Parents Have More My Origins Results

[DanD]

So compared to my father, my "my origins" results for me are
Me
European 94%
Western and Central Europe 62%
Scandinavia 13%
Eastern Europe 12%
Finland and Northern Siberia 7%
New World 5%
Native American 5%
Central/South Asian 2%
Central Asia 2%

My Father
European 97%
British Isles 38%
Scandinavia 33%
Southern Europe 14%
Western and Central Europe 11%
Finland and Northern Siberia 1%
Central/South Asian 2%
Central Asia 2%

I am still waiting for my Mom's test results to come in.

So why would British Isles and Southern Europe not show up in mine when his percentages are so high (38% and 14%)???

[k.martin]

There are several issues at work here.

Remember that you only inherit half of each parent's DNA. But the DNA that you do inherit is random. You don't receive half of each ethnicity. You inherit a random mix. Perhaps all of one ethnicity, none of another and a different percentage of each of the others.

Also, European DNA is difficult for all the testing companies to separate because of all the mixing through the centuries, through migrations, trade, wars, etc. FTDNA gives me a large percentage of Scandinavian (43%). So far, I have never found a Scandinavian ancestor. But I do have a lot of Scottish ancestors that were from the Hebrides which had a lot of Viking influence. In fact, the island of Lewis, where my great grandfather was born, was ruled by Norway until the 1200s. So no doubt, Norwegian DNA is part of my Scottish DNA.

Next, teasing ethnicities from DNA is still in it's infancy. The DNA used to create the data bases is from living people, whose families have lived in a certain area for a long time. It is not the DNA of ancestors themselves.

[DanD]

To add onto original post...

I just received my mother's origin results.

----European 81%
Eastern Europe 41%
Scandinavia 31%
Western and Central Europe 7%
Southern Europe 2%
----New World
Native American 11%
----East Asian
Northeast Asia 6%
----Central/South Asian 2%
Central Asia 2%

Added in dashes as my original post did not indent like I thought it would.

So now my question is ...say my Finland and Northern Siberia is 7% ....where did that come from?? My dad has 1% and mom is none.

[DanD]

There are several issues at work here.

Remember that you only inherit half of each parent's DNA. But the DNA that you do inherit is random. You don't receive half of each ethnicity. You inherit a random mix. Perhaps all of one ethnicity, none of another and a different percentage of each of the others.

Also, European DNA is difficult for all the testing companies to separate because of all the mixing through the centuries, through migrations, trade, wars, etc. FTDNA gives me a large percentage of Scandinavian (43%). So far, I have never found a Scandinavian ancestor. But I do have a lot of Scottish ancestors that were from the Hebrides which had a lot of Viking influence. In fact, the island of Lewis, where my great grandfather was born, was ruled by Norway until the 1200s. So no doubt, Norwegian DNA is part of my Scottish DNA.

Next, teasing ethnicities from DNA is still in it's infancy. The DNA used to create the data bases is from living people, whose families have lived in a certain area for a long time. It is not the DNA of ancestors themselves.

Thanks for your reply. It makes sense but I wish they would figure out better ways dealing with the data. As in my last post...I have more Finland and Northern Siberia than both my parents combined. Is there an explanation for this?

[malchik]

So now my question is ...say my Finland and Northern Siberia is 7% ....where did that come from?? My dad has 1% and mom is none.

This belongs to the 'MyOrigins Strange Results Log'... as a variation of I would label ##MOSR004
http://forums.familytreedna.com/showthread.php?t=40921

[rgriggs]

Which kit did you use?

[Armando]

DanD, 23andme doesn't have this problem because they phase the kits and 23andme has a higher rate of the ethnicity calculator more closely matching the genealogical record.