Anyone get surprise with their AncestryDNA results?

[aprilgail]

Well, he may find out anyway even without doing a test himself.

DH found his biological father because he matched with a half-sister and several cousins. He wasn’t actively looking; just did the test to find out about his ethnicity.

exactly- I tracked my bio dad through a FOURTH cousin who had tested! There is NO hiding from things that you have done anymore!! You can't just give away a child and think it won't come back at you at some point anymore!

 

[aprilgail]

Does anyone else remember hearing a few months ago about one DNA company that put in a small amount of African heritage just for grins in some of the customers who were mainly British, Irish, German, etc?

my mom has many matches that are black- Her family came from Barbados and I found many documents from back when her family were slave owners so no surprise there.

 

[Cadiewampus]

anybody else do both ancestry and 23andme and have the results come back quite a bit different? From what all I know of our family 23andme closely matches so I will go with that. . Biggest differences is 23andme came back with 15% irish and 14% Italian where as Ancestry had both of them at 2%

 

[lambdabeta]

anybody else do both ancestry and 23andme and have the results come back quite a bit different? From what all I know of our family 23andme closely matches so I will go with that. . Biggest differences is 23andme came back with 15% irish and 14% Italian where as Ancestry had both of them at 2%

Very interesting. I wanted to try 23andme but was wondering if it was worth it. Sounds like it might be.

 

[Cadiewampus]

Very interesting. I wanted to try 23andme but was wondering if it was worth it. Sounds like it might be.

I think it was. Most of the rest was pretty close though. like great Britain was 52 percent on Ancestry and 47 on 23and me

 

[Southernmiss]

Ancestry just fine turned their results because of more DNA samples available for each region.

Dh and I got updated results this week. A few of our major areas of ancestry jumped while other areas of matches decreased or completely disappeared.

Still trying to decide what I think about it.

 

[cinnaminny]

My surprise came from the last time I checked my results as they had updated the results and mine changed...sort of.

 

[mtemm]

I just checked the updated results and they make no sense. My husband lost all of his Italian, even though his mother is half Italian. I lost my Norwegian and Swiss even though I know ancestors that came from there (and are verified via dna matches, not just family tree). So unexpected. Our initial results made perfect sense based on our family trees.

 

[cinnaminny]

I just checked the updated results and they make no sense. My husband lost all of his Italian, even though his mother is half Italian. I lost my Norwegian and Swiss even though I know ancestors that came from there (and are verified via dna matches, not just family tree). So unexpected. Our initial results made perfect sense based on our family trees.

I thought mine was wrong also but after thinking about it for a second, I see maybe what happened. Mine was 46% Scandinavian. This went up one percent, which makes sense because my dads grandparents all believed that they were 100%. My mom thought she was mostly Irish because her grandad was from Ireland. My results changed from Irish/Scotish/Welsh 35% to 46% English/Welsh/NW European. I think its possible that my moms family is actually Welsh. (even though some were from Ireland)

Is there a test that is more precise?

 

[tzolkin]

Ancestry just fine turned their results because of more DNA samples available for each region.

Dh and I got updated results this week. A few of our major areas of ancestry jumped while other areas of matches decreased or completely disappeared.

Still trying to decide what I think about it.

I just checked the updated results and they make no sense. My husband lost all of his Italian, even though his mother is half Italian. I lost my Norwegian and Swiss even though I know ancestors that came from there (and are verified via dna matches, not just family tree). So unexpected. Our initial results made perfect sense based on our family trees.

I saw mine yesterday and it also does not make any sense. I just had DH check his and it seems off too.

My parents and grandparents took the DNA test. My mom is all Italian (triple verified because both of her parents also came back as Italian), so I have to be 50% (since you inherit 50% from each parent). Mine now shows me as 40% Italian and bumped up the percentages of English and Western European (the things I inherited from my dad). So now it looks like I only got 40% from mom and 60% from dad which is not possible.

 

[NYCgrrl]

QUOTE="cinnaminny, post: 59740061, member: 611561"]I thought mine was wrong also but after thinking about it for a second, I see maybe what happened. Mine was 46% Scandinavian. This went up one percent, which makes sense because my dads grandparents all believed that they were 100%. My mom thought she was mostly Irish because her grandad was from Ireland. My results changed from Irish/Scotish/Welsh 35% to 46% English/Welsh/NW European. I think its possible that my moms family is actually Welsh. (even though some were from Ireland)

Is there a test that is more precise?[/QUOTE]

My mother's came back as 22% Scandanavian which put all her DDs in head scratching mode. Maybe it's the raids on Ireland during Viking times?

 

[tarheelmjfan]

The Native American results (or lack thereof) have always led me to question the tests. I've never taken one. DH & DS have, because MIL wanted all of them to take one. Since DH & MIL's didn't quite add up, I didn't even bother trying to compare DH & DS's results. All you have to do is look & them & hang out with them for a day to see he's at least 75% DH anyway.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

Not me, but a relative of mine just found the son he gave up for adoption when the dad was a teenager over 40 years ago. Talk about shocking news in our family!

The cool thing is the son looks exactly like another relative - from what I've heard of the story, there was some back and forth between the dad and son to make sure everything was legit before they exchanged contact info, but once everything was verified to be true and they got pictures of each other, the first thing the dad did was tell the son to go to the 3rd relative's FB page and look at the pictures. The son came back and said the resemblance was "scary similar" (in a good way lol) He said it was emotional because since he was adopted, this was the first time in his life that he actually looked like someone, much less so closely!

As far as the actual DNA test, I guess ancestry.com comes back with the DNA matches from it's database and says how much of a % match you are to the other people with your DNA. In this case, the dad got a message that this person (his son) was almost a 100% match and it was "extremely possible" that the person was a parent or child to my relative. The son had gotten the kit as a gift and took it 2 months prior. What a coincidence that they both did the kit at almost the exact same time!

 

[Hrhpd]

(Sorry if this was posted earlier, I haven't read the middle pages)

I am so not a fan of Dr. Phil but did find this study they interesting. His daughter-in-law is one of 3 identical triplets. So, identical DNA, unlike the very interesting article a pp listed about sibling DNA.

They did 23&Me and they all got different results. On identical DNA.

I will take the tests with a kilo of salt (rather than a grain of salt.) They are fun, but in no way accurate.

 

[georgina]

tried to quote NYCgirl, but it got all screwed up. My sister's came back 74% Irish and 12% Scandinavian, which made sense to us (mother was born in Ireland). All the Irish towns on the coast were heavily Viking infiltrated.

We also found a second cousin. My mom's father died very young and we had no contact with that side of the family, so there are probably a lot of second cousins out there. Her grandfather was a brother to our grandfather. There has to be a lot of accuracy, as many people are finding their relatives through it.

 

[lambdabeta]

I think what people are confusing is the accuracy of the link to your ethnicity vs the accuracy of the link to people on the website. Whether you are Scandinavian, Italian or from Great Britain is only a piece of the puzzle. I have found all kinds of interesting things through Ancestry.com using the DNA. Do I think they have the exact percentages of my ethnicity correct. No I do not. It is mainly because they look back thousands of years and people migrated all over the place so you may have DNA from all over the place mixed in. As far as the triplets it depends on what exact DNA strands they looked at. They can all show slightly different percentages but still be mostly the same. You would have to read their white paper on their website to understand. I wouldn't get too hung up on whether or not your percentages are 100% accurate. It is more about who you are related to that is important.

 

[DisneyDebbie]

Yes, the DNA relative feature is 100% accurate. They predict all 'cousin' relationships, but it could be aunt, uncle, half 1st cousin, 1st cousin 2x removed etc... If ancestry says you share centimorgans- you're definitely related!

The ethnicity is just an estimate based on some logarithm pattern that changes as they get more samples. For me (being adopted) I think it's so much fun to see the breakdown as I never knew any of my heritage before. I'm not sure if they'll ever be able to define ethnicity accurately (percentage wise) but it's generally correct in the regions my ancestors are from research and records.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Yes... I did this back when they were on sale through Ancestry.com within the last couple months. I was (pleasantly) surprised at how quickly I got the results.

Seriously though, I noticed that they "updated" my results when I logged in to look at them again. They seemed to group stuff together, I kind of lumps me all in together as England/Wales/Northwestern Europe, I come in at like 95% that and the rest Ireland/Scotland. Gone are the small percentages of Scandinavian and European Jew that were present before.

The dots on the map seem to look the same in regards to the 1700's. The United Kingdom and Germany are lit up big time with dots. On the Ethnicity map, with the big color stuff, it is France, Germany the the Islands of the UK along with Ireland.

 

[MrsPete]

Anyone else get a surprise?

No surprises here. I found out I am a white person. Like I hadn't already known that? Seriously, though, over 99% Ireland, Great Britain, Scottish. Exactly what I'd believed from family lore.

came out as Native American

Some of you are saying that Native American DNA tends to be kind of wonky on these tests. I'd believed we had no Native Americans among our ancestors ... but my mom's test showed 1.3% Native American, and my brother's tests showed 0.2% Native American ... mine showed none. I don't think it's "wrong" that my brother and I aren't identical ... my mom gave him a bit of that bit she had, but she gave me different bits.

Is anyone afraid to take the test? Maybe the test will prove that someone along the line who you thought was a blood relative really isn't?

It happened in our family! Well, kind of the opposite, actually. One of my in-laws "found" a man two states away who is a cousin. He matches every family member, so there's no question that he's family. The stranger-cousin grew up knowing he was adopted, but he didn't know "from where". The family's best guess is that a certain uncle (who is dead now, so this cannot be confirmed) fathered a child as a teen, and that child was given up for adoption -- and he kept that secret literally the rest of his life. Of course, it's possible he didn't even know about the child.

"My great grandma was a Cherokee princess" is a big joke among native people. Of course there are some who really do have Cherokee heritage, but if you're going to lie at least be a little more creative

Well, if you're a Carolinian with Native American blood, you probably ARE Cherokee. They vastly outnumbered every other group in this area.

As for the princess thing, it's kind of like people who say, "In my past life, I was Marie Antoinette" or Rasputin, or someone else equally improbable. In a world where well over 90% of the population was made up of peasants, how come everyone who claims to have a past life "was" someone famous from history? Ridiculous.

 

[traces7]

I found a half brother I never knew about after doing Ancestry DNA! A few months after I did it, then he did it, we came up as a match. He was from a relationship my dad had before my mom. He ended up being adopted. Crazy long story! I did meet him this summer. We look a lot a like.
When I saw the first results I was kind of surprised because I thought I would be mostly German and they had me as 40% English, 24% Eastern European. I just checked this week and it has flip flopped. Now I'm 42% Germanic Germany, 29% England, Wales, Northwestern Europe. So now it's more like I thought it would be originally.