10 Generations French but no French matches

[Franksplace2]

I have traced my ancestors to Le Harve, France, 10 generations.

The match list is nearly all British, no French.

Perhaps the kits got mixed up.

Am I wrong?

Frank

[Swennilsson]

How close are the best British matches you have?

[Violet]

Le Havre--isn't that in Normandy? So perhaps your ancestral maternal cousins were among the Norman invaders of the UK, hence the matches.

[PDHOTLEN]

Haute-Normandie. It would be interesting if you showed us your mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups in your signature. I tentatively traced my own direct maternal line back to Normandy too. If you were to join Ancestry.com, you could compare your family tree to others with Norman connections.

[Jessant]

The Norman conquest wasn't the only instance of cross-channel migration. And let's not forget the Huguenots.

Frank, what type of DNA results are you talking about? Y-DNA? mtDNA? Autosomal (Family Finder)?

French populations may be undersampled in the FTDNA database. If I'm not mistaken, DNA paternity testing is illegal in France. Not sure about genealogical DNA testing.

[PDHOTLEN]

I was just looking back in my direct maternal line, and I see I also have someone from Le Havre, Normandy. Lucy De Tancarville, born about 1090 in Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie. But that assumes I've got my tree right (which I probably don't). Anyway, that woman was born regardless whether she is on my line or not.

[AlisonT]

When you say 10 generations, do you mean you're descended from 10 generations of French people, or that you had one French ancestor 10 generations back? Also, are you talking about autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, MTDNA?

[tomcat]

Based on how many STR's - 12, 25, 37, 67, 111?

[N21163]

Franksplace2 had a post at a previous forum:

"My Y-DNA1-12 results include a lot of British people but no French. I have traced my family for eight generations to France. All of my males ancestors were French.
Perhaps the kits were mixed up?
Frank "

The responses pointed out that the 12 marker test doesn't indicate a lot. An upgrade to 67 or 111 markers will start to establish better connections.