Question about DNA test results

[Suzanne in ABQ]

I had my DNA tested by FamilyTreeDNA, and was surprised by the results.

My dad's family (named ***son) has a well documented Norwegian lineage.  His father spoke Norwegian. The lineage has been traced (using primary documents obtained in Norway) back into the 1700s, and the family came to North Dakota from Norway in the 1800s.  Well, my DNA results show absolutely no Norwegian ancestry.  It shows mostly British and some western European. (It also shows some Iberian and some Native American, but that is from my mom's family, who came to America from Spain in the 1600s.  No surprise there).

So, I'm wondering why I show no Norwegian.  I googled, and found three possible explanations.  

One says that since the Vikings invaded England, and settled there, and took many Brits back to Norway with them, the bloodlines are mixed to the point that they're indistinguishable.  Another source says that Norway is a no-report country (like Germany), so there is just no representative data from there.  So maybe there is just no Norwegian bloodline in the database.

Another possibility would be that the lineage of my father is only carried on the male chromosome, so I just can't see my father's lineage.  My brother(s) would need to be tested in order to see it.  Maybe a paternal DNA test is needed to see paternal lineage? (and I can't get a paternal test because I don't have the male chromosome)

I suppose another possible explanation is that my dad isn't my biological father, which would surprise me, but not crush me.  But, I really don't think this is the case.  I look way more like my dad than my mom.

I don't understand much about this, and I don't know how to find an explanation written in lay terms.  The information on the Family Tree website assumes way more understanding of genetics and DNA testing than I have.  Can someone help me understand what is going on, or point me in the right direction to find a simple explanation?

[Liz CA]

I am no expert but I would think that British and Western European are the larger category and Norway, Sweden and Finland would be part of it. As you said, it does not necessarily trace back to individual countries but rather regions.

[Shoeless]

I know a little about dna testing, but not enough to make me an expert.  Before you fret too much, please know that Family Tree DNA's ancestry estimates are VERY inaccurate.  They put me at 91% British Isles and 9% Eastern Europe.  This is wildly inaccurate for me!  I am more like 60% German and 40% Irish, (5 of 8 gr grandparents were German, the other 3 were Irish). My Dad tested and he was put at 96% British Isles and 4% Scandinavian.  Not even close!  He is 50/50 Irish and German.

Norway may be a non-reporting country, but Family Tree DNA would have likely tagged your dna as generally "Scandinavian".  The FTDNA database should not be completely devoid of Norwegian samples; there are full-blooded Norwegians that live in other countries, and they have submitted their dna to the database for testing.  My ancestors are from northern Germany and my dna is identified as "German" even though Germany is supposedly a non-reporting country.  But, because my ancestors were from a small town near the North Sea, my dna is sometimes identified in other databases as Frisian or Danish.  There's enough genetic overlap between those groups that some databases don't know exactly in which group to place me, so they pick something "close enough".   "British" and "Western European" don't sound close enough, IMO. 

I'm not sure what you mean when you say your father's lineage could possibly only be on his Y chromosome.  I'm no expert, but I don't think the dna works like that.  You will inherit 50% of your father's dna, regardless of whether you get an X or Y chromosome.  If your father is 100% of Norwegian heritage, you'd still get Norwegian genetic markers because that is all he has to give.  If he is only part Norwegian, maybe it's possible that *only* the Norwegian genetic markers landed on the Y chromosome, and everything else landed on the X he gave you, but I don't think it exactly works that way.

Some other possibilities include your father not being your bio dad, (which it sounds like is not likely) or a non-parental event further in the past, making your dad also not-Norwegian. But I'm putting my money on Family Tree DNA being inaccurate. 

If you want to get a better idea or confirmation of what your heritage is, you can upload your dna file to genesis.gedmatch.com and play around with the Oracle function there.  It's much more accurate.

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by MissLemon

[maize]

Both my father and my grandmother show up as part Scandinavian on FTDNA; similar situation with late 1800's immigrants.

However:

My grandmother is only showing 9% Scandinavian, when we know with certainty that she is 1/4 Scandinavian. If I were testing myself through FTDNA it is possible none of her Scandinavian would show up in my ancestry admixture analysis.

FTDNA's ancestry analysis does not distinguish well between closely related populations (as within northern Europe); this just isn't an exact science.

It is possible that if you tested through a different service such as 23andMe their analysis (usually a bit more refined) would show Scandinavian.

Or possibly you have a non parental event in the family tree.

FTDNA is more accurate in connecting you with genetic cousins than in analyzing ancestry.

[maize]

The Y chromosome lineage isn't really about ancestry admixture; it can be useful for tracing the direct male line of inheritance but nothing more. Your brother could do Y-DNA testing which could potentially link him to more distant male line relatives and confirm or rule out Norwegian origins for that line. My dad's Danish line though has very few Y--DNA matches as I think not many in Scandinavia have done this kind of testing. By contrast, I have other male relatives whose lines go back to Scotland and Ireland who have many Y--DNA matches tying them to specific clans or families.

[Ravin]

It really depends on what markers they are looking at, and how exclusive and historically deep those markers can be traced to a geographic location to establish ancestry. The reality is that while many people in Europe stayed put, quite a few didn't, and the more data is gathered, the more they are finding that various historical events had greater genomic impacts (i.e., resulted in more intermixture of populations) than previously thought.

One example I came across recently: https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/ancestry/irish-viking-norman-dna

It could be that some of those actually-Norwegian markers are in the database on which your DNA profile was analyzed as indicating British Isles ancestry. Or, it could be that your great-grandfather was adopted. Or they may have come to the U.S. from Norway, but may have migrated to Norway from somewhere else first. There are a lot of possibilities.  

I would probably get analyses from a couple of other companies, to compare. Often they analyze different markers and have different aggregate data sets for comparison, so your results  could be significantly different.

[Katy]

I'd take it with a huge grain of salt. It could be miscategorized.  I used 23&me, which is known to be more accurate, but they have still changed my ancestry results repeatedly.   As in, even though I can document multiple lines of recent native american ancestry (like trail of tears documentation) for a couple of years 23andme had that DNA listed as "Southeast Asian" and "Siberian," which is completely ridiculous.  Only recently did it change to native american, and somehow my black ancestry decreased in the mean time.   I know the southeastern tribes intermarried with whites for a couple hundred years, but the lack of DNA consistency with them is one of the reasons those tribes do not recognize DNA testing.  Interestingly I don't think my percentage of british isles to norwegian DNA has been changed at all, just the rarer stuff.

It's also possible your paternal grandfather wasn't your biological grandfather. That wouldn't have to be something like adultery.  It could have been rape or adoption or something else that his mother decided to keep a secret.

Do you have other relatives on the site that are clearly on your father's side?  With surnames you recognize?

[EKS]

Those tests don't sequence your entire genome.  They use a small subset of example sequences, and if you don't have the representative sequence(s) for a particular region then it is reported that you don't have that ancestry.  What it actually means is that you don't have that/those particular sequence(s).

Edited March 6, 2019 by EKS

[gardenmom5]

is your father alive?  has his dna been tested?

and for a good ancestry test, I admit I would be more likely to do 23&me.  (I also did ancestry - for the genealogy database.  what that told me is one of the two messy lines for which I was hoping for help, is an even bigger mess than I could have predicted.)

 

eta: the databases for "ancestry" locations - are in a constant state of flux as more and more information comes into them.  larger databases that draw from a wider area will also give more accurate information.

Edited March 6, 2019 by gardenmom5

[maize]

As one point of comparison between services, my grandmother who shows up as 9% Scandinavian on FTDNA is shown as 20% Scandinavian on 23and Me with a note predicting she has a recent ancestor from Sweden.

I believe you can upload your raw data from FTDNA to MyHeritage for free, that would allow you to see what their ancestry admixture algorithm gives you.

Edited March 6, 2019 by maize

[SKL]

Another possibility is that your dad's ancestors migrated (willingly) to Norway from another European country.

Still another possibility is that your dad or his "Norwegian" ancestor at some level was adopted.

[HS Mom in NC]

Records show my father's family lore to likely be true: to Maine from Norway by way of Scotland in the 1600s.  My father's paternal ancestors lived in Maine until the 1960s. My uncle, father's brother, did a DNA test with results reading 50% Scandinavian, which seems kind of high to me this far removed in time.  Were they all marrying their cousins for centuries in the back woods of Maine?

[Janeway]

My grandma is half Danish. But even her DNA testing showed very little Danish. And it does show her related to the relatives who are still currently in Denmark. I think the DNA ancestry testing is a lot of guesswork. Her parents were definitely her parents and their parents were definitely their parents. 

[Scarlett]

I believe Ancestry has the largest pool and if I  I understand it correctly the larger the pool the more accurate the results with regard to locations. 

I am searching for my sons grandmothers bio family. My son shows 3 % Norway but a few of his  matches are showing up to 29% Scandinavian. 

[PeterPan]

I watched a documentary online that basically said the ancestry stuff they tell you is all for entertainment. It's only accurate to the continent basically, and anything beyond that is speculation. 

If you want to know if he's your dad, run genetics. If you don't want to know, go take a nice trip or something to help you forget this ever happened.

Here's a link to that video 

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by PeterPan

[Corraleno]

My grandfathers were born in Northern Ireland (paternal) and Norway (maternal), and I believe that my grandmothers were a mix of Irish and Scandinavian, so my Ancestry results were absolutely spot-on: 38% Norwegian, 6% Swedish, 47% Irish (it even accurately pinpointed the city, Londonderry), and the other 9% just general Northwestern Europe.

As others have suggested, I'd try a different database. Ancestry seems to have a very large database, with Norway and Sweden well represented. The only people I know of who got very anomalous results on Ancestry eventually discovered that there were indeed some family secrets involved. (My ex, for example, discovered that his suspicion that his dad was not his biological father was correct.) In your case, the anomaly may not be your dad, but rather his dad.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Corraleno

[Bluegoat]

As far as I understand, they are also comparing your DNA to modern populations, not historic ones.

[Suzanne in ABQ]

Thank you all for your informative responses.  The video was especially enlightening.  I understand how they work better now.

I chose FTDNA on the recommendation from my SIL, who is a highly recognized, professional genealogist.  I believe she said she prefers FT over Ancestry because Ancestry uses self-reported ancestry lines in their database, and FT doesn't.  (I might be mis-remembering her words, so don't take my word for it).  She also said they have a better algorithm than 23andMe.  She also said that the smaller data base would affect the results.

The test did turn up some cousins on my mom's side, and I've enjoyed connecting with them.  It hasn't turned up anyone closer than 4th cousin on my dad's side, but I think that is just because they haven't tested with FT.  I'm going to look into sending my results to the other companies listed above.  

I'm not really concerned about my dad not being my bio father.  The idea that someone before him might have been adopted is interesting.  My dad died many years ago, but some of his sisters are still alive.  I might ask them or my cousins.  I don't think any of them ever had their DNA tested.

Maybe next year, when the tests all go on sale again, I'll get a different test.  I like finding cousins, and that's what these tests do best, from what I gather.

[SKL]

Mine is pretty accurate, no real surprises, except that it places my paternal grandma as being Polish instead of Hungarian.  Not sure what she would think of that.  😛  I assume it is based on migration patterns.

[J-rap]

I'd assume that Scandinavia could be lumped together with western European on some of those tests.  But also, the Vikings went everywhere, and like you said, they easily could have gone to Norway via England.  Are you able to download the DNA results and upload them onto another site altogether?  Sometimes you get different results.

My dad is 100% Swedish.  All four of his grandparents were from Sweden.  His DNA tests showed half Scandinavian and half western European.  

[Tap]

I don't know enough to answer your question, but can offer some details about my daughter that can offer some insight to your question.

I have always been told my father is 100% Norwegian. My husband's was told his mother was 100% German. When my daughter did 23andMe, she showed up with more than 25% Norwegian and a smattering of German. When talking to his mother, my husband found out that the great-grandmother immigrated to Germany in her youth, and thus considered herself German (due to demographics, not genetics). This was a surprise to dh, because the grandmother spoke English with a heavy German accent (his mom only spoke German as a child) and held many German traditions. He was never told, that they are actually from Czechoslovakia originally. Had his mom died before telling him, he would have forever thought he was German. There are several generations in his family of 'only children' so there is not much lineage to trace. Norwegian and Czechoslovakian accurately represented in dd's report. 

[maize]

1 hour ago, Suzanne in ABQ said:

Thank you all for your informative responses.  The video was especially enlightening.  I understand how they work better now.

I chose FTDNA on the recommendation from my SIL, who is a highly recognized, professional genealogist.  I believe she said she prefers FT over Ancestry because Ancestry uses self-reported ancestry lines in their database, and FT doesn't.  (I might be mis-remembering her words, so don't take my word for it).  She also said they have a better algorithm than 23andMe.  She also said that the smaller data base would affect the results.

The test did turn up some cousins on my mom's side, and I've enjoyed connecting with them.  It hasn't turned up anyone closer than 4th cousin on my dad's side, but I think that is just because they haven't tested with FT.  I'm going to look into sending my results to the other companies listed above.  

I'm not really concerned about my dad not being my bio father.  The idea that someone before him might have been adopted is interesting.  My dad died many years ago, but some of his sisters are still alive.  I might ask them or my cousins.  I don't think any of them ever had their DNA tested.

Maybe next year, when the tests all go on sale again, I'll get a different test.  I like finding cousins, and that's what these tests do best, from what I gather.

I would start by uploading your results to MyHeritage; one feature I like about their site is the ability to filter relative matches by country--for example, I can choose to just see matches who are from Norway.