New Genetic Communities Results

Ancestry's new Genetic Communities has been released today.  Here is my take on my own results.

Firstly it's important to note that initially there are a finite number of communities included.  Todd Godfrey from Ancestry explained that these will be increasing over time.  Listen to my interview with him here.

From this initial group I have been placed into three communities.

There is a map that shows where these communities are located:

I can drill down on each of them in turn.  First, I looked at "English in the South West Peninsula".

So far so good. It's certainly south-west England. Looks like it covers Cornwall and Devon. I don't have any known Devon ancestry, but I have a g-g-grandfather from Cornwall.  But on the left hand side it gives information on the history of the area and emigration from that area, and it is all about London! Last time I looked, London wasn't in Devon or Cornwall.

I could also click on a "Connections" link to see further information

I can then click on the "View all Matches" for the people who matched me in this Genetic Community.

What about my other communities?  Here is the Munster Irish community.

Hmm. That's Munster AND Leinster.

If I look at the Stories/History section and click on one of the time frames you will see migration routes OUT of the area of the community at a certain time.  As an example I'm showing the migration in the time "1825-1850: Poverty Amidst Plenty".

Looks reasonable, but the earlier time frame "1775-1825: Home of Outlaws and Rebels" and it only shows migration to the US.  Yet during this period there were a large number of convicts sent to Australia. And rebels (from the 1798 rebellion). No mention of them though. Perhaps they'll fix this over time.

Now, what about the Scots Community?

I was pleased to see that included in my connections in this community was someone whom I know I am related to. We share a g-g-grandmother who came from Wigtownshire in Scotland. It doesn't have the new person or her brothers who match myself and my cousin above and whose ancestor has the same surname as ours and comes from the same part of the country. Maybe that's because they are more distant relatives?  Maybe there is a maximum number that is showing up at the moment? Maybe the connection to my 3rd cousin and I is not through that family? I don't know yet.

As I've said, this is a growing site. More communities will be coming on over time.  I can see it potentially being useful for narrowing down where a connection might have occurred.  But I'd like to see some of the problems being resolved. It's certainly a bit of fun, and is available to anyone who has tested with Ancestry without additional payment.

Very Strange Results from LivingDNA

I just got my results from Living DNA. Not only are they different to the results from Ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA, which are sort of similar, but the Living DNA ones don't match the paper trail AT ALL.  In fact, I'd be thinking that the results belonged to someone else, except they got my mtDNA haplogroup - H41a - correct, and that is a very rare subclade of a very common haplogroup.

Living DNA Ethnicity Estimate

Ancestry estimates

FamilyTreeDNA estimates

LivingDNA says I am 98.8% European, Ancestry says 99%, and FTDNA says 95%. OK, they are similar.  They break down differently though. LivingDNA says that European component is 95.5% Great Britian and Ireland and 3.3% Scandinavian.  Ancestry threw Iberian Peninsula, Jewish, Italy/Greece and Finland/Northwest Russia into the mix, While FTDNA had the Jewish component, a Southern Europe (which I guess is about the same as Italy/Greece) and an East Europe (Finland?) portion.  The percentages were quite different, but the mix is similar

But where it gets interesting is with the British results.  Now I'll start by saying that according to the paper trail I'm about half Irish, half English with a tiny bit of Scottish thrown in (and that is from Wigtownshire - the most southwesterly part of Scotland). According to LivingDNA my results are broken down as follows:

    Northwest England               31.1%
    Southeast England               17.8%
    Cornwall                               14.6%
    Cumbria                               13.7%
    South Central England       5.30%
    Northwest Scotland               5.2%
    Orkney                               2%
    South Yorkshire                       1.8%
    Aberdeenshire                       1.7%
    GB & Ireland unassigned          2.2%
    Scandinavia                       3.3%

The map indicates that Northwest England is Lancashire & Cheshire, Southeast England is Kent & Sussex. South Central England is Gloucestershire, Somerset & Wiltshire and that Northwest Scotland covers most of the Highlands, plus Antrim and Derry in Northern Ireland (two counties where I do NOT have ancestors).

My analysis of my ancestry is as follows:

    Protestant Irish            25%
    Irish                            21.09%
    Cumbria                    12.5%
    Cornwall                    6.25%
    Scotland                    6.25%
    GLS                            6.25%
    Notts/Derby                    6.25%
    Kent/Sussex            3.125%
    Warwickshire            3.125%
    Middlesex                    3.125%
    Wilts/Som                    3.125%
    Unknown (prob Irish)    3.125%
    Cheshire                    0.781%

Now, I fully understand that some of the smaller amounts might not have come to me by the miracle of recombination, as 3.125% represents a 3g-grandparent and all their ancestors, and 0.7181% a 5g-grandparent, but the differences are quite startling. I'm even happy to say that the 3.125% Middlesex probably came there from somwhere else. And even given that at least 2 lines of my Protestant Irish are known to have come from England (or Britain at least) in the 17th century, it's possible that all that 25% is really English or Scottish.  But what about that other 21-25% of Irish Catholics?

Putting my results into their categories we get

    Northwest England               31.1%          0.781%
    Southeast England               17.8%          3.125%
    Cornwall                               14.6%          6.25%
    Cumbria                               13.7%          12.5% (OK, this result is close)
    South Central England       5.30%          9.375%
    Northwest Scotland               5.2%            0%
    Orkney                               2%               0%
    South Yorkshire                       1.8%            0% (though I do have 0.049% West Yorkshire)
    Aberdeenshire                       1.7%            0%
    GB & Ireland unassigned          2.2%           0%
    Scandinavia                       3.3%            0%
    Unaccounted for                                            67.9%
       (Irish, Lowland Scotland, Notts/Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Middlesex, Probably Irish)

I really had higher hopes for these results, given that a lot of the data came from the People of the British Isles Study.  I'll just have to see how my husband's results compare to his paper trail.