Ancestry Results

[Skeleton]

Fathers Side

White Southerner with mostly English, but also some Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and Portuguese ancestry. It might be that he’s not actually native English since around one-third to one-half of the last names on his tree are Norman French in origin.

Mothers Side

My mother’s father is half French Canadian, one-fourth Irish, and one-fourth English (could be original Norman, I don’t know). Mother’s mother is half-Polish, three-sixteenth Irish, one-sixteenth English (might be originally Norman), one-sixteenth Ulster Scots (might be originally Norman), and one thirty-second French Canadian.

That’s my known ancestry on paper.

Ancestry.com

Ancestry lists me as

71% England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe
25% Ireland and Scotland
3% Germanic Europe
1% Eastern European

23andMe

23andMe lists me as

48.8% British and Irish
35.9% French and German
10.5% Broadly Northwestern Europe
3.3% Broadly European
1.2% Eastern European
0.2% Native American
0.1% Unassigned

GEDMatch K13

45.13% North Atlantic
24.31% Baltic
14.30% West Med
8.98% East Med
3.78% West Asian
2.14% East Asian
1.02% Northeast Africa
0.34% Oceanian

MyTrueAncestry

19% Frankish
16.5% Celtic
11.9% Saxon
10.4% Longobard
9.26% Danish Viking
6.89% Visigoth
6.5% Swedish Viking
5.92% Norwegian Viking
5.13% Vandal
2.81% Ostrogoth
2.12% Alemanni
1.32% Icelandic Viking
1% Gaulish
0.95% Thuringii
0.13% Scythian

Honestly, I find this inaccurate. There’s no way I can be that Germanic, plus I don’t know how I could get these populations.

G25 Results

33.4% Norwegian
32.6% Slovakian
27.6% Spanish La Roja
4.8% Spanish Soria
0.8% Biaka
0.6% Han Shanghai
0.2% Chechen

19.8% US Colonial Period
14.2% UKR Trypillia
11.2% DEU Halberstadt LBA
8.6% UKR Chernyakhiv Legedzine
7.4% Baltic EST MA
7.2% ITA Rome Latini IA
6% FRA Lingolsheim FN Steppe
5% Wales CA EBA
4.6% SWE BA
4% England LBA
3.2% England Saxon
2.4% Iberia Southeast c.3-4 CE
2% Wales Meso
1.6% SVK Poprad MA
0.8% NPL Samdzong 1500BP
0.6% Levant PPNC
0.6% TUR Kaman Kalehoyuk MLBA low res
0.4% SWE LN low res
0.2% MAR Taforalt
0.2% CMR Shum Laka 8000BP

I don’t know how to get a good fit, but I think it’s inaccurate considering I don’t have any known Norwegian, Slovakian, or Spanish ancestry. As for the ancient, I was more looking for Germanic, Celtic, etc.

Questions

1. Is there any test, model, or tool that can fairly accurately explain my recent ancestry? Most of these don’t seem accurate, at least for me

2. Is there any test, model, or tool that can fairly accurately guess what % of my genome is Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, etc.?

3. What should I consider myself genetically, both recent and ancient?

[Leto]

I don't think you can identify with one particular ethnicity because you are a mix of various different things. I'd suggest you just call yourself a white or European American. If you have four grandparents born in the U.S. you are ethnically American to me. And no, Gedmatch won't tell you much, just some kind of Western Euro or something

[J. Ketch]

Your results don't seem that unusual for your paper ancestry. MyTrueAncestry is junk, and G25 isn't supposed to be used/interpreted that way.

You are just a NW Euromutt like most White Americans.

As for a test to determine Germanic vs Slavic vs Celtic etc ancestry, there are loads of G25 calculators based on ancient components people have posted. Using modern populations is pointless.

[J. Ketch]

Btw an English person with a Norman origin name is still English, same as an Irish person with a Norman origin name. It won't make a difference to their genetics.

[Skeleton]

Thanks for the answers guys.

Never mind on the ancient ancestry part. I thought there was some sort of test that could measure it, but there is not at all. It’s pretty silly of me to think that and I can just guess ancient ancestry based on knowing where my other ancestry comes from.

As for recent, I don’t know what to think about it. Most northern European populations are pretty similar to each other so going to the country level would be extremely hard, however I think it’s worth a try.

Anyone know of any fairly accurate DNA tests that go to the country level?

I’m also a bit hesitant with commercial testing because apparently it can only trace back 500 years.

What I guess I’m looking for are DNA tests that go to the country level and beyond 500 years back. Any ideas?

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[Skeleton]

Btw an English person with a Norman origin name is still English, same as an Irish person with a Norman origin name. It won't make a difference to their genetics.

Thanks.

I'm guessing it's majority English but I'm a bit hesitant with it because of the last names and the fact that a lot of the original settlers in the South were either indentured servants or second and third sons of aristocratic families and aristocrats in England usually tended to be Norman French.

That being said, I've learned it's really hard to figure out whether your ancestry might be English or Norman because the populations are extremely close. I was also hesitant to base anything on commercial testing because supposedly they only go back 500 years.

Is there any reliable commercial tests that can go to the country level and go back further than 500 years back?

[Leto]

Were your grandparents born in the U.S.?

[J. Ketch]

Thanks.

I'm guessing it's majority English but I'm a bit hesitant with it because of the last names and the fact that a lot of the original settlers in the South were either indentured servants or second and third sons of aristocratic families and aristocrats in England usually tended to be Norman French.

That being said, I've learned it's really hard to figure out whether your ancestry might be English or Norman because the populations are extremely close. I was also hesitant to base anything on commercial testing because supposedly they only go back 500 years.

Is there any reliable commercial tests that can go to the country level and go back further than 500 years back?
The Norman blood, what little there was, had been overwhelmingly assimilated into the local English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish genepools between the 11th century and the 17th and 18th centuries when the US South was being settled (mostly by non-aristocrats), and it would have assimilated even more since. Norman origin surnames are ubiquitous across the British Isles, amongst middle and lower classes as well. Normans are a part of the ancestry of the modern English, so it's not an either or. It's like asking if your ancestry from Yorkshire is English or Danish, or how much of each.

Living DNA is good for separating British Isles ancestry by country, but it often misattributes continental NW European ancestry to England. No commercial ancestry test can go back further than a few hundred years, but does it need to? People didn't move around much in Europe for centuries, prior to the modern Industrial era. Where in Europe your ancestors were in the 1700s, or even the early 1800s, is probably there or thereabouts where they'd been since the Middle Ages.

What are your results with these?
http://g25vahaduo.genetics.ovh/G25modern-scaled-averages.htm
http://vahaduo.genetics.ovh/k13-vahaduo.htm
http://vahaduo.genetics.ovh/k15-vahaduo.htm

[Leto]

The Norman blood, what little there was, had been overwhelmingly assimilated into the local English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish genepools between the 11th century and the 17th and 18th centuries when the US South was being settled (mostly by non-aristocrats), and it would have assimilated even more since. Norman origin surnames are ubiquitous across the British Isles, amongst middle and lower classes as well. Normans are a part of the ancestry of the modern English, so it's not an either or. It's like asking if your ancestry from Yorkshire is English or Danish, or how much of each.

Weren't they already similar-ish to the Anglo-Saxons and the Gaels?

[J. Ketch]

Weren't they already similar-ish to the Anglo-Saxons and the Gaels?
They'd have been relatively similar to the native English and Irish of the time, yes. All NW Europeans. Many of the 'Normans' that invaded England were in fact Flemish and Breton mercenaries, also I assume the Norman warrior elites of that time had a larger Norse element, they may have even been largely Scandinavian.

[Davystayn]

You are a proper NW Euro, white American par excellence,

[Skeleton]

Were your grandparents born in the U.S.?

Yes, all of them. Two were born in North Carolina and the other two in New Hampshire, specifically southern New Hampshire

[Skeleton]

They'd have been relatively similar to the native English and Irish of the time, yes. All NW Europeans. Many of the 'Normans' that invaded England were in fact Flemish and Breton mercenaries, also I assume the Norman warrior elites of that time had a larger Norse element, they may have even been largely Scandinavian.

As for the Normans, it would be very interesting to see what genetic impact they had on the English upper class and in US Southerners. Perhaps someday they could test the English upper classes.

Looking at the Y-DNA study on Normans a few years back, it seems that the majority of the Norman population still descend from the Gallo-Roman population, who we know from the recent French study were genetically very similar to the Iron and Bronze Age British and Irish. As for the Norman aristocracy, at least the ones who replaced the Anglo-Saxon elite, in my opinion were very Germanic in ancestry. They probably descended from Danish and Norwegian Vikings who intermarried with the French elite, who at the time mostly descended from Germanic tribes who invaded France. There was likely some interbreeding with commoners like in the case of William the Conquerer, but I don’t think there would be too much. A lot of the knights and soldiers who fought with William in 1066 were a mix of Normans, Bretons, and Flemish. I will say I’m curious on why my father got such high British and Irish on 23andMe though, although that could just be because all of these populations are very close. Who knows, maybe a large part of my ancestry is actually Norse in origin. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to accurately tell how “Germanic” or “Celtic” someone is.

At the end of the day, these are just my thoughts and ramblings.

I’m currently trying to test with Living DNA, particularly because I want to see what % Irish I get because I’ve heard Living DNA are very accurate at British and Irish ancestry.

[Skeleton]

You are a proper NW Euro, white American par excellence,

Haha yeah I thought I'd be, except for some Polish and a tiny bit of Portuguese.

My grandmother gets around half Eastern European on tests, but I get very low. I'm thinking I'm receiving not a lot from her side.