Interesting DNA Results from AncestryDNA
Logically you want to say that you are 50% from your mother and 50% from your father. The reality is that it isn’t exactly 50% from each parent.
I am of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent and first-generation born in the US mainland while my husband is Haitian born. I had my husband and two children tested and the results finally came in this week with my son’s ethnicity finally coming in today. The results are making an individual eat crow and I do mean eat crow for many reasons. I’m actually enjoying the creme pie in the face. LOL
For one, both my kids inherited more of my DNA as far as centimorgans (cMs) with my son having the most. He also has more of my cousins on his list than my daughter which I was surprised and not expecting.
One of the proven points with my husband was the breakdown of ethnicity. Knowing what I have learned in my research on the island of Hispaniola, I knew that our DNA could not be so far off and different when it came to African ethnicity breakdown. However, my husband insisted that he was 100% from Cameroon. I have yet to know how he could have known that but DNA doesn’t lie.
So here are our results. I labeled each so you can see each breakdown. His DNA truly proved him wrong; I’m grinning and enjoyed that discussion.
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| My Results |
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| My Husband’s Results |
As you can see he inherited a combination of 32% Nigeria, 21% Benin/Togo as his two highest regions from his parents. I inherited 14% Benin/Togo and traces from other African regions. The results for our two children are quite interesting.
Below are both of our children.
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| Daughter’s Results |
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| Son’s Results |
So looking at my daughter, you can see that she inherited more Benin/Togo DNA with 28% whereas my son is only 12% Benin/Togo. The huge difference is that my son has 20% of Nigeria whereas my daughter only inherited 3% Nigeria. So yes the results can be drastically different.
I can tell you that I only show 3% Ivory Coast/Ghana but my maternal uncle who is my mother’s full brother has a large amount of Ivory Coast DNA. As a matter of fact, it was his biggest African contribution. This is why it is helpful to test as many family members as possible. In researching your Ancestry and ancestors, you need as much help as possible. I know that due to recombination and randomness of inheritance of DNA from your parent, you will lose matches to cousins. Keep this in mind while you research your ancestry.
My wife an her family are 100% Puerto Rican, and I have genealogy for nearly all of her family lines showing that they have all been in Puerto Rico since at least 1800, and some going as far back as 1700. I got some interesting results when testing my wife vs. her parents as well as a great-uncle, so I spoke with some people who are experts on this type of DNA analysis, one with significant experience in Hispanic populations. To get to the point, these markers really can't be interpreted as precisely as you and I were trying to do. There are a whole host of reasons why certain SNPs/DNA markers are interpreted different ways, which is why you can take the same DNA to 3 different services (AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, and 23andMe) and you will get different results. There is a program available through Gedmatch.com which uses an "Admixture" algorithm to get more accurate results, but it seems very technical so I haven't tried yet. If you're really enthusiastic, maybe you'll have to give it a try.
I completely agree with your statement. The results can and will vary depending upon testing companies. The one thing I have found is that the total percentages have not changed for me no matter the company when it comes to African DNA
My husband gave me the Ancestry.com test as a birthday gift. It was a beautiful gesture that ended turning everything I knew about my family on its head. Now I'm running around trying to find how it could be possible that I have a Scottish grandfather, but no Scottish markers; an Italian in-Law, but a high percentage of Italian markers; and some other results that I just can't believe, but will have to accept!
Don't take the results to heart. These estimates are based on the testing company's database. It just may turn out that you do not have this ancestry. Have you uploaded your DNA kit to GEDMatch.com? If not, I highly recommend it. Also, a good paper trail of ancestors may prove otherwise. I have tested with 2 companies and have my results on 6 different websites and none match exactly the same. Just keep that in mind as the science is not exact yet.