slovenian grandfather (his family came to US about 1920.) it’s likely the West Asia trace is also from the Slovenian side as nothing else fits for other grandparent ancestors, but we have been unable to trace back beyond a generation or two.

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People who have Finnish in their admixture often have a side of  east/west Asia.

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40% Mesoamerican

20% Euskera/Basque

20% Gitano

10% Sefardí Jewish

5% Arabic

2.5% Moorish

2.5 % central Asian

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I'm so British that I'm related to Cheddar Man. I call him Uncle Ched.

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My Ancestry DNA results are...

89% England & North-West Europe

5% Sweden & Denmark

3% Germanic Europe

3% Wales

Overall, I'm quite happy with my results as an Englishman!

Although, this test has revealed higher foreign components than I expected (I have an extensive family tree with no direct non-english ancestors and only a handful of foreigners at all which are only indirectly related to me through marriage) but recently my uncle took a Y DNA test, in short, this revealed a distant swedish ancestor was most likely introduced into my bloodline through the various viking raids that took place over a thousand years ago...you learn something new every day!

Answer 1

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Ancestry Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

July 2022 Revised Estimate

• 48% - England & Northwestern Europe
• 38% - Scotland
• 09% - Ireland
• 05% - Norway

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MyHeritage Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

December 2021 Estimate

• Europe
  • 42.5% - English
  • 41.5% - North and West European
  • 14.8% - East European
• America
  • 1.2% - Mesoamerican and Andean

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Answer 2

Mine is pretty boring.

Mostly Celtic, some Viking and the rest from WHERE? 

75% Irish, Scottish, Welsh, 

22% Scandinavian, 

2% Baltic, 

1% Middle Eastern

Comments

Sorry - Forgot to mention, this estimate is from My Heritage

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Not boring, Robynne.  Everyone's DNA is fascinating.

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Are Genetic Similarities Good For Business

I was tested by My Heritage. I received a phone call from Utah. The director was interested in my connection to the Dodge Project. (Wiki Tree) I received my lab results within a fortnight. It was similar yours. Makes you wonder if we all came out of the same genetic pickle barrel. Or, does everybody who submits their genetic sample to the lab get a similar profile???

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Hi Richard, the result I got from MyHeritage seems a trifle like a result for people who might just want to be British.  I have an assessment of 19% Scandinavian from Family Tree DNA and I think this could go back a very long way - lots of British people have some Viking ancestry so it could be so embedded in Britishness that it is missed by some companies.  I know I have some French Huguenot ancestry which neither MyHeritage nor Family Tree DNA picked up on.  However my full sister had a test with 23&Me and they said there would be a French or German distant grandmother - true!  I have a link to Scandinavia through an in-law.  Martha Lyon who married my 1st cousin 4x removed was descended from Scottish royalty (Robert de Brus), English royalty (Plantagenets) and even more intriguingly - from Gunhild Gormsdattar, the sister of Harald Bluetooth Gormsson, both children of King Gorm of Denmark and Norway, according to WikiTree.  But I'm not genetically related to the Viking Kings, as far as I know.  Haha!

Answer 3

From Ancestry.com

*  England & Northwestern Europe 40%

*  Scotland 34%

*  Sweden & Denmark 12%

*  Ireland 8%

*  Wales 6%

Answer 4

Ancestry Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

August 2022 Revised Estimate

• 27% - Levant
• 27% - England & Northwestern Europe
• 26% - Scotland
• 15% - Wales
• 4%  - Ireland
• 1%  - Eastern Europe & Russia

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23andMe Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

January 2023 Revised Estimate

• 73.2% - European
  • 70.8% - Northwestern European
    • 54.6% - British & Irish
    • 15.2% - French & German
    • 1.0% - Broadly Northwestern European
  • 1.8% - Southern European
    • 1.8% - Italian
  • 0.6% - Broadly European
• 26.4% - Western Asian & North Africa
  • 24.4% - Arab, Egyptian & Levantine
    • 24.3% - Levantine
    • 0.1% - Coptic
  • 1.3% - Northern West Asian
    • 0.8% - Iranian, Caucasian, and Mesopotamian
    • 0.5% - Cypriot
  • 0.7% - Broadly Western Asian & North African

Answer 5

My ethnicity estimate from Ancestry is:

Scotland - 54%

England & Northwestern Europe - 38%

Wales - 5%

Sweden & Denmark - 2%

Norway - 1%  

All my known paternal ancestors were born in Scotland and all my known maternal ancestors were born in England so I think this is accurate. However, I think that my previous estimate was even more accurate as it was very similar but didn't have Wales. I have no known Welsh ancestry and the ethnicity inheritance tool says that 3% of my Wales comes from my mother who has tested but doesn't have Wales in her estimate.

Answer 6

Ancestry seems fairly accurate, while  is smokin' dope or something (showing me with 25% Italian with neither parent's report showing any Italian -- and yes, I share 50% of my DNA with each of my parents).

Ancestry ethnicity estimate:

• Ireland32%

• Scotland30%

• England & Northwestern Europe23%

• Germanic Europe9%

• France3%

• Wales3%

My Heritage ethnicity estimate:

English  60.2%

Italian  25.0%

North and West European  6.5%

Ashkenazi Jewish  3.8%

Finnish  2.5%

East European  2.0%

Answer 7

35% - Eastern European & Russian

21% - England & Northwestern Europe

18% - Germanic Europe

12% - Sweden & Denmark

7% - Scotland

5% - Baltics

2% - Irish

Answer 8

Depends on the test. One of them matches my paper trail pretty well: 60% Scottish. Another has only half that. Got a nice German contingent in there, too. In any case, altogether it's 99+% northwestern European. Just about as Anglo-Celtic as one can get!

Suas Alba!

Answer 9

From FamilyTreeDNA:

• 75% Central Europe
• 20% Scandinavia
• 5% Ireland

That doesn't line up with the countries my ancestors are from, but that isn't too surprising given all the ancient migrations throughout Europe. I'm exactly half French, more than 1/4 English, and then a mix of Scottish, Swedish, and tiny bits of Irish and German in the rest.

What I find really interesting is how my results compare to those of my dad and maternal grandparents. Really shows how wonky they can be!

My dad (100% French):

• 67% Central Europe
• 10% Ireland
• 3% Scandinavia
• 2% England, Scotland, and Wales
• 17% Iberian Peninsula (that's a big chunk for me to not get at all!)

My maternal grandpa (100% English):

• 36% Irish
• 36% Scandinavia
• 29% Central Europe

My maternal grandma (mix of English, Scottish, Swedish, etc.):

• 81% England, Wales, and Scotland
• 10% Ireland
• 8% Central Europe
• <2% Baltic

These have changed a lot over the years since I did the tests. It's always interesting comparing them and seeing how uncertain the percentages are, just based on how my percentages compare with my parents and grandparents! Compared to what you'd expect based on their results, I ended up with a lot of Central European and Scandinavian and not much Irish, not to mention no "England, Wales, and Scotland" at all??

Comments

Perhaps some of the anomalies could be caused by how ethnicities are classified, for instance the seemingly inconsistent percentages between French and Scandinavian might mean you have some Norman French ancestry.  The term "Norman" means "Norseman" and the Normans were of Viking origin, I believe.  It does show we have a lot more to discover.

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Norman, is basically Northman.  The same as Norseman, depending upon who was talking, and what language they speak, or spoke, and when they said so.

Answer 10

From FamilyTreeDNA:

Europe 

• Western Europe
  • 50% Central Europe (France, Germany, Denmark)
  • 24% Ireland 
  • 10% England, Wales, and Scotland 
• Southern Europe
  • 6% Basque
  • 2% Iberian Peninsula
  • <2% Greece & Balkans 
• Eastern Europe
  • 5% West Slavic

Middle East & North Africa

• Middle East
  • <1% Sephardic Jewish 

Answer 11

• Scotland88%
• Ireland7%
• Norway3%
• Wales2%

Answer 12

In my opinion, ethnicity reports are almost useless.  My  ethnicity is:

• Scandinavian: 23% (FTDNA) or 0% (My Heritage) 
• UK & Ireland: 89% (Ancestry) or 41% (Ancestry)
• Africa: 6.5% (MyHeritage) or 0.4% (23andMe)

This is just a sampling of the ridiculousness.  It prompted me to publish an article:

DNA Ancestry Heritage Tests Are A Complete Farce

Comments

“For Entertainment Purposes Only”  
What is "Irish" ethnicity DNA anyway? The indigenous hunter-gatherer people, the Neolithic farmer-herder people or the Bronze Age population who decimated them? The Celts? The Druids? The Anatolians? The Bell Beaker people? 
What combination is "Irish?" Which haplogroup? 
Thanks for your thought-provoking articles.

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Have you looked if/how much it's improved over the last 2+ years?

Personally both 23andMe and Ancestry match fairly closely, and pinpoint some specific regions I have immigrant ancestors from.  

By comparison, FTDNA and MyHeritage have extremely broad and inaccurate estimates.

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I was going to answer the original question as "Flexible". I have done Ancestry, My Heritage, and 23andMe. All report the UK and northern European in varying degrees. The reason I would say "Flexible" is that over the 10+ years since I tested my ancestors have relocated several times, they seem to scurry from Ireland to Scotland to Northern Europe and then back. I assume the changes occur as more folks are tested.

I am not really concerned about the ethnicity, it is just fun to see and watch the changes. I do enjoy the connection to cousins and digging around to find common ancestors. It is rewarding to find a DNA match to someone already on my watchlist. Itʻs more fun if I can connect by email or by phone.

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Actually I found very useful when I was trying to find out who my father was - because I knew I had Scots/Irish Campbell from my great-grandmother whose grandfather came out to NZ from Northern Ireland. But my ethnicity put me at 53% Scottish - specifically Scottish Highlands and Islands - traced to Argyll & Bute - which when I looked it up was the home of the Campbell Clan. 53% was way too much to be just from one great grand-parent which lead me to search for the name Campbell in my matches and find my paternal great-grandparents who came to NZ from Campbeltown Scotland in 1914. I would not have known to look for them without the estimate. It actually helped me find my father.

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Hello Ron and others, this is an interesting discussion.  I both agree and disagree with your premise.  My DNA results add up to a lot more than 100% if I count the two sets I got from the same DNA sample.  However I think that DNA is in its infancy and anomalies don't prove the whole thing is untrue.  Let's say it's work in progress.

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Ron, that was an interesting article. While I didn't read all of it, the first parts confirmed to me why I have no interest in having a DNA test. In my case I know where my immediate ancestors came from ... all 4 grandparents' lines came from Germany and all arrived here in Nova Scotia, Canada during the "Foreign Protestant" immigration in 1750-1752 (and the Corkum's from Holland to Germany before that in the late 1500's - my 10th GGF born in Gorinchem about 1525). So I have enough work to do building my tree within that time period (so much is available online now - 16,000 names found so far in a few years) that I don't care where my "caveman" ancestors came from.

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Rod, don't let the ethnicity/heritage function weakness prevent you from taking a DNA test.  The REAL PURPOSE of an autosomal DNA test is to identify cousins and verify your tree.  As the first of the two articles stated, those functions of DNA testing are excellent.

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Thanks for selecting my answer as the best.  Contrary to what you might believe, I am a huge proponent of DNA testing when used for DNA matching -- they are excellent in that regard.  

Ethnicity results, on the other hand, must be taken with a grain of salt, or be used for entertainment purposes only.

Answer 13

Ancestry's latest update shows:

Ireland      34%

Scotland   30%

England & Northwestern Europe   25%

Wales      6%

Germanic Europe   5%

I no longer have a paid account on MyHeritage so I don't know what they think currently.  It was a mixture of England/Ireland/Scotland and <1% Indigeneous Amazon.  That last bit is totally wrong.  

Comments

My MyHeritage results have not changed since 2019 so chances are that your MyHeritage results have not changed.

Answer 14

13% Metal Age Invader, enough Farmer-Herder to digest lactose and gluten (45%), 42% Hunter-Gatherer (and have their 12a haplogroup), and not much else. Ethnicity = 100% European?

Comments

I'm not sure I understand this concept of "ethnicity" correctly, if it does in fact make sense. My paternal line was in Scotland thousands of years before any concept of countries, and I have enough strings unique to that area to be called 94% Scot because my mom also has a high percent from there. I'm very glad I had my mom tested so I can tell what did NOT come from my dad (and, as a bonus, I know my mtDNA haplogroup); if it wasn't for her Greece/Balkans and Magyar, I'd be boring as white bread.
While I don't quite "get" ethnicity, I do like to see how much of which strings of my autosomal DNA match those of ancient ancestors as they are sequenced.
Tested by FTDNA.

Answer 15

Familytreedna:

Europe 100%

Western Europe

England, Wales, and Scotland

36%

Central Europe

32%

Scandinavia

20%

Ireland

12%

Answer 16

Ancestry Autosomal DNA

52% England & Northwestern Europe   

30% Scotland  

12% Ireland   

3% Sweden & Denmark   

2% Germanic Europe

1% Nigeria   

My mother was also tested and has 1% Nigeria too.

Comments

very close to mine!

Answer 17

100 per cent Finnish. However, I have certified ancestors from Sweden, Germany and the Baltic states (at least). So I guess Finnish population has all these other European nationalities in our genes. Admixture does not give any new information in my case.

Answer 18

Ancestry Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

Recently updated when I went in to get the answer for here and a couple of things are a bit of a surprise/shock.

*43% - Scotland - Highlands & Islands - Argyll & Bute

*28% - England & Northwestern Europe 

*10% - Ireland

*9  % - Norway

*6  % - Germanic Europe

*2  % - Sweden & Denmark

*1  % - Finland

*1  % - Eastern Europe & Russia

The shock is they say they are improving their estimates but previously they had me listed in New Zealand settlers WHICH WAS CORRECT - now NZ is not even highlighted on my estimate map. LOL. I don't think this latest is an improvement - more like the opposite. They have split the results of the Scottish lowlands from the Scottish Highlands and included the Scottish Lowlands with England and North Western Europe - So really I am about 1/2 Scottish which an earlier estimate  with both together put me at 53%. It says for England & North Western Europe  - Your ethnicity estimate is 28%, but it can range from 22—47%.  

Answer 19

I have done my DNA through a few different companies thanks to gifts from friends and family.  I will post the different results.  

Ancestry Autosomal DNA Ethnicity Estimate

July 2022 Revised Estimate

• 49% - England & Northwestern Europe
• 34% - Ireland
• 13% - Scotland 
• 2% - Sweden & Denmark
• 2% Wales

23&ME  updated Jan 15, 2023 

• 98.2% - British & Irish
• 1.0% - Spanish & Portuguese
• 0.7% - Anatolian
• 0.1% - Broadly Sub-Saharan African

MyHeritage DNA 

• 42.2% - Scandanavian
• 33.7% - English
• 17.8% - Irish, Scottish, Welsh
• 4.3% - Eastern Europe
• 2.0% West Asian

I can guarantee that the MyHeritage results are wrong.  I have been working on my family tree for a very long time.  Plus, one of my paternal great aunts has as well.  I have not seen any Scandanavian in my direct ancestry for at least 5 or 6 generations back.  So, it definitely can't be the highest percentage.

myFTDNA 

• 44% - England, Scotland, Wales
• 26% - Scandanavia
• 20% - Ireland
• 10% - Central Europe
• 1% - Magyar

Comments

I agree that MyHeritage doesn't seem to give very accurate results, but I think the period that's being referred to with ancestry estimates goes back much further than we're looking at with traditional genealogy.

Answer 20

I found mine useless from My Heritage. Told me I was 94% United Kingdom (no breakdown) and 4% European as in Other Europe and 1% Eastern European which would be Prussia. No real help at all.

Comments

Have you tried doing your DNA through another company?

It might be a bit of "overkill" but I did mine with 3 different companies, for a variety of reasons.  One, was to see if I got any different answers.  Another was because I have been searching for any "missing" relatives.

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I have thought of it but need it to be much cheaper before I would consider it again. There were names that came up with reasonable percentages but no one replied when I tried to make contact. It could be a case of me being totally ignorant on what it all means!!

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Hi Denise, you can upload your MyHeritage raw DNA to FamilyTreeDNA for free and only need to pay $20 for their results. Though, I found FamilyTree to be the least accurate of the big 4 DNA testing companies.

I would pay attention to holidays because usually Ancestry and 23&Me have deals then. Some of them being up to 50% off.