Genealogy Chat

Hi all
can anyone tell me how far back does a dna go?

thanks Barry

Ancestry says:

Your family tree may go back hundreds of years, but there could be more to your family's story that's just out of reach of paper documents and conventional research. AncestryDNA® can reach back hundreds, maybe even a thousand years, to tell you things that aren't in historical records—things you might have never known otherwise.
Although our ethnicity algorithms and prediction models will continue to improve over time, there are a few reasons why your ethnicity estimate may not be exactly what you expected: 1. Your genetic ethnicity may go back further than your family tree. 2. While your ancestors lived in a certain country, there may have been genetic influence from other places. 3. You don't necessarily share common DNA with all of your ancestors.

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/dna/legal/faq#interpret-3



Also -
not exactly an answer, but maybe this is helpful ??

https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Unexpected-Ethnicity-Results

Well on ancestry I had an umpteen times cousin match and looking in the tree a surname match

I messaged the tree holder and yes we had a match

My umpteen grt grandfather married a widow in1852 and they had children .
She had children from her first marriage and the guy was descended from one of those kiddies whereas I am from one of the children’ of the second marriage

The mum then was the link

Shows it does work

I think if you have a DNA test done, you need to read up a bit about what the results mean. There are ethnic origins and DNA matches, different issues on each. There are a few threads on here about the test results, they can be unexpected.

Had a test done gives 2% Norwegian and 2% Swedish which was unexpected ?
does this go as far back a the Vikings ?

Barry it will depend I think on what test it was, there are different types. Contact the company that you took the DNA test with, they are best placed to tell you how far back these results might go.

thanks everone

Well, it might go back to the Vikings if your ancestors or one of them came from n area where the Vikings raided and settled, and that could include much of England .......... of it there was a Scandinavian more recent ancestor that you don't know about.