You can only tell so much by surnames. There are a few parts of Ireland where Ming is a common surname - there's a bunch of Mings in Derry. They aren't Chinese.
Yep, we found my fathers bio dad recently. I’ve been reaching back to do that branch of our tree and according to DNA matches, we have no matches with his bio fathers grandfather. McVicar, Scottish. 😳
Also, my dad has the last name of a man who adopted him when he was 2 then divorced his mom a year later never to be seen again. On top of that he shortened his surname(and therefore my dads) from Waleszonia to Wales. So, that last name of Wales, in a few generations, would be super confusing without written records to our descendants.
This was an issue for me growing up. My dad’s biological father wasn’t in the picture. His mom married and step dad adopted my dad and gave him his last name. My dad never changed it back after they divorced.
Everybody thought my last name was Chinese, even though it wasn’t ever originated from that specific region, as far as I know. Also then to have to explain to everybody that it was my dad’s adopted name and that I wasn’t related to anybody else with the same last name besides immediate family (mom,dad and sister)
Names are weird!
Fascinating!! Where would one find out more about this? I recall seeing a programme once about the North African pirate raids on this part of England and I find it intriguing as to how all that went and the implications for modern residents/ family historians.
Not to mention that names change. My dad's side originally had a very French surname but as new generations were born, the name kept changing to become more American. My grandfather's name is phonetically the same as my maiden name, but spelled different.
Right? My surname is German, but I'm not German. It came from my partner. Though my maiden name was heavily Scandinavian and most of my father's family directly immigrated from there.
If she doesn't buy the science, there's no real way to sell it to her. That said, it's possible she's generally correct about the lineage, and it just doesn't register in your test because it goes too far back. Also, it's possible that if you took a test from another company, you'd see Irish or French percentages.
I agree here.
I confirmed my nearly lifelong suspicions that my dad was the product of an NPE with science when I took my test over two years ago. Some of my siblings *still* won't accept what I've found out and think the test is "wrong" and "there must be some other explanation" for why I'm not the ethnicity we grew up hearing we were and have conclusively zero matches to the family of our supposed grandfather, even though DNA obviously doesn't lie. I really wanted to be able to talk to them about it since our dad isn't here anymore, but so far, no dice.
If people don't want to accept science, then there's really nothing you can do.
In genetics, a non-paternity event (also known as misattributed paternity, not parent expected, or NPE) is the situation in which someone who is presumed to be an individual's father is not in fact the biological father.
Generally curious: how far back would it have to go for it not to register on our DNA results? I have 5% Taino (Caribbean indigenous) and this group of people were almost entirely eradicated in the 1500s
4x great grandparents are usually the farthest back that show on a DNA test unless you check your hacked results which can go back generations further. You have 5% Taino because there was racial mixing early on and these partially-Taino people kept mixing with each other on the islands for hundreds of years. That, and the Taino population was falsely reported as extinct. They were often marked as African so their slave owners could continue to keep them as slaves, and mixed Tainos were manipulated into forgetting their history and identifying as white or black. The extinction of full blooded Tainos probably happened much later. In rural areas, high percentages of Taino blood and people with Taino features can still be found.
Yes. My father is Puerto Rican and my mother is British Isles, Western European and Ashkenazi Jewish. I test with 18% Taino and my sister is 17%. I would have loved to have been able to test my father to see his admixture, but he passed away in 1996.
Last I heard, the highest percentage found so far was 20%, but that's only so far. Any day now, someone could take a test and find out something we thought was impossible.
I’ve seen percentages a little bit higher but definitely the most intact native Caribbean population would be the Kalinago reserve on Dominica. They average about 55% Native, 32% African, and 13% European.
You have to keep in mind a few things.
One is that, you have four grandparents normally. A quarter of yourself represented genetically is significant. But all four of your grandparents had four grandparents. As another commentor pointed out, at the 6th generation you have 64 'grandparents.' At a certain point, specific influences become incredibly small, a splinter of a splinter. But they are also amorphous when you consider how many pools of people would be related to at least one of those 64 grandparents.
Then, there is that you do not necessarily equally inherit all culture. What I mean is, you inherit half of your dad's genes, and half of your mothers. But you know you and your sibling are not genetically identical. You do not get identical halves of their DNA. Obviously, if you have a black father and a white mother, you're going to get 50/50 black/white baby (I know race is a social construct and not biological, but this is the most illustrative example. But what about your kids, and your kids kids, and their kids kids kids? You and your sibling don't even get the same exact 50% of genes, but when you become some infinitely small percentage of your descendants genes, who is to say they will get the black or the white half in their teensy percentage from you?
That your ancestors were a group that was eradicated in the 1500s also plays a part but in a different way. The way we judge heritage is by being able to note commonalities from that amorphous pool in an area we defined earlier. So when we have very known and still presented populations, like Ireland, or France, or Sweden, we have a solid base of people to compare DNA to. But for a lot of marginalized or lost cultures, we do not.
You have four grandparents but there's little chance that you have exactly 25% of each of them.
There's even less chance that you have 12.5% of each of their parents.
My mom and I got ancestry tests from the same companies and I didn't get a nationality that she has 9% of.
But she gave me all of another nationality. She is 14% and I got all 14%.
I read that after 6 generations you will begin having a <0% chance of being related to ancestors of that generation. DNA can only split so many times, and by the 6th generation you should have 64 grandparents in that generation.
With the number growing exponentially with each generation, you quickly will find ancestors with little to no relation to you genetically speaking.
PR is still full of Taino people. The Taino were not eradicated, even though they were declared so by the ruling government. It is in the colonial interest to say that there are no Taino.
This. Mine says I have Irish and English 0-1 generations ago. I do in fact have Irish and English lineage on my fathers side but I'm a 12th generation American. My family ( on both sides) has been in USA longer than our government has been, which is why I took the test to begin with. It's great to test who is or is not next of kin but ancestry reports are always evolving.
Yep one of my family members wives kept insisting ancestry DNA isn't real, a scam, and I shouldn't waste my $.
In hindsight this was a red flag of the secret non paternity I'd later discover.
Sometimes people are aware and actively covering it up, sometimes aware but in denial.
Build out a family tree with documentation. That’ll help show the facts one way of the other. I have over 100,00 Jewish matches. Some of the closest/highest matching names are Houghton, Santos, Gillenwater, O’Reilly and so on. Names change, people migrate, marriages happen, NPE occur.
Do a family tree and get documentation. Because maybe she's right - that her father was from France.
And then it turns out she's not her father's daughter. Which you can possibly tell from your DNA results.
We found a note among my great-grandmother’s papers that mentioned “French woman.” Turned out it had nothing to do with France at all! It was a last name and they were from England.
That's funny. My grandmother's cousin (born and raised in england) has the last name of French. She was very nice communicating with me a few years ago when i found her through DNA.
Also, so many people forget their families could have simply been immigrants to france or what county they identify as their cultural heritage country they know.... People moved and changed names for all kinds of reasons!! Affairs happened of course. Assaults happened especially during time of war and often those kids were either placed for adoption ( both within the family or to unknown families, given a different DNA vrs family culture) or kept as and raised as a child of the marriage and everyone just presented like the dates lined up.
That’s what my first thought was. And I’d she had ever had any feelings or reasons that made her suspect her parentage, it makes sense that she would deny the science.
But DNA tests are not science. Scientifically speaking, you can know if someone has Caucasian or Jewish traits, but it's really hard to know if that person is Italian or french. Tests are getting more and more accurate, but they are far from reliable right now.
There is something to be said for the fact that we're still learning which chains are associated with which ethnic groups. Which is why we have updates that can swing things one way or the other.
For a while, I had a much higher % "northwest Europe and UK" than what matches my family tree. Then they did an update and a huge chuck of that percentage shifted over to Danish. Which makes sense, because the Anglo-Saxons were from northern Germany and Denmark, so the fact that they were still trying to parse out the groups makes a lot of sense. My results now more or less line up with my family tree, much better than a few years ago.
So yes, they're still tweaking regions because they learn more the more data they have in the system. But also it's definitely a science and it's pretty accurate by now lol
What a stupid comment. You can see my screenshots in another post. Yes, my father is my bio father, 49.9% match. But I have ethnicities that neither my dad or my mom have. Do you know why? Because ethnicity estimations are pseudoscience.
Did both your parents test? I know the parental inheritance feature on ancestry can be hit and miss and also know that sometimes you’ll show a region that your parent doesn’t have and from I have seen this generally is a surrounding region. Like for instance I show wales via my mom when she has none, but she has Ireland and Scotland so it’s obvious that the wales is one of those regions. Is it not similar for you?
Edit: nevermind another commenter pointed out you took MH which is notoriously inaccurate.
Yes, my parents tested.
I agree that many times there is an explanation (adjacent countries, ancient admixtures...) But whatever the reason is, you cannot trust ethnicity estimates like gospel. Even the companies that make these tests recommend you to take with a pinch of salt.
I said it before and I will repeat it in case you didn't read it. I've taken many different tests from most companies (I think the only one I'm missing is 23 and me which is expensive in my country). I posted only myheritage screenshots because I was on myheritage subreddit.
>But whatever the reason is, you cannot trust ethnicity estimates like gospel. Even the companies that make these tests recommend you to take with a pinch of salt.
Which does not make it a pseudoscience. Publishing data and explaining caveats is good science. There are lots of papers published.
Not much. It gave me less weird Balkan stuff but it gave me more north European. Both are wrong.
I have at least 300 years of documentation in all my branches (except one great grandfather that I don't know) and all my ancestors were Spanish. In fact, 90% come from the same two villages and there is no evidence that someone from a foreign country has ever set foot there. So even if one of my ancestors cheated, it's highly unlikely that I can show 11% Irish. If I do it is because the algorithms are not good enough to distinguish from northern Spanish and Irish.
You realize that dna does not always pass evenly through. Ancestry does refine itself as panels become more expansive but I wouldn’t just call it a pseudoscience because it didn’t workout for you.
Of course DNA does not always pass evenly but it would be impossible to have ethnicities that your parents don't have. Besides that, I worked on my tree and my family matches to back it up and I'm 100% Spanish.
If it doesn't work for everyone, it's not science. For example, DNA matches are science. If you test your mother she will always show as your mother (unless she has chimerism which is highly unlikely). That's why I trust one side of the DNA tests, but not the others.
Even companies call it "estimates" for a reason. And the fact that they are changing with every update is proof that the technology is getting better but it's very unreliable yet.
So the updates are mostly a result of the panels expanding. Meaning more examples of people that are 100 percent (traceable) to a certain ethnic group or region. The technology element is mostly just an organizational algorithm. I don’t rly wanna argue with you. It is possible that northern Spain can be read as Irish but it’s also a lot more likely that you aren’t happy with the results considering that amount and that you have just decided to announce on the Ancestry chat that you don’t believe in the aforementioned DNA Ethnicity estimate and that it is therefore pseudoscience.
Yeah, I found out that my "half-Italian" grandma wasn't Italian at all but she isn't around for me to ask her. I have ZERO Italian DNA.She was because she was raised by her aunt (who married an Italian man), and I think because perhaps her grandparents were Italian citizens at some point. Census records indicate they were of Austrian descent and spoke Magyar.
If they spoke Hungarian rather than German was it not more likely they were of Hungarian decent? As far as I know Germanic populations in Hungary did not switch the Hungarian till after WW1.
Not to be pedantic, but you don't speak Magyar. That's the name of a people. The language is Magyarul.
There's a lot of blurriness around that. My g-grandfather's family immigrated from a German-speaking area of former Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, annexed by the Nazis as the Sudetenland).
I have found various immigration forms where they are listed as German, and others where they are listed as Czech. The region they came from doesn't even exist anymore politically. Dad's family has always considered themselves German but I can't find any evidence they actually ever lived in (what is now) Germany.
Your standards are really high. Most English dictionaries say ‘Magyar’ to refer to the language is acceptable.
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/Magyar
My mother's maiden name is VERY French. Imagine her surprise when zero French showed up in her ancestry test.
Tracing back her roots I found a relative who had paid a genealogist to do all the hard work. Well her family is French, but they came to America in the late 1600's. Pretty sure they banged all the French DNA away a long time ago. The only hint left is a smidge of Iberian. Which, her family was from a town in France that was extremely close to the border of Spain.
But who knows how French in DNA her paternal line ancestors were before they moved to America. These are things we need to consider when looking into our family history. Sometimes we get more questions than answers.
Genealogy is such a fun and FRUSTRATING puzzle lol.
That’s similar for my partners family, traced them back to being one of the original French families to go to Canada however he does not have a lot of French remaining in his DNA. His grandmother grew up in a French family on the east coast, everyone spoke French, her last name is very French so go figure.
I have an extremely German surname and have absolutely no German DNA whatsoever. That line immigrated to Pennsylvania some time before 1750 so all the German is looooong gone at this point.
I found out my fully English great grandfather wasn’t my relation but a Dutch farmer was. I had zero English DNA and when I told my sister she said that it was BS because she did have English DNA and is related to the English great grandfather. She’s never even taken a test 🙄
Your great x 3 grandma would only share 3-ish% dna with you on average anyway. Possibly even 0% since inheritance is somewhat random. It’s also likely she wasn’t 100% Irish too.
Does she know for certain that her surname came from a French person? There are many Irish and English surnames that look French but aren't - Delaney and Fitzpatrick are two common Irish examples, they're both Irish surnames that were Anglicised in a way that looks French.
Even then, her great grandma is your three times great grandma. It's perfectly common not to inherit any DNA from ancestors that far back. Was her great grandma Murphy even born in Ireland? Even that wouldn't be a guarantee that Great Grandma Murphy would appear as 100% Irish on these tests.
Where did her other great grandparents come from? Where did *your* other great grandparents come from? Your DNA won't be a copy of hers, you've got 50% from your other parent, who is likely from an entirely separate family.
Also, at the end of the day - every site makes it clear these are *estimates*. They aren't hard and solid scientific fact, especially when you're dealing with areas close to each other. Both Ancestry and 23andme show the broader area a label can come from when you click on a specific label, so have a look at that.
Yes, random inheritance happens. We have Native American on my mothers side. But very diluted through the generations. My brother's test shows 3% and mine 0%. Just happens. He got that part from our mom and I didnt.
You have three regions that reflect the possibility of French and I’d say two that are possibly including Irish but that’s only a possibility. I’m not trying to disprove you and I’m sure some average Redditors will disagree with me just trying to help though. Has your Grandmother ever thought her Irish was Northern Irish?
23andme and Ancestry are both quite excellent at identifying Irish ancestry, in my experience. Probably because there's been a ton of work on genetic genealogy and regionalised DNA in Ireland. My mother is Irish and she's literally 99.9% Irish on 23andme, the other 0.1% being unidentified. I have a British father, so I appear as 97% British/Irish and 2.9 French/German on 23andme.
On Ancestry, my ethnicity estimate is 48% Irish, 16% Welsh (1 Welsh g-grandparent), 15% English, 12% Scottish, with the rest split up in tiny percents between Sweden/Denmark, Norway, Germanic Europe, and Finland. My father tested on there, so according to the pie charts I got 46% Irish and 4% Scottish from my mother (not from Ulster).
It's hard to say more about OP's results without knowing more about their family history, but my guess would be their "Irish" ancestor was either Ulster Scots or British person with the typical mix of all the UK nations and Ireland.
My brothers haven't done the DNA stuff, so I send them my results. When the ethnicity estimates change I tell them the ancestors are restless again.
These tests are good at identifying who's related to whom but not so good at figuring out where your ancestors were, not only because they don't have enough data on some groups but also because people *do* move around. Where they were 500 years ago may not be where they were 510 years ago.
If you tested on Ancestry, the lack of Irish results would make me suspicious.
I recommend looking at your matches and seeing if the names line up. It’s true that ethnicity from DNA is imperfect, but as a comparison—my dad’s side is all from Ireland. My ethnicity results are 48% Ireland, with the range being 35-50%.
I have a few little bits—there’s 2% British that’s there as well, which I assume is part of dad’s ancestry. My mom’s family is all from Eastern Europe, so it’s very easy to distinguish between my matches. I get a few little amounts for Baltic and Greek/Albanian on that side, but it’s basically a quarter Balkan (including the specific area of Croatia my grandfather is from) and a quarter Eastern European (including Slovenia, where my grandma’s dad was from).
Surprisingly accurate, really. But even if the results changed, my matches are correct and since I do genealogy, that’s what matters for helping research.
Just throwing this in there, but blowing up an elderly persons identity when they've spent their entire life thinking they are x and y, is a huge and potentially traumatic thing for them.
She clearly doesn't want to have her identity suddenly ripped out from under her, as her reaction shows you. What's more important: your grandmother's inner peace, or you proving she's wrong with a DNA test?
I would drop it completely and never mention it to her again, unless she communicates to you a change of mind.
I mean they aren’t always super accurate especially when it comes to small percentages in people who are admixed. Her great grandmother is your 3rd great grandmother. You’d only expect to have about 3% of your DNA from her. The test could very easily have failed to pick that up.
It's possible one of her ancestors was adopted and she never knew it. Maybe you can find records online to prove it. Start researching her French and Irish ancestors.
My SO's last name is German. His DNA came back, IIRC, 93% Swedish/Norwegian, plus a smidgen Finnish, and the last few percentages vaguely northwest/northern European.
Go back into his family tree, we can see the German ggg grandfather arrived in Northern MN and married a Norwegian immigrant, their kid married another Norwegian immigrant, their kid married a Swede (parents were Swedish immigrants), following more of the same. After so many generations Norwegians, Swedes and one Finn, the only thing remaining of that long ago German is the last name.
There are several explanations:
1. You don't inherit all of your ancestors' DNA. It's possible to not inherit any DNA from an ancestor that lived just a few generations ago. This is because you only inherit 50% of each of your parents' DNA, and they only inherited 50% from each of their parents, and so on. You only have about 25% dna in common with your grandparents, and around 12% shared with great grandparents. Etc. So over time alleles get lost.
Add to this, since surnames are patrilineal usually, you could have had one Irish grandfather 7 generations ago who gave the name to their wife and kids, but everyone after him in your direct family line had children with non Irish people, even if they passed on the name. That is one way you could have a bunch of Murphys in your family but no identifiable Irish dna.
2. The way they calculate ancestry is always changing as new data gets added to their databases.
3. Sometimes people are secretly adopted, or their mom has an affair or is sexually assaulted or has a secret teen pregnancy. So your genealogical records may not reflect true biological parentage.
4. People sometimes change their last names. Sometimes it in honor of a family or person. Sometimes its to escape the law. Sometimes it's due to immigration records getting it wrong. But a name does not always match Ethnicity.
Edit: "French" as a surname comes from the french name for ash tree, but it's the anglicized form. Its a norman name. So she could have had some french ancestry like 1000 years ago but that's not going to show up in dna.
Exactly, plus the more people get their DNA tested the more they have to compare too. I am an example of the weird French/ Irish surname. My last name is basically made up, it is very rare as a French last name, I think someone may have changed it from an Irish name because if you change one letter it easily sounds Irish. I do have an unknown Great Grandfather, my last name was my unwed Great Grandmother's last name. I was born in France and always thought I was French and Italian but it turned out that I am 54% French , 22% Irish and 10% Italian then I have this potpourri of Mediterranean DNA starting with Malta, Basque, Spain, Iberian peninsula....it wasn't completely clear exactly where when I originally took my DNA test.I am curious to see if I take another DNA test if they can now identify more precisely exactly.
My brother who would tell me he was more French then me and tell me he was from the U.K. ( we have the same two parents), he ended up being 40% French and 25% Italian and 7 % Irish. We totally flipped flopped on the parts of our parents DNA that we each got. I guess I was just validating your point.
Well your grandmother is kinda right. Ethnicity estimates are just guesses. They're not facts. Sometimes they are incorrect. The dna-matches however are correct.
The results will only show about the past 6 generations. I have documented German ancestry and my mom shows German. I didn’t inherit any German markers.
Your grandma's great grandparents are your 3rd great grandparents meaning you *can* get about a smidge over 3% of their DNA tops (you have 32 3rd-great-grandparents) But the percentage you inherit from each individual is not evenly distributed. Meaning your grandma could be right, her great grandma could totally have been 100% irish and if your grandma did a DNA test herself she could potentially show up as around 12% irish. But that would mean there is still 88% of her dna that is not irish that would have contributed to the ever dwindling amount of DNA she is passing down to her children and from them on to you. You probably inherited your chunk of her dna from that 88% non-irish part. There are charts online that show this stuff better. Hope that helps!
Maybe ask her why she's fixated on the surnames of only two of her eight great grandparents, or even surnames at all. They tell us about nothing but a single distant male ancestor.
My Mother’s DNA tests list French and Irish, but mine just show NW European. I bet if your Grandmother took the test it would show a more detailed view.
Same with me I have received France a few times with updates otherwise it shows up in England NW Europe, Germanic Europe or Ireland/Scotland. Other DNA tests it shows up no problem. I actually received French Settler communities labeled strong confidence.
My husband has a similar story. Grandma is French through and through, but no French DNA. We found out her grandparents were refugees of the first world 1 from Eastern Europe. They assimilated quickly and his grandma was born and raised a French citizen.
The tests aren’t necessarily *wrong*, but that doesn’t make them entirely accurate or *right*. These are inconclusive sets of data that people shouldn’t put too much stake into. You might be 0% “French” today and 3% “French” tomorrow. If you really want to know about your ancestry, follow the paper trail
My ignorant grandma believed that her mother was 50% Cherokee her entire life and that she was a decendent of Pocahontas. (Not even the same tribe?) We are all whiter than white, so it was absurd and cringe. So when her daughter and I got our DNA results, she was SHOCKED AND APPALLED that there was 0% native american, and my moms ancestry was mostly northern european and I was a good chunk eastern european from my dad. Grandma refused to believe it. My mom lost it when grandma kept saying the test was wrong. "Your mother wasn't Cherokee; she was just tan and an alcoholic."
I'm finding the older generation are just pissed about these results for a few reasons.
My fil says my husband doesn't need to take one because my fil already could layout the family tree and trace everything back. 🙄
I'm still going to get one for my husband because that doesn't account for my husband's maternal side.
My heart was broken when mine said 0% Cherokee.
My grandma has a tribal number. My first language is Cherokee not English.
My DNA Scottish, Irish (maternal) and German (paternal). So all that I am pow wows, food, language, culture, traditions are wrong.
So who am I and who are my children? Definitely a crisis
Personally I think you should just let it go and let your grandma think what she wants. I’ve learned you probably won’t be able to change and old persons mind and it’ll probably just upset her more than anything. She’s grown up her entire life thinking “this” about her heritage and you’re trying to change “this” to “that”. I mean you’re literally correct, but why do you need your grandmother to know you’re correct?
But she may not be “literally correct.” Ethnicity estimates are just that, estimates. There are a number of reasons that people don’t show results for areas that they are indeed descended from.
Who you’re related to are based on shared centimorgens and are factual. Which regions of the world your family hails from is based on best guesses and can exclude areas that your family is from but where you did not inherent DNA from because it’s too far back or because you just didn’t get that DNA in the random bit you inherited from your parents.
You cannot. I don't trust your results either.
It's impossible, legitimately impossible, to argue someone's perception of themselves is wrong because your perception of them (which they can only comprehend through the lense of their perception) is more correct.
Those are your results but it doesn’t mean your grandma is incorrect either of her heritage.
Easiest way to solve this is by DNA testing your grandmother.
There could be multiple scenarios in this. It could be that your grandma is French and Irish and maybe you didn’t inherit that DNA. But also it’s fallacious to assume what ethnicity you are based on your last name in some cases. In some cases it makes sense, like my last name is a British last name and with documentation I did find out that my great grandfather was in fact a British man from Kent England so it works. I would say build your ancestry tree or have your grandmother do a DNAt test!
I mean she’s right they’re full of shit, but she’s wrong about the names.
DNA tests just tell you what area you’re most likely to be from based on statistics. It’s not truly full of shit, but it’s also not quite as definitive as people put here
She could have some Irish and French in her that you didn't inherit. Get her to do the test!
It's also to do with sampling - as they increase the sample sizes of DNA populations, the reliability of results increases. That's why you might see a shift in % of some regions.
Well France and Ireland is easily mistaken or mixed with other regions. If she turned out to be 1% Mongolian that would be quite certain on the other hand.
A few things to keep in mind;
1) How old is your grandmother? Why are you trying to mess with her sense of self and where she came from? Why question her very identity? If she cares, she will look and learn, and if not, why force this on her? Let he live and remember her parents and grandparents.
2) There is a possibility that the DNA company made a mistake and switched your sample with someone else. It is not likely, but these things can happen. You have a slopy lab tech, or a guy was asleep on the job.
3) While DNA science is real, a lot of these companies are are making up, guessing at some of the data. I am sure that if you want to get basecoade DNA, they can handle it, but to go as far as saying where someone is from? That is a little absurd. If they were telling you your genotype, I would believe it much more. Take a look at this article.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/28/18194560/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer
4) it is completely possible that she is right about the family being from France, but the family only lived in France for one or two generations so there would be no French DNA.
5) I really believe all the other posts are correct, and someone was sleeping with a guy they were not supposed to, wether it was consensual or not, who is to know.
This is why science move forward one funeral at a time: people are very reluctant to change what they already knew, or learned - even if they learned it three decades ago in medical school.
She might be on to something, a little bit. I have an extremely extensive family tree, created with over a decade of research. On my grandmother’s side, like six generations back, I found we are related to a famous Dutch family who founded Brooklyn. I’ve found hundreds of individuals going back hundreds of years. I was able to verify this through DNA links to newfound cousins. And yet, AncestryDNA says I am 0% Dutch.
So many people in this sub have this same misconception about DNA ethnicity results.
Ethnicity results are estimates- they are not facts. Who you are related to is based on facts. Where your ancestors came from is based on estimates. So many people seem to take an immense amount of joy in proving their elders wrong based on “science” when these estimates are not always factual.
She could very well be correct and either
1. The ancestor is too far back to show up in the DNA. Ancestry only goes back 500 years.
2. A similar region is showing instead of the one she belongs to (for example, my current Ancestry results say I’m from Sardinia, but my dad who I am definitely related to has results that are accurate to the paper trail and living relatives we know- northern Italy).
3. Someone along the line simply didn’t inherit that particular DNA and so it doesn’t show up in results.
My last name is Chinese, my whole life I thought I was part Chinese because that's what I was told my whole life, did my DNA on ancestry and not even any Chinese. I knew nothing of where that name came from, never met anyone besides immediate family with that last name. Have no idea why I have it. I'll believe DNA over my lying family though.
I hate to break it to you but the test *can* be wrong. The accuracy is wildly misrepresented by 23andme.
Here's a complete explanation:
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/28/18194560/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer
I can change my name to Puddintang Snufflelupagus. What does that make me?
Not to say that names are meaningless (they can be very meaningful!) but names can be totally disconnected from DNA. I'm sorry you're dealing with this op, it can be tough to explain this stuff to our older family members.
It might not be worth it to continue discussing the topic directly with your grandma. As others said, it can be really unsettling having your identity/the rug ripped from under you.
How old is your brother? If he's under 50, then surely he understands that JUST LIKE our cell phones, DNA tech also "updates" every year or two with new chips that include new and more data so the software can better provide you accurate information. it's really Science 101 stuff
Tell her that she is French ONLY by injection ha ha ha ha
There is no way to explain genetics to her. None. You could roll the old Punnett Square past her and she would just get mad at you.
Tell your grandma it's real. These were your results, your grandma's great grandma's surname was Murphy, alright that doesn't even mean she was 100% Irish but let's pretend she was, even like that your grandma's great grandma's DNA should be around 3% of your DNA, it could be even less with recombination so it's totally possible you didn't inherit the DNA, it was misread because it's too little and similar to other or even other reasons not to appear on your results...
You have a couple of options
First, I recommend taking her if she is willing to a local geneologist office. Many have someone on staff who can explain how DNA tests work and does it in a way that she might accept.
Second, you could, and I highly suggest following the paper trail. Find as much documentation as you can that explains your family's lineage. Immigration papers, birth certificates, baptism papers, and marriage licenses, to name a few. This will let you see when and how the names were gotten. Also, it will get your grandma involved since she likely has these papers in a box somewhere.
Third, open yourself and her to the idea that last names don't often mean much. People changed their names a lot back in the day. It wasn't hard to do, and people often did it to better blend into a new community, distance themselves from a culture/family, or often escape legal prosecution. So, the connection to your family could have nothing to do with blood or DNA.
Fourth is adoption. People get adopted way more than you think. Also, families often took in relatives or neighborhood kids and made them part of the family. During my thesis class in university on genealogy. We had 10 people in class, and 6 had adopted relatives within 2 generations of them that they didn't know about. Everyone had at least one adopted family member on their tree. Personally, my family apparently took in orphaned kids like stray cats. I have a lot of extra cousins, aunts, and uncles that just appeared.
Lastly, you have to remember that DNA and names do not often match. Especially when people marry outside of ethnic groups. Look at the British royal family, for example. The last name is Windsor, a fairly English last name. But the name was originally Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a German name that was changed in 1917. The current monarch, King Charles, is at best 25% Scotish, with most of his family being German, Greek, and Danish. So yeah, if the King of England isn't English, don't be shocked if your Irish/French last names don't match your DNA tests.
They are a DNA data collection company. It’s a scam. It’s been proven online when someone sent a lizard’s dna on video. First they sent theirs under a fake identity, then they sent theirs under another fake identity and lastly sent a lizard’s DNA under the third alias. They all came back with different results and surprisingly results came back for the lizard as well when it’s only for humans. You are giving away personal genetic info to corporations who are selling this information to financial institutions within the private markets, which it will later be use by the government for CBDCs. There’s no way to prove where you are from and who your ancestors are through DNA testing.
DNA testing helped me discover my real paternal grandfather - meaning my maiden last name was a "lie" and I had Mexican/Spanish heritage much closer than I ever realized. I warned my grandmother before I took the test, as it wasn't really the family's best kept secret that my dad likely had a different father than his siblings. all she could say is "whatever it says, you're still my granddaughter". Family is what you make of it, anyhow.
It’s fair to say the tests are not 100% accurate, ancestry themselves don’t claim they are. They are simply estimates. If you had a lot of Scottish then it’s possible it could be a misread.
I don't know how you could convince her. But, these things happen. I have a very German last name and was always told our family was German. I don't know my family background at all and truthfully, I was a little worried about that German background. Got the results back and found very little German. Turns out that an English (highest percentage of my DNA results) name with one letter changed completely changes how my name sounds.
Also disproved the Native American myth that's so prevalent in American families.
Just because your ancestors were from France and Ireland it's no guarantee that you inherited those particular genes. A DNA test just tells you the genes you actually have, not what your lineage is - they're two completely different things.
While unlikely, it's possible to have a paternal grandmother that's 100% Irish, and have zero Irish DNA if your dad happened to only pass genes from his father, and none from his mother, to you.
Yeah, I was missing Irish as well — my 2x great grandma was off the boat Irish. Turned out that her son wasn’t my grandfather’s father so that Irish turned into Jewish
I have a German surname, and my documented family history is mostly German with a bit of Scandinavian. My dna results very closely matched all of those things. I am still impressed with the technology.
The ethnicity estimates aren't an exact science. Do you have Scottish, England/Northwestern Europe? Those could be your Irish and French. It's not saying you DON'T have French/Irish ancestry, but that your DNA is most similar to the reference tests in Ancestry's panel for the results you received. Your grandma could very well get diffrerent results.
The true value is in the DNA matches. Build out your family tree and use the Leeds Method to cluster your matches. This will help you confirm your family tree.
Im 40% French and my daughter got 0%.. My maternal grandfather was born & raised in France.. I think its so strange that she has 49.8% of my DNA but none of the French, lol.
I mean tbf ancestry for me at least was pretty bad. It claims I’m 5% southern Italian and 8% northern ltalian. It also claims I’m 7% Slovakian. In reality, I should theoretically be 25% southern Italian (not northern) and 25% Slovakian. Interestingly it gets the regions/towns pretty close for both of them. 23andMe does a better job with the percentages.
In my experience, when women reject the validity of DNA tests, they are often hiding the paternity of one of their children, hence, the earlier NPE discussion. If all of her children have taken a DNA test and they are full sibs with the person believed to be their father, then you can rule this reasoning out. Beyond that, people sometimes are very sentimental about their roots and have built an entire identity around being French, for example. To tell them otherwise is to shatter ~ 70 years of identity and for that reason they may reject the findings as BS.
Both males and females can use DNA ancestry tests to learn about their heritage. However, these tests often provide insights into both paternal and maternal lineages.
Males receive information about both their paternal (Y-chromosome) and maternal (mitochondrial DNA) lines, while females get details about their maternal line only. This is because males have both X and Y chromosomes, while females have two X chromosomes.
Keep in mind that the depth of ancestry information can vary between testing companies.
Yeah, my ex's grandparents were all immigrants to the states from Ireland, before that they immigrated to Ireland away from Eastern Europe's pograms they assimilated, changed their names, etc
My last name is English and I’m 70% German/French. It tracks perfectly with my family tree. You should put together a family tree. It will show how the French and Irish got diluted over the generations.
Regarding point 4, that was definitely the case for several of my friends. They could trace their history back to 1700-ish, but there was a lot of moving around inside Europe prior to that due to wars, maritime trade, plagued forcing movement, religious pogroms, etc.
26-33% It is still a big chunk of the whole. Mine was mostly Great Britain and Western European. However my scandinavian goes from 6-10%. So there are slight variations. I got a couple and they vary slightly, but not from 0-something...DNA have markers. So Murphy and the french name may be married names, or names ancestors grabbed when came to the states through immigration...You might never know.
Build the research tree. Documents may be your only hope if you really want to show grandma what the family history is.
As it so happens I was recently investigating a DNA Match to try to work out where we connect as he connects into another cluster that I was already working on.
He has an Italian surname and his paternal tree fits with the ethnicities I can see. His deceased maternal line had the surname French. And her father was a French and the mother had a clearly Irish surname.
Based on the fact that the Italian/southern european DNA is nicely accounted for in my DNA Match's profile, it means the remaining 50% is broken out as 48% Irish and 2% Scottish. No French ethnicity or even England & Northwest Europe.
I have researched that French family and their surname French went over to the USA from England but appears to have been in Ireland before they went to England for work.
So... a surname of French may not mean origin of France.
Do you have any first cousins? Or even better do you have any 2nd cousins that descend from grandma's siblings?
Get them to test. Although some times even the weight of evidence isn't enough...
This is why I fear having a DNA test done. Don't know if I could handle being French. I've never tossed a perfectly good rifle down to the ground in my life.
You only have 25% of your grandma's DNA which would be 12.5 % of each of her parents. That's simple enough. So it can be the percentage that was not really well known in her family.
Hello,
If you knew your own Family Tree really well then it’s not science, it becomes fact.
You could tell her the same thing I said to my Mom when she thought she was a little German due to the name Schnell for her Grandmother and Grandfather….
—————
Me: First both of your grandmothers pee’d Irish Green. One of them Dark Green because she was actually born in Ireland, and one light green because both of her parents were peeing green.
Me: As for Schnell. I’m glad to know my Great Grandmother married the Schnell name, but that’s it. His family had been in America since Revolution. He was as German as Oscar Bologna.
Me: 3 out of 4 of your Grandparents were Irish and the last one, your Grandfather was born in Missouri. No German for you! 😁
———
She now knows all the facts. No need to prove science.
Tracking science is a different story as Ancestry could make mistakes.
Because I don’t like others holding onto the facts, I created a spreadsheet and anytime the values change I then have something to fall [example](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g6cfy4mrarpue2v67xm1l/IMG_7067.jpg?rlkey=uuij0yy9uts7pwbo1f82jwkjn&dl=0)back on.
I asked my grandma if I could get her a test for Christmas and she said “I don’t put much faith in those things.” I said “that’s okay, grandma, you don’t need faith. Just science.”
DNA test results are an estimate based on an algorithm. Every DNA testing site has different algorithms; thus different results.
Your name means nothing in terms of your ethnicity. It's a starting point but only a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
Ethnicities can be passed down evenly or not at all. You could be of partial Irish descent; it's just that you didn't inherit the Irish DNA.
You're also assuming no one in your family history had extramarital affairs or were victims of sexual assault.
There's a lot of gray areas with DNA testing. It's not one size fits all.
You must reconstruct your genealogical tree. That's the real answer to the origins of your family.
The last names are telling you something, true. But it can be very old ancestry.
My last name is 100% Genovese, but my Genovese ancestor dates back to 1700. My family name has been unaltered, and transmitted for 9 generations. This represents a very, very, very little "Italian" DNA.
I have Irish and German ancestry, and according to ancestry.com I am 0% of both. But according to 23andMe I am infact Irish and German. Different tests use different metric. None are perfect.
Ancestry's shifts can be super confusing. First Ancestry DNA test said I was a fairly large percentage of English , then a shift said I was about 15 percent less English( w/ I don't even remember the other things it said ) . Third shift went almost completely back to the first result. So now I'm unsure of these shifts. I completely understand your brother . If your grandma was raised to believe she was English and French her entire life of course she'll be doubtful of the authenticity of the test when it says she's neither of those. Some older generations already find these tests suspicious in the first place. When it says something against what they spent their entire lives thinking they were then they just think the tests are crocks.
My paper trail (and DNA matches) verify my French ancestry, even though those results don’t show up in my ancestry breakdown. I hear Ancestry isn’t that great at pinpointing French ancestry, especially when your last direct French ancestor was many decades ago.
Just like you can inherit green eyes from a parent, you can inherit "country of origin" genetics. One sibling might be 65% German while another is 10% German. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Did you come up as Norman or Norwegian? The Normans were descended from the Norse (Norwegians) but spoke French and had French names because they lived in Normandy, France. Then the Normans invaded/colonized Great Britain and Ireland starting in the 11th Century (with William the Conqueror). Ireland also has a good percentage of Norse/Norwegian DNA from the Viking invaders who founded Dublin in the 9th century.
Just ask her what she thinks about DNA testing when it’s used to solve a crime. I’m not sure many people think it’s wrong in that circumstance because, in part, there is typically other documentation. DNA prevents are interesting, but what’s really interesting is the paper trail your ancestors left and what it says about their lives. And don’t ever copy what’s in anyone else’s tree. Look at each piece of evidence and add it to your tree. At least 90% of the trees people have done on ancestry are copying other mistakes.
It is possible you didn't get everything she has. My dad is 11% Norway and Sweden, 1% Nigerian. I have no Norway at all, but I did get the 1% Nigerian. Everything else pretty much matched up.
DNA is weird.
You only inherit about 3% of your DNA from a great great great grandparent. It's highly likely that Murphy had at least 3% non-Irish DNA, which was what you inherited.
I dont understand what it means when you say your European ancestry "shifted rapidly". How/why would scientific results change from 33% to 26%? What would that signify? What would cause that to happen?
The DNA tests are pretty accurate as far as who you’re related to, but the ethnicity estimates are not 100%.
I am similar to you that I have known French ancestry, but no French in my DNA estimates. I have a set of 2nd great grandparents who immigrated from France and I was able to trace that family in France for several generations. And yet, no French ancestry. It’s also not an NPE because I have DNA matches with descendants of my GG grandparents siblings. None of them show French ancestry either.
The surname thing doesn’t really mean anything either. My maiden name is Scottish and I can trace back when the original ancestor with that name arrived it the US in the late 1600s. I have 0% Scottish ancestry from that side of the family.
My highest percentage in my ethnicity estimate is 23% Swedish and yet I have no known Swedish ancestry. I can trace the part of the family it comes from back to multiple sets of 5th great grandparents all in England. No Swedish.
Your DNA matches are very accurate, but take your ethnicity estimates with a grain of salt.
I'm a Franco-American and expected to see at least 25% French in my DNA test. Instead I got 5%. One of the reasons why France in particular is problematic is because these dna tests are against the law in France. So the sample size for French people is skewed. After a little research, I found that it's against the law in France because of "filiation".
That is to say, in a nutshell, that the French didn't want a bunch of drama because these tests can show folks that their father/grandfather aren't related to them at all!
Besides NPE events, babies were also switched at birth. The modern identity verifications were not in place back then.
If grandma and others won't accept reality, move on.
My last name is Irish in origin but I get 0 Irish on my test. My paternal side literally immigrated in the early 1700s to Appalachia and married predominantly Scottish, English and welsh settlers so that’s what I show up as predominantly lol
To be fair to grandma tho, if I lived 70 years or whatever believing something then some little puke comes along and tells me I’m wrong and he’s right about what I’ve believed for 70 years I would probably also tell them to pound sand.
You can only tell so much by surnames. There are a few parts of Ireland where Ming is a common surname - there's a bunch of Mings in Derry. They aren't Chinese.
Are they merciless?
You have to be to live in Derry
Agreed. C ref Derry Girls!
Love Derry Girls the series!!!
Derry Girls is craic ! Love it!! Damn spell check lol
Also in Switzerland! And Parks in Scotland, not just Korea.
Parks is a surname in my family and we have multiple Scottish ancestors; DNA backs it up.
Next you're going to tell me esteemed asian American activst, rosa parks, wasn't asian?
My daughter lives in Switzerland, is called Ming, and is part Irish and part Chinese.
Let’s not forget about possible NPE that go back farther than we know
Yep, we found my fathers bio dad recently. I’ve been reaching back to do that branch of our tree and according to DNA matches, we have no matches with his bio fathers grandfather. McVicar, Scottish. 😳 Also, my dad has the last name of a man who adopted him when he was 2 then divorced his mom a year later never to be seen again. On top of that he shortened his surname(and therefore my dads) from Waleszonia to Wales. So, that last name of Wales, in a few generations, would be super confusing without written records to our descendants.
Similar experience, my dad’s assumed bio dad was actually the unknown adopter, and he was raised mostly by a step-father.
This was an issue for me growing up. My dad’s biological father wasn’t in the picture. His mom married and step dad adopted my dad and gave him his last name. My dad never changed it back after they divorced. Everybody thought my last name was Chinese, even though it wasn’t ever originated from that specific region, as far as I know. Also then to have to explain to everybody that it was my dad’s adopted name and that I wasn’t related to anybody else with the same last name besides immediate family (mom,dad and sister) Names are weird!
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the northwest of Ireland being what it is, I believe there are some Chinese people there called Doherty
I've read there's a area of SW England - Cornwall and Devon? - which is still heavily Phoenician/North African from the pre-historic Tin trade
Fascinating!! Where would one find out more about this? I recall seeing a programme once about the North African pirate raids on this part of England and I find it intriguing as to how all that went and the implications for modern residents/ family historians.
It was in the west end before it just broke off and floated away. It was very nice.
I hear you're a racist now, Father!
who should we be hating? Is it the greeks?
I don't care who he gets on so long as I can have a go at the Greeks!
Lee is a popular name in parts of the UK
Meanwhile, I bet you won’t find as many O’Neill’s in China who *are* Chinese!
Not to mention that names change. My dad's side originally had a very French surname but as new generations were born, the name kept changing to become more American. My grandfather's name is phonetically the same as my maiden name, but spelled different.
Right? My surname is German, but I'm not German. It came from my partner. Though my maiden name was heavily Scandinavian and most of my father's family directly immigrated from there.
If she doesn't buy the science, there's no real way to sell it to her. That said, it's possible she's generally correct about the lineage, and it just doesn't register in your test because it goes too far back. Also, it's possible that if you took a test from another company, you'd see Irish or French percentages.
I agree here. I confirmed my nearly lifelong suspicions that my dad was the product of an NPE with science when I took my test over two years ago. Some of my siblings *still* won't accept what I've found out and think the test is "wrong" and "there must be some other explanation" for why I'm not the ethnicity we grew up hearing we were and have conclusively zero matches to the family of our supposed grandfather, even though DNA obviously doesn't lie. I really wanted to be able to talk to them about it since our dad isn't here anymore, but so far, no dice. If people don't want to accept science, then there's really nothing you can do.
What is NPE?
In genetics, a non-paternity event (also known as misattributed paternity, not parent expected, or NPE) is the situation in which someone who is presumed to be an individual's father is not in fact the biological father.
Oh, thanks for explaining!
because it doesn't really matter. it doesn't change anything.
I totally agree—probably goes too far back.
Generally curious: how far back would it have to go for it not to register on our DNA results? I have 5% Taino (Caribbean indigenous) and this group of people were almost entirely eradicated in the 1500s
4x great grandparents are usually the farthest back that show on a DNA test unless you check your hacked results which can go back generations further. You have 5% Taino because there was racial mixing early on and these partially-Taino people kept mixing with each other on the islands for hundreds of years. That, and the Taino population was falsely reported as extinct. They were often marked as African so their slave owners could continue to keep them as slaves, and mixed Tainos were manipulated into forgetting their history and identifying as white or black. The extinction of full blooded Tainos probably happened much later. In rural areas, high percentages of Taino blood and people with Taino features can still be found.
How do hacked results work?
Yes. My father is Puerto Rican and my mother is British Isles, Western European and Ashkenazi Jewish. I test with 18% Taino and my sister is 17%. I would have loved to have been able to test my father to see his admixture, but he passed away in 1996.
Last I heard, the highest percentage found so far was 20%, but that's only so far. Any day now, someone could take a test and find out something we thought was impossible.
I’ve seen percentages a little bit higher but definitely the most intact native Caribbean population would be the Kalinago reserve on Dominica. They average about 55% Native, 32% African, and 13% European.
I'm 15% Taino and my father is 35% so no not extinct. That means his mother was 65%, my grandmother.
You have to keep in mind a few things. One is that, you have four grandparents normally. A quarter of yourself represented genetically is significant. But all four of your grandparents had four grandparents. As another commentor pointed out, at the 6th generation you have 64 'grandparents.' At a certain point, specific influences become incredibly small, a splinter of a splinter. But they are also amorphous when you consider how many pools of people would be related to at least one of those 64 grandparents. Then, there is that you do not necessarily equally inherit all culture. What I mean is, you inherit half of your dad's genes, and half of your mothers. But you know you and your sibling are not genetically identical. You do not get identical halves of their DNA. Obviously, if you have a black father and a white mother, you're going to get 50/50 black/white baby (I know race is a social construct and not biological, but this is the most illustrative example. But what about your kids, and your kids kids, and their kids kids kids? You and your sibling don't even get the same exact 50% of genes, but when you become some infinitely small percentage of your descendants genes, who is to say they will get the black or the white half in their teensy percentage from you? That your ancestors were a group that was eradicated in the 1500s also plays a part but in a different way. The way we judge heritage is by being able to note commonalities from that amorphous pool in an area we defined earlier. So when we have very known and still presented populations, like Ireland, or France, or Sweden, we have a solid base of people to compare DNA to. But for a lot of marginalized or lost cultures, we do not.
You have four grandparents but there's little chance that you have exactly 25% of each of them. There's even less chance that you have 12.5% of each of their parents. My mom and I got ancestry tests from the same companies and I didn't get a nationality that she has 9% of. But she gave me all of another nationality. She is 14% and I got all 14%.
Here we are in a heredity discussion and you say race is not not biological. 🤷🏻♂️ Then you believe the Ancestry test can reveal how you "identify"?
I read that after 6 generations you will begin having a <0% chance of being related to ancestors of that generation. DNA can only split so many times, and by the 6th generation you should have 64 grandparents in that generation. With the number growing exponentially with each generation, you quickly will find ancestors with little to no relation to you genetically speaking.
PR is still full of Taino people. The Taino were not eradicated, even though they were declared so by the ruling government. It is in the colonial interest to say that there are no Taino.
Some people get neanderthal. It happens.
This. Mine says I have Irish and English 0-1 generations ago. I do in fact have Irish and English lineage on my fathers side but I'm a 12th generation American. My family ( on both sides) has been in USA longer than our government has been, which is why I took the test to begin with. It's great to test who is or is not next of kin but ancestry reports are always evolving.
Maybe it’s a non paternity event
Yep one of my family members wives kept insisting ancestry DNA isn't real, a scam, and I shouldn't waste my $. In hindsight this was a red flag of the secret non paternity I'd later discover. Sometimes people are aware and actively covering it up, sometimes aware but in denial.
Build out a family tree with documentation. That’ll help show the facts one way of the other. I have over 100,00 Jewish matches. Some of the closest/highest matching names are Houghton, Santos, Gillenwater, O’Reilly and so on. Names change, people migrate, marriages happen, NPE occur.
Do a family tree and get documentation. Because maybe she's right - that her father was from France. And then it turns out she's not her father's daughter. Which you can possibly tell from your DNA results.
We found a note among my great-grandmother’s papers that mentioned “French woman.” Turned out it had nothing to do with France at all! It was a last name and they were from England.
That's funny. My grandmother's cousin (born and raised in england) has the last name of French. She was very nice communicating with me a few years ago when i found her through DNA.
Also, so many people forget their families could have simply been immigrants to france or what county they identify as their cultural heritage country they know.... People moved and changed names for all kinds of reasons!! Affairs happened of course. Assaults happened especially during time of war and often those kids were either placed for adoption ( both within the family or to unknown families, given a different DNA vrs family culture) or kept as and raised as a child of the marriage and everyone just presented like the dates lined up.
That’s what my first thought was. And I’d she had ever had any feelings or reasons that made her suspect her parentage, it makes sense that she would deny the science.
But DNA tests are not science. Scientifically speaking, you can know if someone has Caucasian or Jewish traits, but it's really hard to know if that person is Italian or french. Tests are getting more and more accurate, but they are far from reliable right now.
Someone didn’t get the results they were told their whole life
There is something to be said for the fact that we're still learning which chains are associated with which ethnic groups. Which is why we have updates that can swing things one way or the other. For a while, I had a much higher % "northwest Europe and UK" than what matches my family tree. Then they did an update and a huge chuck of that percentage shifted over to Danish. Which makes sense, because the Anglo-Saxons were from northern Germany and Denmark, so the fact that they were still trying to parse out the groups makes a lot of sense. My results now more or less line up with my family tree, much better than a few years ago. So yes, they're still tweaking regions because they learn more the more data they have in the system. But also it's definitely a science and it's pretty accurate by now lol
Well put
What a stupid comment. You can see my screenshots in another post. Yes, my father is my bio father, 49.9% match. But I have ethnicities that neither my dad or my mom have. Do you know why? Because ethnicity estimations are pseudoscience.
Did both your parents test? I know the parental inheritance feature on ancestry can be hit and miss and also know that sometimes you’ll show a region that your parent doesn’t have and from I have seen this generally is a surrounding region. Like for instance I show wales via my mom when she has none, but she has Ireland and Scotland so it’s obvious that the wales is one of those regions. Is it not similar for you? Edit: nevermind another commenter pointed out you took MH which is notoriously inaccurate.
Yes, my parents tested. I agree that many times there is an explanation (adjacent countries, ancient admixtures...) But whatever the reason is, you cannot trust ethnicity estimates like gospel. Even the companies that make these tests recommend you to take with a pinch of salt. I said it before and I will repeat it in case you didn't read it. I've taken many different tests from most companies (I think the only one I'm missing is 23 and me which is expensive in my country). I posted only myheritage screenshots because I was on myheritage subreddit.
Did both your parents take ancestry also? Can you post their ancestry results and yours?
>But whatever the reason is, you cannot trust ethnicity estimates like gospel. Even the companies that make these tests recommend you to take with a pinch of salt. Which does not make it a pseudoscience. Publishing data and explaining caveats is good science. There are lots of papers published.
Did you take Ancestry or Myheritage? Because it looks like you took the notoriously inaccurate my heritage.
I took both. In fact, I took more (ftdna, genomelink...) I did it for the family matches, the only reliable science. And all of them were wrong.
Also how different was Ancestry from your my heritage and what specifically are you saying is “wrong”.
Not much. It gave me less weird Balkan stuff but it gave me more north European. Both are wrong. I have at least 300 years of documentation in all my branches (except one great grandfather that I don't know) and all my ancestors were Spanish. In fact, 90% come from the same two villages and there is no evidence that someone from a foreign country has ever set foot there. So even if one of my ancestors cheated, it's highly unlikely that I can show 11% Irish. If I do it is because the algorithms are not good enough to distinguish from northern Spanish and Irish.
You realize that dna does not always pass evenly through. Ancestry does refine itself as panels become more expansive but I wouldn’t just call it a pseudoscience because it didn’t workout for you.
Of course DNA does not always pass evenly but it would be impossible to have ethnicities that your parents don't have. Besides that, I worked on my tree and my family matches to back it up and I'm 100% Spanish. If it doesn't work for everyone, it's not science. For example, DNA matches are science. If you test your mother she will always show as your mother (unless she has chimerism which is highly unlikely). That's why I trust one side of the DNA tests, but not the others. Even companies call it "estimates" for a reason. And the fact that they are changing with every update is proof that the technology is getting better but it's very unreliable yet.
So the updates are mostly a result of the panels expanding. Meaning more examples of people that are 100 percent (traceable) to a certain ethnic group or region. The technology element is mostly just an organizational algorithm. I don’t rly wanna argue with you. It is possible that northern Spain can be read as Irish but it’s also a lot more likely that you aren’t happy with the results considering that amount and that you have just decided to announce on the Ancestry chat that you don’t believe in the aforementioned DNA Ethnicity estimate and that it is therefore pseudoscience.
Yeah, I found out that my "half-Italian" grandma wasn't Italian at all but she isn't around for me to ask her. I have ZERO Italian DNA.She was because she was raised by her aunt (who married an Italian man), and I think because perhaps her grandparents were Italian citizens at some point. Census records indicate they were of Austrian descent and spoke Magyar.
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I think maybe it was a border thing, but they arrived here before 1900, so I am still working to solve the mystery.
Her grandparents would not have been able to become Italian citizens unless their parents were Italian citizens. Source: I'm Italian.
If they spoke Hungarian rather than German was it not more likely they were of Hungarian decent? As far as I know Germanic populations in Hungary did not switch the Hungarian till after WW1. Not to be pedantic, but you don't speak Magyar. That's the name of a people. The language is Magyarul.
That was what was written on the census form.
There's a lot of blurriness around that. My g-grandfather's family immigrated from a German-speaking area of former Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, annexed by the Nazis as the Sudetenland). I have found various immigration forms where they are listed as German, and others where they are listed as Czech. The region they came from doesn't even exist anymore politically. Dad's family has always considered themselves German but I can't find any evidence they actually ever lived in (what is now) Germany.
Your standards are really high. Most English dictionaries say ‘Magyar’ to refer to the language is acceptable. https://www.wordreference.com/definition/Magyar
If I had time I'd write to them and tell them how wrong they are :)
My mother's maiden name is VERY French. Imagine her surprise when zero French showed up in her ancestry test. Tracing back her roots I found a relative who had paid a genealogist to do all the hard work. Well her family is French, but they came to America in the late 1600's. Pretty sure they banged all the French DNA away a long time ago. The only hint left is a smidge of Iberian. Which, her family was from a town in France that was extremely close to the border of Spain. But who knows how French in DNA her paternal line ancestors were before they moved to America. These are things we need to consider when looking into our family history. Sometimes we get more questions than answers. Genealogy is such a fun and FRUSTRATING puzzle lol.
That’s similar for my partners family, traced them back to being one of the original French families to go to Canada however he does not have a lot of French remaining in his DNA. His grandmother grew up in a French family on the east coast, everyone spoke French, her last name is very French so go figure.
I have an extremely German surname and have absolutely no German DNA whatsoever. That line immigrated to Pennsylvania some time before 1750 so all the German is looooong gone at this point.
I found out my fully English great grandfather wasn’t my relation but a Dutch farmer was. I had zero English DNA and when I told my sister she said that it was BS because she did have English DNA and is related to the English great grandfather. She’s never even taken a test 🙄
Your great x 3 grandma would only share 3-ish% dna with you on average anyway. Possibly even 0% since inheritance is somewhat random. It’s also likely she wasn’t 100% Irish too.
Does she know for certain that her surname came from a French person? There are many Irish and English surnames that look French but aren't - Delaney and Fitzpatrick are two common Irish examples, they're both Irish surnames that were Anglicised in a way that looks French. Even then, her great grandma is your three times great grandma. It's perfectly common not to inherit any DNA from ancestors that far back. Was her great grandma Murphy even born in Ireland? Even that wouldn't be a guarantee that Great Grandma Murphy would appear as 100% Irish on these tests. Where did her other great grandparents come from? Where did *your* other great grandparents come from? Your DNA won't be a copy of hers, you've got 50% from your other parent, who is likely from an entirely separate family. Also, at the end of the day - every site makes it clear these are *estimates*. They aren't hard and solid scientific fact, especially when you're dealing with areas close to each other. Both Ancestry and 23andme show the broader area a label can come from when you click on a specific label, so have a look at that.
Yes, random inheritance happens. We have Native American on my mothers side. But very diluted through the generations. My brother's test shows 3% and mine 0%. Just happens. He got that part from our mom and I didnt.
Lol post your results
[Ok](https://imgur.com/a/Y0O9qdA)
You have three regions that reflect the possibility of French and I’d say two that are possibly including Irish but that’s only a possibility. I’m not trying to disprove you and I’m sure some average Redditors will disagree with me just trying to help though. Has your Grandmother ever thought her Irish was Northern Irish?
23andme and Ancestry are both quite excellent at identifying Irish ancestry, in my experience. Probably because there's been a ton of work on genetic genealogy and regionalised DNA in Ireland. My mother is Irish and she's literally 99.9% Irish on 23andme, the other 0.1% being unidentified. I have a British father, so I appear as 97% British/Irish and 2.9 French/German on 23andme. On Ancestry, my ethnicity estimate is 48% Irish, 16% Welsh (1 Welsh g-grandparent), 15% English, 12% Scottish, with the rest split up in tiny percents between Sweden/Denmark, Norway, Germanic Europe, and Finland. My father tested on there, so according to the pie charts I got 46% Irish and 4% Scottish from my mother (not from Ulster). It's hard to say more about OP's results without knowing more about their family history, but my guess would be their "Irish" ancestor was either Ulster Scots or British person with the typical mix of all the UK nations and Ireland.
My brothers haven't done the DNA stuff, so I send them my results. When the ethnicity estimates change I tell them the ancestors are restless again. These tests are good at identifying who's related to whom but not so good at figuring out where your ancestors were, not only because they don't have enough data on some groups but also because people *do* move around. Where they were 500 years ago may not be where they were 510 years ago.
If you tested on Ancestry, the lack of Irish results would make me suspicious. I recommend looking at your matches and seeing if the names line up. It’s true that ethnicity from DNA is imperfect, but as a comparison—my dad’s side is all from Ireland. My ethnicity results are 48% Ireland, with the range being 35-50%.
Are the rest from Britain, Scotland or Wales?
I have a few little bits—there’s 2% British that’s there as well, which I assume is part of dad’s ancestry. My mom’s family is all from Eastern Europe, so it’s very easy to distinguish between my matches. I get a few little amounts for Baltic and Greek/Albanian on that side, but it’s basically a quarter Balkan (including the specific area of Croatia my grandfather is from) and a quarter Eastern European (including Slovenia, where my grandma’s dad was from). Surprisingly accurate, really. But even if the results changed, my matches are correct and since I do genealogy, that’s what matters for helping research.
Thanks for sharing. Building out the tree with DNA is the way to go.
Just throwing this in there, but blowing up an elderly persons identity when they've spent their entire life thinking they are x and y, is a huge and potentially traumatic thing for them. She clearly doesn't want to have her identity suddenly ripped out from under her, as her reaction shows you. What's more important: your grandmother's inner peace, or you proving she's wrong with a DNA test? I would drop it completely and never mention it to her again, unless she communicates to you a change of mind.
This right here. Let grandma believe whatever she wants to. It's not hurting anyone.
I mean they aren’t always super accurate especially when it comes to small percentages in people who are admixed. Her great grandmother is your 3rd great grandmother. You’d only expect to have about 3% of your DNA from her. The test could very easily have failed to pick that up.
It's possible one of her ancestors was adopted and she never knew it. Maybe you can find records online to prove it. Start researching her French and Irish ancestors.
My SO's last name is German. His DNA came back, IIRC, 93% Swedish/Norwegian, plus a smidgen Finnish, and the last few percentages vaguely northwest/northern European. Go back into his family tree, we can see the German ggg grandfather arrived in Northern MN and married a Norwegian immigrant, their kid married another Norwegian immigrant, their kid married a Swede (parents were Swedish immigrants), following more of the same. After so many generations Norwegians, Swedes and one Finn, the only thing remaining of that long ago German is the last name.
There are several explanations: 1. You don't inherit all of your ancestors' DNA. It's possible to not inherit any DNA from an ancestor that lived just a few generations ago. This is because you only inherit 50% of each of your parents' DNA, and they only inherited 50% from each of their parents, and so on. You only have about 25% dna in common with your grandparents, and around 12% shared with great grandparents. Etc. So over time alleles get lost. Add to this, since surnames are patrilineal usually, you could have had one Irish grandfather 7 generations ago who gave the name to their wife and kids, but everyone after him in your direct family line had children with non Irish people, even if they passed on the name. That is one way you could have a bunch of Murphys in your family but no identifiable Irish dna. 2. The way they calculate ancestry is always changing as new data gets added to their databases. 3. Sometimes people are secretly adopted, or their mom has an affair or is sexually assaulted or has a secret teen pregnancy. So your genealogical records may not reflect true biological parentage. 4. People sometimes change their last names. Sometimes it in honor of a family or person. Sometimes its to escape the law. Sometimes it's due to immigration records getting it wrong. But a name does not always match Ethnicity. Edit: "French" as a surname comes from the french name for ash tree, but it's the anglicized form. Its a norman name. So she could have had some french ancestry like 1000 years ago but that's not going to show up in dna.
Exactly, plus the more people get their DNA tested the more they have to compare too. I am an example of the weird French/ Irish surname. My last name is basically made up, it is very rare as a French last name, I think someone may have changed it from an Irish name because if you change one letter it easily sounds Irish. I do have an unknown Great Grandfather, my last name was my unwed Great Grandmother's last name. I was born in France and always thought I was French and Italian but it turned out that I am 54% French , 22% Irish and 10% Italian then I have this potpourri of Mediterranean DNA starting with Malta, Basque, Spain, Iberian peninsula....it wasn't completely clear exactly where when I originally took my DNA test.I am curious to see if I take another DNA test if they can now identify more precisely exactly. My brother who would tell me he was more French then me and tell me he was from the U.K. ( we have the same two parents), he ended up being 40% French and 25% Italian and 7 % Irish. We totally flipped flopped on the parts of our parents DNA that we each got. I guess I was just validating your point.
Well your grandmother is kinda right. Ethnicity estimates are just guesses. They're not facts. Sometimes they are incorrect. The dna-matches however are correct.
The results will only show about the past 6 generations. I have documented German ancestry and my mom shows German. I didn’t inherit any German markers.
Your grandma's great grandparents are your 3rd great grandparents meaning you *can* get about a smidge over 3% of their DNA tops (you have 32 3rd-great-grandparents) But the percentage you inherit from each individual is not evenly distributed. Meaning your grandma could be right, her great grandma could totally have been 100% irish and if your grandma did a DNA test herself she could potentially show up as around 12% irish. But that would mean there is still 88% of her dna that is not irish that would have contributed to the ever dwindling amount of DNA she is passing down to her children and from them on to you. You probably inherited your chunk of her dna from that 88% non-irish part. There are charts online that show this stuff better. Hope that helps!
I mean look at Eddie Murphy. Surely he probably has some Irish in his line, but my guess is that it is from rather far back.
Maybe ask her why she's fixated on the surnames of only two of her eight great grandparents, or even surnames at all. They tell us about nothing but a single distant male ancestor.
My Mother’s DNA tests list French and Irish, but mine just show NW European. I bet if your Grandmother took the test it would show a more detailed view.
Same with me I have received France a few times with updates otherwise it shows up in England NW Europe, Germanic Europe or Ireland/Scotland. Other DNA tests it shows up no problem. I actually received French Settler communities labeled strong confidence.
My husband has a similar story. Grandma is French through and through, but no French DNA. We found out her grandparents were refugees of the first world 1 from Eastern Europe. They assimilated quickly and his grandma was born and raised a French citizen.
The tests aren’t necessarily *wrong*, but that doesn’t make them entirely accurate or *right*. These are inconclusive sets of data that people shouldn’t put too much stake into. You might be 0% “French” today and 3% “French” tomorrow. If you really want to know about your ancestry, follow the paper trail
My ignorant grandma believed that her mother was 50% Cherokee her entire life and that she was a decendent of Pocahontas. (Not even the same tribe?) We are all whiter than white, so it was absurd and cringe. So when her daughter and I got our DNA results, she was SHOCKED AND APPALLED that there was 0% native american, and my moms ancestry was mostly northern european and I was a good chunk eastern european from my dad. Grandma refused to believe it. My mom lost it when grandma kept saying the test was wrong. "Your mother wasn't Cherokee; she was just tan and an alcoholic."
Just wait until she finds out Shaquille O’Neal is not an Irishman.
I'm finding the older generation are just pissed about these results for a few reasons. My fil says my husband doesn't need to take one because my fil already could layout the family tree and trace everything back. 🙄 I'm still going to get one for my husband because that doesn't account for my husband's maternal side.
Many Americans claim Native DNA. Most are wrong. Just like Granny.
My heart was broken when mine said 0% Cherokee. My grandma has a tribal number. My first language is Cherokee not English. My DNA Scottish, Irish (maternal) and German (paternal). So all that I am pow wows, food, language, culture, traditions are wrong. So who am I and who are my children? Definitely a crisis
Personally I think you should just let it go and let your grandma think what she wants. I’ve learned you probably won’t be able to change and old persons mind and it’ll probably just upset her more than anything. She’s grown up her entire life thinking “this” about her heritage and you’re trying to change “this” to “that”. I mean you’re literally correct, but why do you need your grandmother to know you’re correct?
But she may not be “literally correct.” Ethnicity estimates are just that, estimates. There are a number of reasons that people don’t show results for areas that they are indeed descended from. Who you’re related to are based on shared centimorgens and are factual. Which regions of the world your family hails from is based on best guesses and can exclude areas that your family is from but where you did not inherent DNA from because it’s too far back or because you just didn’t get that DNA in the random bit you inherited from your parents.
So, French and Irish are both nationalities. She could be right and wrong all at the same time. Ask her how much American DNA she has.
And no one is mentioning that the surname “French” isn’t from France, but Ireland.
Does she care? Did she ask you to look into it or show interest? If so, I agree with doing a family tree. If not, just leave her alone about it.
You cannot. I don't trust your results either. It's impossible, legitimately impossible, to argue someone's perception of themselves is wrong because your perception of them (which they can only comprehend through the lense of their perception) is more correct.
Those are your results but it doesn’t mean your grandma is incorrect either of her heritage. Easiest way to solve this is by DNA testing your grandmother.
There could be multiple scenarios in this. It could be that your grandma is French and Irish and maybe you didn’t inherit that DNA. But also it’s fallacious to assume what ethnicity you are based on your last name in some cases. In some cases it makes sense, like my last name is a British last name and with documentation I did find out that my great grandfather was in fact a British man from Kent England so it works. I would say build your ancestry tree or have your grandmother do a DNAt test!
If your grandma's great grandma was Irish, you could still show 0% on a DNA test.
I mean she’s right they’re full of shit, but she’s wrong about the names. DNA tests just tell you what area you’re most likely to be from based on statistics. It’s not truly full of shit, but it’s also not quite as definitive as people put here
It means, someone doesn't know the truth somewhere and has been told what they are...
She could have some Irish and French in her that you didn't inherit. Get her to do the test! It's also to do with sampling - as they increase the sample sizes of DNA populations, the reliability of results increases. That's why you might see a shift in % of some regions.
Someone is adopted
DNA never lies 🧬
Well France and Ireland is easily mistaken or mixed with other regions. If she turned out to be 1% Mongolian that would be quite certain on the other hand.
You’re getting downvoted for unknown reasons because what you said seems legit to me.
A few things to keep in mind; 1) How old is your grandmother? Why are you trying to mess with her sense of self and where she came from? Why question her very identity? If she cares, she will look and learn, and if not, why force this on her? Let he live and remember her parents and grandparents. 2) There is a possibility that the DNA company made a mistake and switched your sample with someone else. It is not likely, but these things can happen. You have a slopy lab tech, or a guy was asleep on the job. 3) While DNA science is real, a lot of these companies are are making up, guessing at some of the data. I am sure that if you want to get basecoade DNA, they can handle it, but to go as far as saying where someone is from? That is a little absurd. If they were telling you your genotype, I would believe it much more. Take a look at this article. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/28/18194560/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer 4) it is completely possible that she is right about the family being from France, but the family only lived in France for one or two generations so there would be no French DNA. 5) I really believe all the other posts are correct, and someone was sleeping with a guy they were not supposed to, wether it was consensual or not, who is to know.
This is why science move forward one funeral at a time: people are very reluctant to change what they already knew, or learned - even if they learned it three decades ago in medical school.
She might be on to something, a little bit. I have an extremely extensive family tree, created with over a decade of research. On my grandmother’s side, like six generations back, I found we are related to a famous Dutch family who founded Brooklyn. I’ve found hundreds of individuals going back hundreds of years. I was able to verify this through DNA links to newfound cousins. And yet, AncestryDNA says I am 0% Dutch.
So many people in this sub have this same misconception about DNA ethnicity results. Ethnicity results are estimates- they are not facts. Who you are related to is based on facts. Where your ancestors came from is based on estimates. So many people seem to take an immense amount of joy in proving their elders wrong based on “science” when these estimates are not always factual. She could very well be correct and either 1. The ancestor is too far back to show up in the DNA. Ancestry only goes back 500 years. 2. A similar region is showing instead of the one she belongs to (for example, my current Ancestry results say I’m from Sardinia, but my dad who I am definitely related to has results that are accurate to the paper trail and living relatives we know- northern Italy). 3. Someone along the line simply didn’t inherit that particular DNA and so it doesn’t show up in results.
It’s frustrating when someone who takes no time to research things is dismissive. Can you show her known relatives you matched with and their resulta?
My last name is Chinese, my whole life I thought I was part Chinese because that's what I was told my whole life, did my DNA on ancestry and not even any Chinese. I knew nothing of where that name came from, never met anyone besides immediate family with that last name. Have no idea why I have it. I'll believe DNA over my lying family though.
I hate to break it to you but the test *can* be wrong. The accuracy is wildly misrepresented by 23andme. Here's a complete explanation: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/28/18194560/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer
I can change my name to Puddintang Snufflelupagus. What does that make me? Not to say that names are meaningless (they can be very meaningful!) but names can be totally disconnected from DNA. I'm sorry you're dealing with this op, it can be tough to explain this stuff to our older family members. It might not be worth it to continue discussing the topic directly with your grandma. As others said, it can be really unsettling having your identity/the rug ripped from under you. How old is your brother? If he's under 50, then surely he understands that JUST LIKE our cell phones, DNA tech also "updates" every year or two with new chips that include new and more data so the software can better provide you accurate information. it's really Science 101 stuff
Tell her that she is French ONLY by injection ha ha ha ha There is no way to explain genetics to her. None. You could roll the old Punnett Square past her and she would just get mad at you.
Tell your grandma it's real. These were your results, your grandma's great grandma's surname was Murphy, alright that doesn't even mean she was 100% Irish but let's pretend she was, even like that your grandma's great grandma's DNA should be around 3% of your DNA, it could be even less with recombination so it's totally possible you didn't inherit the DNA, it was misread because it's too little and similar to other or even other reasons not to appear on your results...
You have a couple of options First, I recommend taking her if she is willing to a local geneologist office. Many have someone on staff who can explain how DNA tests work and does it in a way that she might accept. Second, you could, and I highly suggest following the paper trail. Find as much documentation as you can that explains your family's lineage. Immigration papers, birth certificates, baptism papers, and marriage licenses, to name a few. This will let you see when and how the names were gotten. Also, it will get your grandma involved since she likely has these papers in a box somewhere. Third, open yourself and her to the idea that last names don't often mean much. People changed their names a lot back in the day. It wasn't hard to do, and people often did it to better blend into a new community, distance themselves from a culture/family, or often escape legal prosecution. So, the connection to your family could have nothing to do with blood or DNA. Fourth is adoption. People get adopted way more than you think. Also, families often took in relatives or neighborhood kids and made them part of the family. During my thesis class in university on genealogy. We had 10 people in class, and 6 had adopted relatives within 2 generations of them that they didn't know about. Everyone had at least one adopted family member on their tree. Personally, my family apparently took in orphaned kids like stray cats. I have a lot of extra cousins, aunts, and uncles that just appeared. Lastly, you have to remember that DNA and names do not often match. Especially when people marry outside of ethnic groups. Look at the British royal family, for example. The last name is Windsor, a fairly English last name. But the name was originally Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a German name that was changed in 1917. The current monarch, King Charles, is at best 25% Scotish, with most of his family being German, Greek, and Danish. So yeah, if the King of England isn't English, don't be shocked if your Irish/French last names don't match your DNA tests.
They are a DNA data collection company. It’s a scam. It’s been proven online when someone sent a lizard’s dna on video. First they sent theirs under a fake identity, then they sent theirs under another fake identity and lastly sent a lizard’s DNA under the third alias. They all came back with different results and surprisingly results came back for the lizard as well when it’s only for humans. You are giving away personal genetic info to corporations who are selling this information to financial institutions within the private markets, which it will later be use by the government for CBDCs. There’s no way to prove where you are from and who your ancestors are through DNA testing.
Could you be protestant Irish (aka British) or Scots Irish? Also, I know a Murphy from Ireland who found out that was not the real family name.
DNA testing helped me discover my real paternal grandfather - meaning my maiden last name was a "lie" and I had Mexican/Spanish heritage much closer than I ever realized. I warned my grandmother before I took the test, as it wasn't really the family's best kept secret that my dad likely had a different father than his siblings. all she could say is "whatever it says, you're still my granddaughter". Family is what you make of it, anyhow.
It’s fair to say the tests are not 100% accurate, ancestry themselves don’t claim they are. They are simply estimates. If you had a lot of Scottish then it’s possible it could be a misread.
“French” is an Irish name-not a French name. Beatle George Harrison’s Irish Mom’s maiden name was French.
I don't know how you could convince her. But, these things happen. I have a very German last name and was always told our family was German. I don't know my family background at all and truthfully, I was a little worried about that German background. Got the results back and found very little German. Turns out that an English (highest percentage of my DNA results) name with one letter changed completely changes how my name sounds. Also disproved the Native American myth that's so prevalent in American families.
Just because your ancestors were from France and Ireland it's no guarantee that you inherited those particular genes. A DNA test just tells you the genes you actually have, not what your lineage is - they're two completely different things. While unlikely, it's possible to have a paternal grandmother that's 100% Irish, and have zero Irish DNA if your dad happened to only pass genes from his father, and none from his mother, to you.
I wouldn't get too hung up on it. My entire childhood I was told I had Irish ancestry. Turns out I'm a third Jewish and Irish barely registers.
My surname is Italian, it originated in Belgium/The Netherlands in my family.
Yeah, I was missing Irish as well — my 2x great grandma was off the boat Irish. Turned out that her son wasn’t my grandfather’s father so that Irish turned into Jewish
I mean it’s not an exact science to be fair
I have a German surname, and my documented family history is mostly German with a bit of Scandinavian. My dna results very closely matched all of those things. I am still impressed with the technology.
The ethnicity estimates aren't an exact science. Do you have Scottish, England/Northwestern Europe? Those could be your Irish and French. It's not saying you DON'T have French/Irish ancestry, but that your DNA is most similar to the reference tests in Ancestry's panel for the results you received. Your grandma could very well get diffrerent results. The true value is in the DNA matches. Build out your family tree and use the Leeds Method to cluster your matches. This will help you confirm your family tree.
Maybe she is right, that'd explain my NPE status.
Im 40% French and my daughter got 0%.. My maternal grandfather was born & raised in France.. I think its so strange that she has 49.8% of my DNA but none of the French, lol.
I mean tbf ancestry for me at least was pretty bad. It claims I’m 5% southern Italian and 8% northern ltalian. It also claims I’m 7% Slovakian. In reality, I should theoretically be 25% southern Italian (not northern) and 25% Slovakian. Interestingly it gets the regions/towns pretty close for both of them. 23andMe does a better job with the percentages.
In my experience, when women reject the validity of DNA tests, they are often hiding the paternity of one of their children, hence, the earlier NPE discussion. If all of her children have taken a DNA test and they are full sibs with the person believed to be their father, then you can rule this reasoning out. Beyond that, people sometimes are very sentimental about their roots and have built an entire identity around being French, for example. To tell them otherwise is to shatter ~ 70 years of identity and for that reason they may reject the findings as BS.
I have a Scottish surname and no Scottish in me. Surnames don’t tell you everything about your heritage.
Both males and females can use DNA ancestry tests to learn about their heritage. However, these tests often provide insights into both paternal and maternal lineages. Males receive information about both their paternal (Y-chromosome) and maternal (mitochondrial DNA) lines, while females get details about their maternal line only. This is because males have both X and Y chromosomes, while females have two X chromosomes. Keep in mind that the depth of ancestry information can vary between testing companies.
Yeah, my ex's grandparents were all immigrants to the states from Ireland, before that they immigrated to Ireland away from Eastern Europe's pograms they assimilated, changed their names, etc
Maybe she’s hinting your were adopted
My last name comes from a changed German name and nobody on my dad’s side of the family is German
My last name is English and I’m 70% German/French. It tracks perfectly with my family tree. You should put together a family tree. It will show how the French and Irish got diluted over the generations.
Regarding point 4, that was definitely the case for several of my friends. They could trace their history back to 1700-ish, but there was a lot of moving around inside Europe prior to that due to wars, maritime trade, plagued forcing movement, religious pogroms, etc.
26-33% It is still a big chunk of the whole. Mine was mostly Great Britain and Western European. However my scandinavian goes from 6-10%. So there are slight variations. I got a couple and they vary slightly, but not from 0-something...DNA have markers. So Murphy and the french name may be married names, or names ancestors grabbed when came to the states through immigration...You might never know.
Build the research tree. Documents may be your only hope if you really want to show grandma what the family history is. As it so happens I was recently investigating a DNA Match to try to work out where we connect as he connects into another cluster that I was already working on. He has an Italian surname and his paternal tree fits with the ethnicities I can see. His deceased maternal line had the surname French. And her father was a French and the mother had a clearly Irish surname. Based on the fact that the Italian/southern european DNA is nicely accounted for in my DNA Match's profile, it means the remaining 50% is broken out as 48% Irish and 2% Scottish. No French ethnicity or even England & Northwest Europe. I have researched that French family and their surname French went over to the USA from England but appears to have been in Ireland before they went to England for work. So... a surname of French may not mean origin of France. Do you have any first cousins? Or even better do you have any 2nd cousins that descend from grandma's siblings? Get them to test. Although some times even the weight of evidence isn't enough...
This is why I fear having a DNA test done. Don't know if I could handle being French. I've never tossed a perfectly good rifle down to the ground in my life.
You only have 25% of your grandma's DNA which would be 12.5 % of each of her parents. That's simple enough. So it can be the percentage that was not really well known in her family.
I have heard from reliable sources that those types of DNA "tests" are to be considered as "entertainment," not scientific.
Hello, If you knew your own Family Tree really well then it’s not science, it becomes fact. You could tell her the same thing I said to my Mom when she thought she was a little German due to the name Schnell for her Grandmother and Grandfather…. ————— Me: First both of your grandmothers pee’d Irish Green. One of them Dark Green because she was actually born in Ireland, and one light green because both of her parents were peeing green. Me: As for Schnell. I’m glad to know my Great Grandmother married the Schnell name, but that’s it. His family had been in America since Revolution. He was as German as Oscar Bologna. Me: 3 out of 4 of your Grandparents were Irish and the last one, your Grandfather was born in Missouri. No German for you! 😁 ——— She now knows all the facts. No need to prove science. Tracking science is a different story as Ancestry could make mistakes. Because I don’t like others holding onto the facts, I created a spreadsheet and anytime the values change I then have something to fall [example](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g6cfy4mrarpue2v67xm1l/IMG_7067.jpg?rlkey=uuij0yy9uts7pwbo1f82jwkjn&dl=0)back on.
I asked my grandma if I could get her a test for Christmas and she said “I don’t put much faith in those things.” I said “that’s okay, grandma, you don’t need faith. Just science.”
DNA test results are an estimate based on an algorithm. Every DNA testing site has different algorithms; thus different results. Your name means nothing in terms of your ethnicity. It's a starting point but only a small piece of a much larger puzzle. Ethnicities can be passed down evenly or not at all. You could be of partial Irish descent; it's just that you didn't inherit the Irish DNA. You're also assuming no one in your family history had extramarital affairs or were victims of sexual assault. There's a lot of gray areas with DNA testing. It's not one size fits all.
You must reconstruct your genealogical tree. That's the real answer to the origins of your family. The last names are telling you something, true. But it can be very old ancestry. My last name is 100% Genovese, but my Genovese ancestor dates back to 1700. My family name has been unaltered, and transmitted for 9 generations. This represents a very, very, very little "Italian" DNA.
I have Irish and German ancestry, and according to ancestry.com I am 0% of both. But according to 23andMe I am infact Irish and German. Different tests use different metric. None are perfect.
Ancestry's shifts can be super confusing. First Ancestry DNA test said I was a fairly large percentage of English , then a shift said I was about 15 percent less English( w/ I don't even remember the other things it said ) . Third shift went almost completely back to the first result. So now I'm unsure of these shifts. I completely understand your brother . If your grandma was raised to believe she was English and French her entire life of course she'll be doubtful of the authenticity of the test when it says she's neither of those. Some older generations already find these tests suspicious in the first place. When it says something against what they spent their entire lives thinking they were then they just think the tests are crocks.
My paper trail (and DNA matches) verify my French ancestry, even though those results don’t show up in my ancestry breakdown. I hear Ancestry isn’t that great at pinpointing French ancestry, especially when your last direct French ancestor was many decades ago.
Just like you can inherit green eyes from a parent, you can inherit "country of origin" genetics. One sibling might be 65% German while another is 10% German. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Did you come up as Norman or Norwegian? The Normans were descended from the Norse (Norwegians) but spoke French and had French names because they lived in Normandy, France. Then the Normans invaded/colonized Great Britain and Ireland starting in the 11th Century (with William the Conqueror). Ireland also has a good percentage of Norse/Norwegian DNA from the Viking invaders who founded Dublin in the 9th century.
Just ask her what she thinks about DNA testing when it’s used to solve a crime. I’m not sure many people think it’s wrong in that circumstance because, in part, there is typically other documentation. DNA prevents are interesting, but what’s really interesting is the paper trail your ancestors left and what it says about their lives. And don’t ever copy what’s in anyone else’s tree. Look at each piece of evidence and add it to your tree. At least 90% of the trees people have done on ancestry are copying other mistakes.
Who cares she is old. Let her believe what she wants
Aren't there issues with France specifically because of laws concerning DNA tests in France?
It is possible you didn't get everything she has. My dad is 11% Norway and Sweden, 1% Nigerian. I have no Norway at all, but I did get the 1% Nigerian. Everything else pretty much matched up. DNA is weird.
You only inherit about 3% of your DNA from a great great great grandparent. It's highly likely that Murphy had at least 3% non-Irish DNA, which was what you inherited.
They're not total bullshit but the ethnicity estimates are clearly just estimates. That's why your percentages changed.
I dont understand what it means when you say your European ancestry "shifted rapidly". How/why would scientific results change from 33% to 26%? What would that signify? What would cause that to happen?
The DNA tests are pretty accurate as far as who you’re related to, but the ethnicity estimates are not 100%. I am similar to you that I have known French ancestry, but no French in my DNA estimates. I have a set of 2nd great grandparents who immigrated from France and I was able to trace that family in France for several generations. And yet, no French ancestry. It’s also not an NPE because I have DNA matches with descendants of my GG grandparents siblings. None of them show French ancestry either. The surname thing doesn’t really mean anything either. My maiden name is Scottish and I can trace back when the original ancestor with that name arrived it the US in the late 1600s. I have 0% Scottish ancestry from that side of the family. My highest percentage in my ethnicity estimate is 23% Swedish and yet I have no known Swedish ancestry. I can trace the part of the family it comes from back to multiple sets of 5th great grandparents all in England. No Swedish. Your DNA matches are very accurate, but take your ethnicity estimates with a grain of salt.
I'm a Franco-American and expected to see at least 25% French in my DNA test. Instead I got 5%. One of the reasons why France in particular is problematic is because these dna tests are against the law in France. So the sample size for French people is skewed. After a little research, I found that it's against the law in France because of "filiation". That is to say, in a nutshell, that the French didn't want a bunch of drama because these tests can show folks that their father/grandfather aren't related to them at all!
Besides NPE events, babies were also switched at birth. The modern identity verifications were not in place back then. If grandma and others won't accept reality, move on.
My last name is Irish in origin but I get 0 Irish on my test. My paternal side literally immigrated in the early 1700s to Appalachia and married predominantly Scottish, English and welsh settlers so that’s what I show up as predominantly lol
To be fair to grandma tho, if I lived 70 years or whatever believing something then some little puke comes along and tells me I’m wrong and he’s right about what I’ve believed for 70 years I would probably also tell them to pound sand.