Considering researching at Ancestry.com? You might not like what you find.

I took a DNA test earlier this year, NOT because I wanted to find long lost relatives (...I have enough problems with the ones I know about!) but simply because I was curious about the science.

It really is a statistical numbers game. Like any form of population sampling, it can reveal interesting [statistical] stuff about the population as a whole, but it is currently very limited (accuracy wise) in what it can say about you as an individual.

As an example; you inherit 50% of your Autosomal DNA from each parent. You may think that you therefore inherit 25% from each grandparent, but it is not that simple; quoting from Living DNA; "If your grandmother was 100% Eastern European, and the rest came from Asia, then your genetic profile could show anywhere from 0 to 34% Eastern European".

One thing we can all be sure of, is that we all descend from mitochondrial-Eve and some chap called Adam...even though they certainly never met one another and we don't know who they were!

For anyone considering spending their hard-earned money on a test, I suggest they read my post on how it works, what you get, and some of the limitations: Captain Bodgit: DNA Testing: what can it tell you?​

My wife is currently trying to identify "Grandad X", her unknown paternal grandfather. We can only hope to do this by writing to everyone listed as 'cousin' on her MyHeritage report and ask if they had relatives in the Clerkenwell district in 1920. ...its a long-shot, but its all we can really do at the moment. Any likely candidates must then be checked against the flimsy background information that we have about her grandmother.

As for me, I downloaded my raw DNA file to do a bit of analysis, and have been trying to find out why it indicates that I have the Sickle Cell genotype...

 

As you know mate me not being an expert and all that on much BUT
I have re read you dna match and well er um it seems to me they covered all the bases.
Your dna has touched all parts of the UK aha no Welsh though and nowt from the rest of the world

Mine was done in the USA and tells me im 75% Celt. A fair bit of scandanavian and very small % baltic/iberian and ashkenazi jew

I will possibly have a re test
Yep it is a money spinner
I am after a recount
However the old photo of me on holiday in Wales does make me think they have got it right

 

Well, it is tolerated in these more liberated times and it carries a certain cachet in the drawing rooms of Islington. However, having a mother from the hamster community still equates to social death even amongst the middle classes.

 

Is that Hamster or Hampstead ?

 

I can only assume that your mother was not a hamster.

 

Hmmm - you know what they say about making assumptions ........................................

TD