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Dna results

  • 28-12-2018 12:05pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,721 ✭✭✭


    So i was always under the impression my ancestors were unlikely to have travelled far and other than the many to have immigrated from Ireland there wasnt likely to be many exotic influences.
    I did the ancestry test anyhow but wondering how unusual it is to have absolutely no foriegn dna.
    I seem to be 100% cork and kerry. Is this level normal? Feeling a bit inbred this morning!


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,736 ✭✭✭pawrick


    I have Italian ancestry in my family but none of it appeared in my dna testing, I'm just too far removed/didn't get the dna from that side. Some of my cousins though could easily pass for being Italian and i always wondered what their dna tests would show.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 65 ✭✭hammy007


    pawrick wrote: »
    I have Italian ancestry in my family but none of it appeared in my dna testing, I'm just too far removed/didn't get the dna from that side. Some of my cousins though could easily pass for being Italian and i always wondered what their dna tests would show.

    I'm a good chunk of Italian, and my daughter is even more as she gets it from her dad's side too, but there is no Italian that shows up in either of our DNA tests, so I'm convinced it shows up as France in the ethnicity results. It shows 7% France for me and 35% for my daughter, and it encompasses parts of Italy according to the DNA map on Ancestry. I have no known French ancestry, so I'm thinking this must be the Italian.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,070 ✭✭✭OU812


    Have you updated the results?

    Updated my dad’s recently which confirmed that his GGG Grandmother came from the US (mid 1800s) and brought with her a minute amount of Native American (although she was Caucasian, we suspect by dilution & era she was approximately ¼ NA).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,736 ✭✭✭pawrick


    hammy007 wrote: »
    I'm a good chunk of Italian, and my daughter is even more as she gets it from her dad's side too, but there is no Italian that shows up in either of our DNA tests, so I'm convinced it shows up as France in the ethnicity results. It shows 7% France for me and 35% for my daughter, and it encompasses parts of Italy according to the DNA map on Ancestry. I have no known French ancestry, so I'm thinking this must be the Italian.

    I have distant family in Brazil who never knew of their Irish ancestry as they assumed the Italian side went direct from Italy to Brazil, they missed out on the part where the Italian side moved to Ireland during the Napoleonic wars in Italy, intermarried and raised children here before re emigrating to Brazil. Some of the children (all the men as it happens) who moved to Brazil later returned to Ireland to continue our line here while the rest stayed in Brazil, the Brazilian side didn't know the history that far back until they found us on ancestry and we filled in the gaps for them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    hammy007 wrote: »
    I'm a good chunk of Italian, and my daughter is even more as she gets it from her dad's side too, but there is no Italian that shows up in either of our DNA tests, so I'm convinced it shows up as France in the ethnicity results. It shows 7% France for me and 35% for my daughter, and it encompasses parts of Italy according to the DNA map on Ancestry. I have no known French ancestry, so I'm thinking this must be the Italian.


    About three quarters of the population in the Departement of Alpes-Maritimes (+/- the Cote d'Azur) has some Italian ancestry and about half of that number is almost entirely Italian. If you look at the history of Nice & Savoy you will get the picture.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 65 ✭✭hammy007


    About three quarters of the population in the Departement of Alpes-Maritimes (+/- the Cote d'Azur) has some Italian ancestry and about half of that number is almost entirely Italian. If you look at the history of Nice & Savoy you will get the picture.

    Thanks for the info, that probably explains the result.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,721 ✭✭✭Balmed Out


    Crap so i seem to be alone, i was thinking this was a new update and others were getting very narrow results.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Balmed Out wrote: »
    So i was always under the impression my ancestors were unlikely to have travelled far and other than the many to have immigrated from Ireland there wasnt likely to be many exotic influences.
    I did the ancestry test anyhow but wondering how unusual it is to have absolutely no foriegn dna.
    I seem to be 100% cork and kerry. Is this level normal? Feeling a bit inbred this morning!

    I'm 100% Ireland/Scotland, my dad is 100% Ireland/Scotland and my mom is 98% Ireland/Scotland + 2% "England, Wales & NW Europe"

    It's really a case that as Ancestry (which is what I'm assuming you did as you mention Genetic Community) has gotten bigger dataset they are better able to draw out what average Irish person looks like (they use to have me as 89% with trace regions, which have now all gone in their calculator)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    The other half got her results there she came back as:
    • 89% Philippines
    • 3% England, Wales, NW Europe
    • 3% France
    • 2% Portugal
    • 2% Korean and Northern China
    • 1% Spain
    • <1% Ivory Coast/Ghana

    So in other words:
    • 91% Asian
    • 9% European
    • <1% African

    (I know the above adds up to >100% -- but it's what it says)

    Obviously there's range in it, in case of the Philippines she's got a range of 84%-93% -- what I should point out is one of her Great-Grandfathers is down as Spanish. It's interesting the difference with her 23andme results which have:
    • 85.3% South-East Asia (Philippines and Guam)
    • 2.4% Chinese
    • 0.4% Native American
    • 0.3% Broadly East Asian & Native American
    • 3.4% Iberian
    • 3.5% Broadly Southern European
    • 0.8% Broadly Northwestern European
    • 1.8% Broadly European
    • 0.3% West African
    • 0.4% Unassigned!!!

    That results in 23andme region breakdown of:
    • 89.8% East Asian & Native American
    • 9.5% European
    • 0.3% Sub-Saharan African
    • 0.4% Unassigned

    My feeling is the AncestryDNA result regions (particulary the 'England, Wales & NW European') have changed the French region to grab areas on the periphery particulary in Northern Iberia. The fact that their 'Portugal' region covers half of Spain (in map view) and 'Spain' also covers most of Portugal, makes me thinks they probably should have relabled these regions as 'West Iberian' and 'East Iberian' -- of course what they need is considerably higher sampleset from Southern Europe to perhaps spilt out other clusters or to make their clusters more appropriate.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    I'm 98% Ireland and Scotland while my mum and paternal aunt are 100% so you're not alone. A lot of Irish people (unless they know of ancestry from other countries) get very high Ireland and Scotland in the 90s.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 50 ✭✭Tombom1


    We done my grandfathers DNA and we got 100% Ireland with north and south Galway and Galway as genetic communities. More purebred than a pedigree limousine!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    Not just the autosomal but the Y-DNA with FTDNA also shows that my paternal line has been in the one area since about 1000 AD when the surname first arose. The ancestor lived somewhere around Roscommon and Galway while my family are still living in Roscommon so that line didn't move too far anyway.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Out of interest what haplogroup is it (probably R1b, but did you get a subgroup)?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 894 ✭✭✭Corkgirl18


    You're not alone!

    100% Munster here - Cork specifically.
    Was hoping I'd be a bit more exotic!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    Ipso wrote: »
    Out of interest what haplogroup is it (probably R1b, but did you get a subgroup)?

    Yes, it's R1b. Below that it's L21, DF13, DF23, FGC6545 and BY3440 positive with the terminal given as R-Y160102.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    I'm assuming your surname might begin with a 'K' based on that Y-DNA eh?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    dubhthach wrote: »
    I'm assuming your surname might begin with a 'K' based on that Y-DNA eh?

    There are no flies on you. There's no need to worry about anyone tracking me down with a common surname like that.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 231 ✭✭bluezulu49


    srmf5 wrote: »
    Yes, it's R1b. Below that it's L21, DF13, DF23, FGC6545 and BY3440 positive with the terminal given as R-Y160102.

    Sorry to derail slightly but what level of Y dna testing did you do to get these results?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    bluezulu49 wrote: »
    Sorry to derail slightly but what level of Y dna testing did you do to get these results?

    I ordered the Big Y with FTDNA. FTDNA tend to have big reductions during sale periods such as Christmas so most wait to order until there's a sale.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    The great thing about the BigY (though expensive) is that it actually sequences a large chunk of the Y-Chromosome. So not only does it check if a person is positive for known mutations it also discovers SNP mutations which are unique to that persons lineage.

    So for example if you were to get a 2nd cousin to test you would see list of mutations that were inherited from last common ancestor on Y-Chromosome (eg. Great-Grandfather).

    A really interesting example is work been done among the O'Brien's. Basically they got 'Baron Inchiquin' (Conor Myles John O'Brien, 18th Baron Inchiquin) to do a BigY test. He's the 32nd Great-Grandson of Brian Boru. As a result you can use him as a scaffold to gradually build out the lineage eg. see where various men with name O'Brien branched off etc.

    In the case of srmf5 above, the 'chief of the name' has also done BigY. As a result there's general idea using some of dating methods on when some of the branches first arose.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    I'm an American with some Irish heritage and over here it would be very unusual to find someone who was 100% anything, unless they were a recent immigrant.

    That said, the DNA mixes should be taken with a grain of salt. I have mine up on Ancestry, 23andMe, and other sites (my dad was adopted - we were searching for his bio family & found them), and each mix is a little bit different from the other.

    Ancestry says I'm 34% Irish/Scottish, 48% British/Northwestern European, 13% Portuguese & 3% French.

    23andMe says I'm 34% Irish/British, 19% Northwestern European, 25% Portuguese and 15% French/German with a little bit of Scandinavian and Sub Saharan African.

    For the record, my mother's side has been in the US a long time and are Scottish (who lived in Donegal at the time they immigrated), English and German-Swiss. My father's paternal great grandparents came from the Azores and his maternal great grandparents immigrated from Ireland.

    So it may be that another site has a different interpretation. Or you could just be 100% Irish, which is pretty cool and probably pretty rare all things considered.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    I'm an American with some Irish heritage and over here it would be very unusual to find someone who was 100% anything, unless they were a recent immigrant.

    That said, the DNA mixes should be taken with a grain of salt. I have mine up on Ancestry, 23andMe, and other sites (my dad was adopted - we were searching for his bio family & found them), and each mix is a little bit different from the other.

    So it may be that another site has a different interpretation. Or you could just be 100% Irish, which is pretty cool and probably pretty rare all things considered.

    Well these are my results with the different companies:
    Ancestry: 98% Ireland and Scotland and 2% England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe.
    FTDNA: 100% British Isles
    MyHeritage: 100% Irish, Scottish and Welsh

    Mother
    Ancestry: 100% Ireland and Scotland
    FTDNA: 100% British Isles
    MyHeritage: 85.1% Irish, Scottish and Welsh, 14.9% English
    Living DNA: 100% Ireland

    Father
    FTDNA: 99% British Isles and <1% South America
    MyHeritage: 100% Irish, Scottish and Welsh

    Paternal aunt
    Ancestry: 100% Ireland and Scotland

    Paternal Great aunt
    Ancestry: 98% Ireland and Scotland, 2% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe
    MyHeritage: 100% Irish, Scottish and Welsh

    The results are all in the high 90s except for my mum's MyHeritage result. I only know of Irish ancestry so all my family would fit in with the recent immigrant category if we were living in America (that or our ancestors only married Irish people). Of course, I don't think that my ancestors were only Irish since there were Normans in Ireland and there probably is some English ancestry. One of my ancestors was supposed to have been Church of Ireland which itself likely indicates a link to Britain. England is the only other ancestry that gets a percentage (well except South America but I think it's safe to ignore that as noise). However, in the time frame that these autosomal tests cover, they could have all been Irish.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,672 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    I have a US friend whose ethnicity on Ancestry shows 44% Irish (steadily increasing every time they update). She has no known Irish ancestry. American ancestry is not my specialty but applying the basic rules, I've traced her tree back multiple generations. I've found some people who have Irish-y sounding names but no one who puts Ireland as a birthplace or a parent's birthplace. Highest match is a paternal second cousin which I've confirmed the connection to, so we're not looking at an NPE. Any thoughts?

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    pinkypinky wrote: »
    I have a US friend whose ethnicity on Ancestry shows 44% Irish (steadily increasing every time they update). She has no known Irish ancestry. American ancestry is not my specialty but applying the basic rules, I've traced her tree back multiple generations. I've found some people who have Irish-y sounding names but no one who puts Ireland as a birthplace or a parent's birthplace. Highest match is a paternal second cousin which I've confirmed the connection to, so we're not looking at an NPE. Any thoughts?

    Where is her ancestry from and an estimate of percentages if possible? Does she have ancestry from Scotland or even somewhere else in Britain? It would make more sense if her ancestry was from Britain rather than somewhere like Germany that she'd be getting these percentages due to some overlap between the regions with her ancestry being assigned to the wrong region. Some people do seem to get strange percentages with the ethnicity estimates though. Ancestry can be to be quite bad for some people with southern European ancestry from what I've seen online.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    pinkypinky wrote: »
    I have a US friend whose ethnicity on Ancestry shows 44% Irish (steadily increasing every time they update). She has no known Irish ancestry. American ancestry is not my specialty but applying the basic rules, I've traced her tree back multiple generations. I've found some people who have Irish-y sounding names but no one who puts Ireland as a birthplace or a parent's birthplace. Highest match is a paternal second cousin which I've confirmed the connection to, so we're not looking at an NPE. Any thoughts?

    It could definitely be overlap, especially if she has heritage elsewhere in the British Isles.

    I'm assuming the trail has gone cold before you've been able to find their immigration records. Do you have access to the US records on Ancestry?

    A few other things that come to mind:

    Name changes. Some of my family members changed the spelling of their names shortly after coming to the US. I had one ancestor enter the US as a Haughey in 1848. Within a generation, that become Hoey. Then it changed back to Haughey. Then it became Hay. And then it became Hoey again. The Portuguese were even worse with their 2 surnames which always got whittled down to one. The sons of Antone and Maria Pereira Oliveira may have started life as Joao Pereira Oliveira and Stephano Pereira Oliveira but ended up as John Oliver and Steven Perry in later records.

    And some people just disappear. There are a few lines where it's just a dead end. I'm convinced that there's always some luck involved in genealogical research, especially in a country like the US, which was big and not always well-organized in the early years.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,672 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    Family lore of Scottish ancestry but literally no one in her tree with a birthplace outside the US (she's Texas but some Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisana ancestry as well). One French Canadian ancestor found so far (gg grandmother). I have more work to do on the tree.

    I've just looked at it again and it's actually 44% Irish and Scottish. 55% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe.

    Yes, have US Ancestry access (I'm a pro genealogist (Irish) so I have them all)

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    srmf5 wrote: »

    The results are all in the high 90s except for my mum's MyHeritage result. I only know of Irish ancestry so all my family would fit in with the recent immigrant category if we were living in America (that or our ancestors only married Irish people). Of course, I don't think that my ancestors were only Irish since there were Normans in Ireland and there probably is some English ancestry. One of my ancestors was supposed to have been Church of Ireland which itself likely indicates a link to Britain. England is the only other ancestry that gets a percentage (well except South America but I think it's safe to ignore that as noise). However, in the time frame that these autosomal tests cover, they could have all been Irish.

    Yes, the autosomal tests focus on more recent ancestors. For example, my dad was placed into the Portuguese and Muenster Irish ethnicity groups on Ancestry. And he has matched with cousins from the US, but also from Brazil, Portugal and Ireland.

    My mom, however, was placed into the ethnicity groups for "settlers of the American MidWest," with specific states outlined because most of her ancestors immigrated to the US in the 1600s, and she's not as closely tied to Europe as my dad is. All of her cousins (and she has thousands of 4th cousins or closer) are American.

    I'm sure there are Americans who are 100% of something, it's just rare, especially for those who have been here for generations.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    pinkypinky wrote: »
    Family lore of Scottish ancestry but literally no one in her tree with a birthplace outside the US (she's Texas but some Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisana ancestry as well). One French Canadian ancestor found so far (gg grandmother). I have more work to do on the tree.

    I've just looked at it again and it's actually 44% Irish and Scottish. 55% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe.

    Yes, have US Ancestry access (I'm a pro genealogist (Irish) so I have them all)

    The 44% is probably reflecting her Scottish ancestry then. After all the category is called Ireland and Scotland. If her only family lore is of ancestry from Scotland, then her percentages don't seem to be too surprising. Even if she was descended only from colonials from the 1600s, she'd still be assigned ancestry from Europe since there's no American category after all. You would expect a French percentage with a French Canadian ancestor but that could have fallen into the Northwestern Europe category.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    pinkypinky wrote: »
    Family lore of Scottish ancestry but literally no one in her tree with a birthplace outside the US (she's Texas but some Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisana ancestry as well). One French Canadian ancestor found so far (gg grandmother). I have more work to do on the tree.

    I've just looked at it again and it's actually 44% Irish and Scottish. 55% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe.

    Yes, have US Ancestry access (I'm a pro genealogist (Irish) so I have them all)

    Scottish would make sense given those numbers and family lore. I assume the French Canadian ancestor is connected to Louisiana.

    What's the farthest year you've traced her family back to? If she has English/Scottish heritage in particular, the family could have been in the US for a very long time. But then they would probably have some roots on the East coast, and that would be key to tracing them back to Europe.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,672 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    It's about 200 years but they're all southerners! No Yankees :)

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    pinkypinky wrote: »
    It's about 200 years but they're all southerners! No Yankees :)

    Yes, but east coast doesn't necessarily mean NYC or Boston. Baltimore, Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk - they were all Southern port cities. And, what Americans call Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots played a large role in settling parts of the South, especially the Carolinas. And it wouldn't be uncommon for people to arrive in the late 1600s/early 1700s, spend a few generations on the East coast, north or south, and then move westward once they had saved up some family money. My mom's family did exactly that (but they were mostly Yankees :) ).

    New Orleans was a major port city too that hit it's stride around 1820. French-Canadian definitely makes sense there, as it does with Arkansas and Texas being so close. However, both Texas and Arkansas took on a lot of settlers from the East too. And Kentucky makes me think of Virginia, since Kentucky was part of Virginia before Virginia allowed it to become its own state.

    You probably know all of this, I'm just spitballing!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,108 ✭✭✭Lirange


    Meta...

    Your comments reminded me of a programme (wish I could remember the name) I'd seen on the BBC about 4 or 5 years ago. I watched because I was interested in the Irish (or more specifically those from Ireland and northern Britain) contribution to the gene pool of Iceland when Norwegian vikings took slaves from these shores as their wives. But that programme also did a feature on the Azores and the significant part emigrants from Flanders (Dutch speaking Belgium) had in settling them. And they are reckoned to have left a big impact on the overall genetic profile of the islands. From memory I think they comprised about 20% or 25% of the total genetic profile of all long established Azoreans. Portugal enticed a varied group of settlers aside from Portuguese to develop the islands. However whilst many of the other groups left after a few generations, the Flemish sustained themselves and were somewhere around half of what were considered the founding families. So consequently that could have some impact on your father's profile. Since the Azores, though obviously tied to Portugal, have their own unique genetic background. Although how it would be labelled I have no idea...French/German? Do the ancestry kits even have a label for Belgian or Dutch, the low countries?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_people#History


    Name changes. Some of my family members changed the spelling of their names shortly after coming to the US. I had one ancestor enter the US as a Haughey in 1848. Within a generation, that become Hoey. Then it changed back to Haughey. Then it became Hay. And then it became Hoey again. The Portuguese were even worse with their 2 surnames which always got whittled down to one. The sons of Antone and Maria Pereira Oliveira may have started life as Joao Pereira Oliveira and Stephano Pereira Oliveira but ended up as John Oliver and Steven Perry in later records.

    Steve Perry? Yer wan from Journey? Who is also from California and changed his surname from Pereira. What a coincidence! :p


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    Lirange wrote: »
    Meta...

    Your comments reminded me of a programme (wish I could remember the name) I'd seen on the BBC about 4 or 5 years ago. I watched because I was interested in the Irish (or more specifically those from Ireland and northern Britain) contribution to the gene pool of Iceland when Norwegian vikings took slaves from these shores as their wives. But that programme also did a feature on the Azores and the significant part emigrants from Flanders (Dutch speaking Belgium) had in settling them. And they are reckoned to have left a big impact on the overall genetic profile of the islands. From memory I think they comprised about 20% or 25% of the total genetic profile of all long established Azoreans. Portugal enticed a varied group of settlers aside from Portuguese to develop the islands. However whilst many of the other groups left after a few generations, the Flemish sustained themselves and were somewhere around half of what were considered the founding families. So consequently that could have some impact on your father's profile. Since the Azores, though obviously tied to Portugal, have their own unique genetic background. Although how it would be labelled I have no idea...French/German? Do the ancestry kits even have a label for Belgian or Dutch, the low countries?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_people#History




    Steve Perry? Yer wan from Journey? Who is also from California and changed his surname from Pereira. What a coincidence! :p

    You bring up interesting points! Ancestry does have a category called Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg. Neither Dad nor I have any ancestry in that group, according to them. However! Dad's mix is 44% Irish/Scottish, 3% English/Northwestern Europe, 32% Portuguese, 3% Spanish and 18% French.

    And we have the records, so we know all of his maternal relatives immigrated from Ireland, between 1849-1851 and all of his paternal relatives immigrated from the Azores in the 1880s. I also have some French percentages and those don't come from my mom's side. However, from what we know of our Azorean ancestors, we've traced some lines back to the original Portuguese settlers. But we haven't been able to trace all lines back. One of dad's great grandparents on that side was left on a church step in Ribeira Grande in the 1850s as a baby. We have no way of tracing her lineage. So as of now, I can't explain the French. Maybe it goes back to the Flemish and Ancestry just needs to do more in depth testing in the Azores? It is a fairly unique population, having been isolated in the middle of the Atlantic for centuries.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Y.......... it goes back to the Flemish and Ancestry just needs to do more in depth testing in the Azores? It is a fairly unique population, having been isolated in the middle of the Atlantic for centuries.
    That’s not really correct– the Azores are isolated geographically, about 1000 miles from Portugal and 2,500 from the Americas, but they were not isolated genetically. Discovered in the 1400’s, by the 1500's they were a base for a motley crew of pirates, mercenaries and diverse settlers. They were hugely important from c 1600 to c1850 as being the last supply point (water and fresh food) for transatlantic sailing ships. After the 1850’s the islands were supply depots and coaling stations for steam ships and later were important as key connection points in the transatlantic submarine cable telegraph network. They also were used as supply bases in WW1. Each of those activities brought an influx of fresh genes from very diverse places, so genetically they are a 'stew'.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    That’s not really correct– the Azores are isolated geographically, about 1000 miles from Portugal and 2,500 from the Americas, but they were not isolated genetically. Discovered in the 1400’s, by the 1500's they were a base for a motley crew of pirates, mercenaries and diverse settlers. They were hugely important from c 1600 to c1850 as being the last supply point (water and fresh food) for transatlantic sailing ships. After the 1850’s the islands were supply depots and coaling stations for steam ships and later were important as key connection points in the transatlantic submarine cable telegraph network. They also were used as supply bases in WW1. Each of those activities brought an influx of fresh genes from very diverse places, so genetically they are a 'stew'.

    I think this is a space where we're both kind of right. It's true that there was a lot of genetic diversity, especially in the early settlement years between the Portuguese, the New Christians, the French, the Flemish and other groups. However, that doesn't mean that the population didn't experience a higher level of isolation than mainland Europe.

    Take the island of Flores, for example. Ships did stop there on their way to the Americas as its the farthest flung out island in the archipelago. And it did get raided by pirates quite a bit. But a DNA study of the island of Flores in 2003 found that people on that island exhibited around a 90% genetic ancestry with mainland Portugal. People from other cultures were visiting, but the majority weren't staying or leaving a mark.

    And the Azores is a population where you're likely to have a higher level of false matches when DNA testing because the population was so small and isolated. It may have been diverse in that there were several different groups represented - but it was still a small population. I also know, from my own background, that several of my lines trace back to the same people :eek:


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 717 ✭✭✭limericklad87


    Got my results yesterday.... 100% Irish/Scottish

    Was chatting with a few people through ancestry that I was sure I had common ancestors....

    Happy enough that the DNA confirmed the same


  • Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators Posts: 2,289 Mod ✭✭✭✭Nigel Fairservice


    I logged into my ancestry account recently and my DNA result went from 85% Ireland/Scotland/Wales to 100%. The remaining 15% of my previous profile was:

    Europe West 7%
    Finland/Northwest Russia 3%
    Europe East 1%
    European Jewish 1%
    Iberian Peninsula <1%
    Caucasus <1%
    Asia South <1%
    Scandinavia <1%

    I was intrigued by the Finland/Northwest Russia and the European Jewish ones. Ancestry has discounted all of that now and says I'm 100% Ireland/Scotland/Wales. I would have thought I would have had some Norman/Viking heritage somewhere but the Western European/Scandinavian options no longer seem to apply.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Viking period is too long ago for it to show up in an autosomal test, given 1,000 years of recombination in wider Irish gene pool you wouldn't expect to see any 'Scandinavian components', Y-chromosome in men would be a different story though as it doesn't undergo recombination. Even then most Irish men who test are generally R1b-L21 (well specifically one of it's sub-branches)


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