Genealogy Chat

A friend of mine in Canada who is of Scottish descent recently joined the family tree dna service with an interesting twist. He received a mouth swab kit, which he duly returned and received a dna breakdown. The interesting part was that in the results he was shown as having a 52% Viking heritage, obviously the long boats landed in Scotland and a grand tour of rape, poillage and settlement was on the cards.

I would love to do something like this is it expensive as I have different sides to my DNA

oh yes i would love to have that test done but i suppose it is very expensive. i have watched gene detectives on bbc and they do that on there. must admit i dont like the programme very much i fancy being a bit viking or perhaps something a bit more exotic you never know love linda x

I saw Colin Jackson do something similar on WDYTYA and I think this was with a company called DNAancestry Project. i haven't been able to access their website but another website had something similar for $433. A tad bit expensive. If you put 'ancestry by genes' in to google a few companies are listed but i haven't checked all of them out. I would like to have done it myself but saw the price.

My husbands mother says they are from viking stock her maiden name is Gudrum which she says is Scandanavian. Hubbie has blond hair and blue eyes so could be right!

Yes, it would be really interesting - but there is another more general way of getting an idea of your background - blood groups. This is an article from an [obviously] Australian publication. It is a bit long - but I think it is interesting - and hopefully, so will you! Victoria (with a bit of Hun or Mogul in her genes) A blood legacy from the ravaging Huns During the past 15 centuries, Europe has seen two great invasions from the east – first by the Huns of central Asia late in the 4th Century, and then by the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan in the 13th century. In time, both invasions were defeated or retreated or were absorbed by the peoples they had conquered. The cultural legacy of the eastern invaders dimmed – kings and conquerers are transient beings, and all ultimately fall victim to the Ozymandias Effect. Ozymandias, the king of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem ‘Ozymandias’, built a giant statue of himself so that he would be remembered for eternity – but it was demolished by the sands of time. Stone dissolves, metal rusts, language and culture evolve and change. But unbeknownst to Attila and Genghis Khan, they did leave in enduring biological legacy among the peoples of Europe and their descendants. The genetic echoes of the Huns and the Monguls linger in our veins. If you are one of the 10 per cent of Australians who has blood type B, it is probable that a Hun or Mongol is numbered among your remote ancestors. There are about 14 different blood group systems known to medical science, the best known of them being the so called A-B-O system. Individually, and in concert, these systems can provide historians, biologists and anthropologists with important clues about the affairs of the most restless species on our plant, Homo sapiens. In some cases, those clues attest to episodes of human migration and invasion that are very ancient indeed. ‘Our remote ancestors did not live in a global village connected by jet aircraft, freeways and supertrains. Certainly, they migrated from one part of the planet to another, but only slowly and in small groups.” The major races of man apparently diverged from each other about 40,000 to 100,000 years ago, and very little genetic exchange occurred between then until relatively recently. Each race developed a characteristic mixture of the genes that specify each of these blood group systems. In the case of the A-B-0 system, it seems that before the eastern invasions of the past two millennia, most Europeans were either blood group A or O. The B gene was very rare – even today, in London, only 5 per cent of individuals are blood group B, 26% are A, and nearly 70% are type O. But on the opposite side of the vast Eurasian land mass, the A gene seems to have been virtually absent among the Asiatic races. Among the Chinese, the Mongols and the Huns of central Asia, the B and O genes predominated, as they do in modern times. When the Huns, and later the Mongols, penetrated deep into Europe, they brought their B gene with them. When East met West, the B gene began cropping up with increasing frequency in European populations. But very large populations have a sort of genetic inertia, so that their existing gene frequency will not undergo a rapid or radical shift unless the invading group is very large – or extraordinarily active in the more unsavoury practices of conquering arms. Invading groups invariably are less numerous than the peoples they conquer, and while there may be noticeable changes in blood group frequency in the zone the invaders and the conquered peoples first meet, the effect tends to fizzle out as the invasion becomes attenuated by distance and attrition in its numbers. Hence the very low frequency of the B gene in Britain, insulated from the Hun and Mongol invasions by the English Channel. The frequency of the B gene is similarly low in western Europe, the limit of the Hun and Mongol Invasions, but begins to rise as one moves east. A balance is struck on the Russian Steppes, which took the brunt of the Mongol invasion. Central Russia also has an unusually high frequency of the AB blood group – the group which can result from a meeting between A and B, and which, in a sense, embodies the fusion of East and West. So in modern Europeans and their descendants – Australia among them, there is a mix of blood groups which reflects our biologically European ancestry, yet which echoes the impact of these early Asian invasions. The Red Cross Blood Bank says Australians have the following blood group percentages: A 38% B 10 AB 3.5 A 49 While the B gene is much more common in Asian populations, in prehistoric times it was rare or perhaps absent among the peoples of north-eastern Asia – the tribes of the Siberian region. The B gene is still quite rare there today – as it is among the Indians or North and South America, there seems to be little doubt that the native peoples peoples of the Americas

The tribes of north-eastern Siberia have the same characteristic low frequency of the B and AB genes as the Amerindians (and in recent times, studies of languages have shown common linguistic elements between Siberian groups and certain Indian and Eskimo tribes of North America). Any American Indian today with B or AB group blood almost certainly will number a European among his ancestors. Prior to Europeans colonisation of North America, virtually all Indians were A or O group. Interestingly, before Europeans settle Australia, blood groups B and AB was also virtually non-existent in the Aboriginal population. It would be tempting to suggest an affinity between Aboriginals, Siberian and Amerindians, but reference to another blood group systems, the MNS system, suggests otherwise. Among Amerindians, the M gene is found in about 70 to 90 per cent of individuals. It is almost absent among Aboriginals, who are almost exclusively N group. But across the Bering Sea, in Siberia, the frequency of the M gene is almost identical to that found among native Americans. The A-B-0 and MN blood-group systems are only two of at least 14 known different blood group systems – most people are familiar with at least one other, the Rhesus system, which is often coupled with the A-B—system and denoted by a “Rhesus positive” (Rh+) or a “Rhesus negative (Rh-) when one’s blood group is described. About 80% of Australians, who are predominantly of European ancestry, have Rhesus positive blood. In the US the figure is 85%, about the same figure as for Europeans. But in a tiny pocket of Europe, there is an ethnic group in which the percentage of Rhesus positive individuals is almost reversed. They are the Basques, who have a 60% frequency of the Rhesus negative gene. When this astonishing figure is coupled with the fact that the Basques speak a language unrelated to any other in Europe, the inference is that the Basques are a very unusual people indeed. When it is considered that they are a small population, surrounded by predominantly Rhesus-positive peoples – the French to the north and the Spanish to the south, one could safely speculate that they have been almost exclusively Rhesus negative in the remote past. The Basques today still display the strong sense of ethnic identity that has obviously sustained their unique racial group for millennia in its isolated enclave in the Pyrenees. The Basque language is so different – and presumably so ancient – that it cannot be linked with the ancient Indo-European language that was the presumed precursor of the Latin and Germanic tongues that dominate Europe today. A romantic might speculate that when one hears the Basque tongue, one is hearing a language which traces back to that spoken by Cro-Magnon man, the first modern man of Europe. The Basques are probably the Aboriginals of Europe. Their struggle with Spain for a separate identity assumes a stark perspective in the light of such evidence. The Rh negative gene also occurs at low levels among other European peoples – and many indicate that at some time in unrecorded history, the original peoples of Europe, who would have been Rh-negative bloody group, were overrun by the Th positive Indo-European ancestors of the modern Europeans. Blood groups, of course, are not the only available genetic markers for human races. Nor do genetic markers provide incontrovertible evidence of prehistoric migrations; they must be considered in the light of supporting – on conflicting – fossil, linguistic and cultural evidence. Very recently, the Journal of Pacific History published by the Australian National University, published a book which draws together some of these disparate lines of evidence. Titled ‘Out of Asia – Peopling of the Americas and the Pacific’, this fascinating book presents a series of detective stories which, among other things, cast new light on the origins of Australia’s Aborigines, generally acknowledged as the most ancient racial group on our planet. The book also points to the possibility based on blood group analysis, that proto-Polynesian people may have colonised parts of South America.

My mum's side is English and my dad's dad was Scottish and his mum was from Norway but my gr gran was Swedish so my Genes will be interesting

My GG gran was half cherokee, so the story goes--I'd love to know if it's true!! Carol

if you google family tree dna there's a few suggestions but generally the process is about £100.00

I read somewhere ages ago that the A blood type developed in meat/milk eaters, and the B group developed in people who did not eat much animal protein. A- blood groups have an enzyme which can digest cows milk, B groups do not. Although I find geanological DNA mapping vaguely interesting, I don't find it personally interesting, because although they can tell you that you have 52% Viking blood in your veins - they can never tell you WHEN this was - could have been 10,000 years ago! OC

Having watched a (very) few minutes of the Genes Detective this week I do think that someone somewhere is taking the p... Apparently half of the population of Europe are descended from the French 20,000 years ago. So we pay someone to test out DNA only to show that half of us are related to the other half of us. Now I could have told you that for free.

I am currently reading a book called the Face of Britain which is the results of dna testing in different areas of the country - to be honest there is a lot of time wasting waffle in it but it is quite interesting when they actually put the few nuggets down that they found. For a start the early Britains had shades of red hair - as the saxons moved in the early Britons moved to the corners of the island and we can still see now the more common occurrence of shades of red hair amongs the Irish, Scots and down in Cornwall. Ive not got to it yet, but they have also outlined the genes that affect facial characteristics and should ultimately be a good guide to your own genealogy. I believe ancestry*com offer a dna sampling service - I have the price of £180 in my mind. If you look at ancestrys one world tree you will see alongside some of the entries a dna logo showing that person has given a sample.

But to get back to the original posting, Vikings didn't necessarily rape & pillage. In fact in Scotland they were very much part of that society, especially settling in the northern islands. BTW, Victoria, that article was fascinating. Ozi.

Peter Exactly! I recently looked on a site devoted to Holden DNA testing, which costs I think in the region of £200. As you can imagine, not many people have bothered but I did wonder how pleased those who DID bother, were with the results: 'A is related to B through the male line and they share a common male ancestor within the last 800 generations' LOL! That should make the tree building a bit easier then...... DNA geographical mapping is interesting from the point of view of seeing how populations spread gradually, and how they were 'invaded'. But 80% of British people share common Northern European genes and you don't have to be a master mind to work out that they either came by natural methods, or by invasion - from Northern Europe! OC

The price has come down quite a bit. Has anyone had their DNA taken? Recently Ancestry was offering the test for £50 but now it's back to £99. Hopefully they will bring the price own again soon. I do know someone who had their DNA tested and is now in a DNA sub group which has a number and he has met 2 other people from the same group--all men with the same surname. It had to go down the paternal line.

A couple of posting members have. If they spot your post they may be willing to share their experiences.

yes maybe

please whatever you do, do not pay money to Ancestry for this Rosalinda!

Ancestry does only one kind of testing now, so if you decide to expand into other testing (YDNA for men, mitochondrial DNA for women) you would have to start all over again somewhere else

so the men you mention, whose surname-line DNA matches, have had YDNA testing done, which Ancestry no longer does

This 'you are a Viking' nonsense is just nonsense ... it tells you nothing worth knowing at all.

I recommend FTDNA, which I have used and will be having some further testing done with.

I have submitted samples from two male rellies, one on my mum's and one on my dad's side, looking for relations in the two male surname lines (my dad's and my mum's father's) ... YDNA provides the most accurate and reliable matching method

my one match on my dad's side is a distant cousin (we share a greatx2 grandfather) whom I had already 'met' via notes I placed on our ancestor's census record at Ancestry ... so what learned there is that he and my brother are both 'legitimate' descendants of that man, so the relationship wasn't news but it can be worth confirming it when you're doing family history ;-)

on my mum's side the match was surprising but very credible and has given me a whole new lead for what had been a brick wall c1800

I am planning to have 'autosomal' testing done on my mum's male rellie's sample, to see whether we can narrow down how the YDNA match and he are related (because we might be related on both a maternal and paternal line)

that test is what FTDNA calls FamilyFinder, and it is the kind of test that Ancestry does

however, Ancestry does not have nearly the database, let alone the support for matching, that FTDNA offers

FTDNA has many projects with volunteer leaders who are mostly knowledgeable and extremely helpful, and also actively finds matches for you

Usually FTDNA has Christmas sales for basic YDNA testing and sometimes other tests ... I post notices in this forum when I get them from FTDNA

the whole process is fairly complicated and it can be a very long learning curve at the beginning ... I started out at zero, thinking I send in my samples and hey presto I get matches ... and it doesn't work like that ... I have had to learn about STRs and haplogroups and terminal SNPs and a lot more but it has been a fun experience

there are also things one needs to do to protect privacy, starting with never disclosing a name in connection with a DNA sample, and I am happy to share them with anyone undertaking the project

on that point, I simply never give Ancestry any personal information, and if you are ordering via an existing Ancestry membership then they already have it

To reiterate, though: testing with Ancestry is a waste of money, particularly if you are thinking of going any further with using DNA testing for genealogy purposes ... what Ancestry gives you is basically the same as you get from those websites that sell coats of arms to match your surname :-)

Well, that's interesting. That's saved me some money as I was going to go through Ancestry. Thanks so much for the information. It will be useful. :-)