With thanks and any due apologies to Meghan Trainor, who might be a distant relative, we have discussed the different DNA testing sites and the importance of where their testers live in regards to your OWN test results and ethnicities are concerned a few times over the last few weeks.
At the beginning of August we talked about a Daughter and her Paternal First Cousin testing their DNA in hopes of discovering the identity of the birth parents of the adopted Great-great grandfather. They both tested at Ancestry and their ethnicities were as expected. Daughter is estimated to be 78% Irish by the Ancestry system. 50% of the DNA she got from her mother is Irish, 28% of the DNA she got from her father is Irish. 50+28=78. Her paternal DNA, which is of interest to us in discovering the mystery of the Great-great grandfather is 13% of the DNA matches Scottish testers, 7% matches people who tested from Wales, and 2% matched test takers with "Germanic Europe" ancestry.
Paternal cousin's DNA showed that her mother (Daughter's aunt) gave her ethnicities showing 43% Irish, 5% Scottish (but not English or Welsh?), and 2% Norway/Sweden, and no Germanic Europe.
Recapping, you don't inherit the exact same genes from your parents as your siblings unless you are identical twins. So Daughter's father and aunt had different genes to pass on as they were not twins.
Daughter had uploaded her DNA results to My Heritage and then very kindly received permission from Cousin to upload hers to satisfy my curiosity about the different databases. Since My Heritage has more European testers in their database, we were hoping for more clues about the non-Irish DNA donor(s) in the Great-great grandfather.
Here is Daughter's My Heritage Ethnicity estimate again from a few months ago:
Updated My Heritage ethnicities, last accessed last week, Daughter on the left, Cousin on the right:
The Ancestry results did not show any "Finnish" DNA for Cousin, and My Heritage shows no percentages for Norway, or Sweden & Denmark. Most interestingly, Cousin shows 6.2% West Asian inherited DNA on My Heritage! "West Asia" is broken down as those countries between Turkey, Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and the UAE.
That's a pretty huge example of a difference in DNA ethnicity results from two different DNA companies!
What have we learned? It can be very informative and useful to upload your DNA results to different companies. My Heritage does, indeed, supply many more European tree matches, but the trees are generally more private, and I have had no luck in getting responses from potential relatives of the two cousins.
My best advice, take advantage of the free trial periods offered by the different companies and see what leads you may gain.
What have you learned recently? Would love to know!
I have found some overlapping DNA matches in the two cousins that have no obvious connections to the missing Great-great grandfather and am using the colorful Ancestry color coding dot system to identify the connections and potential ancestors. Connecticut is a tough nut(meg) to crack for some records (sorry, inside geography/ancestry joke, CT is the "Nutmeg State." Sometime when perhaps desperate for a blog topic, we will look into that story).
Never give up! Never surrender! Too obscure of a reference? Winston Churchill!
Drop me a line and share your puzzles!
Always a free quote to look at your tree to see if I can help with where you are stuck in your research.
Hope you have a fun weekend and successful week ahead of you!
Thanks for liking and sharing!
Leslie Ryan
No compensation from any companies referred to, no intentional copyright infringement here!
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