(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Hmmm...interesting, my Dad's DNA results came back with: Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Ulster, Great Britain (isn't Great Britain also Wales, Scotland and Ireland?), Iberian Pensulia (basically Spain), Jewish, Scandinavian, Western Europe (basically France and Belgium and Germany), and the Middle East.

I'm still waiting for mine.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Funny that I should see your post about this just now (they probably mean GB generally, as it can't always be completely narrowed down -- I have a good deal of "broadly southern European" and such in mine). I was just emailing with a niece and we were discussing DNA test results as well. She's considering doing a test.

[shadowkat]

I think you're right. Some of the DNA can be identified directly by region, other strands are more generally identified and can't be narrowed down -- such as broadly North-Western European, Great Britain...

I remember discussing this with a couple of pseudo experts on DW and they said pretty much the same thing some of the articles I've read on this said -- in regards to ethnicity, they have to be a bit broader...because you can't narrow it down that well. There isn't that much difference between the DNA strands of various nationalities. Or very minor differences.

[jesuswasbatman]

Great Britain is the island of England, Scotland and Wales. Isle of Ulster? Ulster is the geographic region that is roughly equivalent to political Northern Ireland. Did they say Isle of Man?

[shadowkat]

No, my mother told me it was 48% Scotland, Wales and Ireland, then 4% Great Britain, then Isle of Ulster, which she thought was an island off of Ireland (and I was thinking isn't that Ireland)....

ME: Wait, isn't Great Britain - Scotland, Wales, and England?
Mom: Look, I'm just telling you what the summary states.

I haven't looked at it myself -- my mother read it to me. I found it odd. It's like it identifies certain countries or regions, then afterwards lumps them into a general category. I'm wondering if that's the strand of DNA at the lab -- some is labeled specifically by country and some by region?

[zooey_glass]

Drive-by comment from my network. The percentage of people of Celtic descent (i.e. somewhere nearer to the 'indigenous' populations of GB) is higher in Scotland, wales and Ireland, while England and GB as a whole would be more of a blend of Celtic, Anglo Saxon, Norman, etc. So it's possible they can identify some strands which could only have come from particular regions while other strands could be from anywhere in GB.

[shadowkat]

That would make sense. Thank you.

[kerkevik_2014]

Isle of Ulster? Ulster is a province; nine counties, three of which are in the Republic of Ireland with the remainder making up Northern Ireland (part of the UK), Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales (there is a Lesser Britain, but i couldn't tell you where it is.

There is no Isle of Ulster that I'm aware of though.

Must get around to doing one of these myself some day; my youngest sister did find that our grandmothers were Cornish, which pleased me. All I know about the rest of the family is that they came from Devon and Lincolnshire; be interesting to see where they came from before that (Lincolnshire might suggest some Norse ancestry, Danish maybe?).

[shadowkat]

From what I understand it is dependent on the information recorded in the database, both fossilized dna and others with similar DNA. Also based on regions and indigenous people of each region. So Isle of Ulster, probably was a older name for Ireland or a region? Great Britain is probably non-Celt. I haven't looked deeply into it yet.

[kerkevik_2014]

A thought occured to me on the bus into Perth a wee while ago. She couldn;t have been thinking of the Isle of Man?

There was a report on (maybe?) a science paper a year or two back that suggested the DNA of the areas, such as East Anglia, with the longest history of English royal lines actually have a 'negligible' anglo-saxon dna record; that the population is largely that which existed there before the ANglo-Saxons arrived ie British/Welsh or Celtic, though several people have pointed out that the term Celtic points to a common culture that extended over large areas of Europe for many hundreds of years until the Romans wiped it out. There were no Celts as I was taught at school.

[shadowkat]

The DNA tests can in some cases be traced back prior to Roman times. My sisinlaw was able to trace back to Clovis Man.

I don't understand the science of it. And haven't read the report yet. But that's what my mother reported. I think it's how the DNA strands are labeled in their system. Don't know, will not know until I check it out. It's actually more useful in tracings potential relations and line, than ethnicity, since a lot of that is cross-over or not distinct.