Ethnicity estimates

[Lindsay]

I understand that Ancestry ethnicity estimates need to be taken with a pinch of salt, so this query comes with a big ‘If it’s accurate…’

Ancestry estimates suggest I have 20% Irish ethnicity – 12% from my maternal side, and 8% paternal.

The paternal side is at least partly explained by an Irish 3x ggrandparent. However, I’m struggling to understand the maternal estimate, since the paper records haven’t thrown up anyone Irish at least back to my maternal 3x ggrandparents.

For my maternal side Ancestry’s DNA painter shows three quarters of number 7 highlighted (which might show how recent the connection is, I believe?), slightly less in 9 and 10, and less again in 13 and 16.

Is there any way to tell if I should be looking for one person, and how far back it might be, or did I inherit a lot of bits of Irish DNA that just happened to be floating around the east end of London where this branch mainly came from?

[Olde Crone]

Any Scottish? Ancestry told my brother he was 50% Irish. In fact he is 50% Scots. Of course, it is very possible that Scots dna was once Irish, but in my family's case that would be before written records began.

OC

[Phoenix]

My aunt's 19% Scots ethnicity could be between 5 and 25%. It appears to cover the same geographic area as Irish ethnicity. She was born on the South Coast. As were at least three generations of ancestors.
I suspect you are right Lindsay and we are looking at masses of small fragments from a long way back.

[marquette]

My dad is 76% English and NW Europe, 10% Sweden and Denmark, 7% Wales and 7% Scotland. It's a bit wishy-washy really - 7% "could be 0-26%", but 10% "could be 0-19%" - this is very wide range and somewhat contradictory - could there be more Scotland than Sweden?

76% "can range from 62-100%". Take a stab in the dark!

All my research shows that back to the beginning of parish records all his ancestors lived in England, south and east of Shropshire - Shropshire, Warwickshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Norfolk, Berkshire, Hampshire.

My take on it is - NW Europe - those who might have been Norman and came over with William and there is just too much intermingling to distinguish England from NW Europe.

Sweden and Denmark - from his Angle and Saxon ancestors.

Wales - those who trickled through to Shropshire or just Celtic from the West and South.

His Scottish bit I figured was just some generalised Celtic/Gaelic remnants.

I was surprised that the Sweden/Denmark was so low, and the Germanic bit was taken away as several of his ancestors were from Sussex and Hampshire and I thought there might have been more Angles and Saxon DNA.

In comparison, Mum is 52% England and NW Europe (Range 46-65%), 28% Ireland (4-28%), 17% Scotland (range 0-32%) and 3% Germanic Europe (0-26%). In the last update she lost her little bit of Sweden/Denmark/Norway.

Her ancestors did indeed come from Scotland and Ireland, and Lancashire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire.

So, she has Germanic (Angles and Saxons) but no Sweden/Denmark from her East Anglican ancestors.

[Lindsay]

Any Scottish? Ancestry told my brother he was 50% Irish. In fact he is 50% Scots. Of course, it is very possible that Scots dna was once Irish, but in my family's case that would be before written records began.

OC

No Scottish on the maternal side, in DNA or the paper trail.

Apart from this pesky 20% Irish my Ancestry ethnicity estimates seem pretty accurate. It shows dad's Scottish and German ancestry, and correctly has both my parents's UK DNA firmly in the south of the country.

I suppose it's inevitable there will be odd bits and pieces of DNA passed down from the distant past, and quite a wide margin of error in their estimates.

[kiterunner]

You would need to upload your DNA to sites which have proper chromosome browsers and then use DNA Painter to figure out which ancestor each segment comes from.

[Lindsay]

Ah, right, I'll have to have a look at that.

[Mary from Italy]

You would need to upload your DNA to sites which have proper chromosome browsers and then use DNA Painter to figure out which ancestor each segment comes from.

I don't think Ancestry gives the exact position numbers though, does it? Just the chromosome number.

[kiterunner]

Good point.

[Mary from Italy]

I was hoping I'd missed something there, because it'd be really useful for an extremely unusual ethnicity in my son's tree :)