Periodically Ancestry updates what they used to call their ethnicity results which are now found under Origins. It's always interesting to see how things have changed but this latest iteration of my results has me scratching my head. After past updates I've heard complaints about how Ancestry had amped up testers' Scottish origins when they didn't feel that was right. Now I have a similar complaint but in another direction.
As someone with an Irish surname at birth, I'd previously found Ancestry's estimate of my Irish background on the low side. It made me question how my family name had been bestowed back when my lot first ended up in London. But the other DNA sites where I'd tested made me feel better about the origins of my family line: FTDNA's result showed 13% Ireland while Living DNA showed 7% Ireland. Now with the change in their estimates, Ancestry has whittled down my Irish origins to 1% and, as a new wrinkle, they've added 2% from Cornwall. I'm not sure where the Cornish bit comes from, nothing that shows up in my genealogy, that's for sure.
Once I'd finished shaking my head over my new results, I checked those for my son whose Ancestry kit I manage. His Ireland region has a value of 13%, of which 6% is from his father and 7% is from his mother. Wait a minute, if my DNA is only 1% from Ireland how could I have passed on 7% to my child? That's almost as baffling as the Virginia & Eastern Kentucky Settlers that Ancestry linked me to in one of their previous updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment