My AncestryDNA Results Are In ~ Some Surprises

I received my AncestryDNA test results the other day. They arrived a lot earlier than I was expecting, which was awesome. And, they revealed a couple of surprises too.

AncestryDNA  Test Results

The AncestryDNA test results provide some very interesting and helpful tools and charts. Here's my Ethnicity Estimate Chart.




In case the chart above is difficult to read, this is the percentage breakdown for my Ethnicity Estimate Chart:

North Africa – 5%
Native American – 10%
Scandinavia – 34%
Europe West – 20%
Great Britain – 9%
Ireland – 8%
Iberian Peninsula – 7%

I didn't include the Trace Regions. According to AncestryDNA, they may or may not actually be part of my ancestry.

A Really Cool Feature

This is what happened when I clicked on Scandinavia. A bar graph shows up and on the right side of the screen some interesting information about Scandinavia appears. I've blurred the map because of copyright issues. You can also see that they've included a bar graph that  shows how my average ethnicity percentage compares with a typical native Scandinavian.

This is a screen shot of the top portion of the page. As I scrolled down the page, additional information such as genetic diversity and population history can be found. You can see portions of those sections in the next two screenshots.







No Surprises

I'm not surprised by the Native American result. Last year I took the Family Finder (autosomal) DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA. I shared those results here on my blog. It was quite exciting to see these results because they showed that I have Native American ancestry, specifically Mayan ancestry. This verified something that my mom's stepmother had told her a long time ago. She said my mom had Mayan ancestry, and she was right. My maternal great-grandmother, Esther Matus Villatoro, was born in Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico. The Mayan people inhabited parts of Chiapas and other areas, so this could explain the Native American result.

Esther Matus Villatoro

I'm not at all surprised by the Scandinavian result. My father, Jan Albert Iverson, was Swedish and Norwegian. His maternal grandparents, Carl Albert Gillberg and Hilda Maria Carlsson, emigrated from Sweden to the United States in the early 1900's and his paternal great-grandfather, Iver Iverson, emigrated from Norway to the United States shortly before the U.S. Civil War.

Jan Albert Iverson

Carl Albert Gillberg and
Hilda Maria (Carlsson) Gillberg

The Family Finder DNA test I took last year didn't include Scandinavia in my results. But, it did include North Africa. My maternal grandmother, Sarah Vasques Madeira, was Portuguese. Some of her ancestors came from the Azores and the Island of Madeira. I'm wondering if this accounts for the North Africa ethnicity result. The Island of Madeira is quite close to Morocco, which is in North Africa.

Sarah Vasques Madeira 

The Great Britain and Iberian Peninsula results also don't surprise me. My Webster and Waterman ancestors are originally from England. And the Iberian Peninsula includes Spain and Portugal. As I already mentioned, my maternal grandmother, Sarah Vasques Madeira, was Portuguese. So, this could account for the Iberian Peninsula result.

Surprises

The ethnicity results that surprised me were the Ireland and Europe West results. They did not show up in my Family Finder DNA test results.  And I don't have know of anyone in my family tree from Ireland or the countries represented in the Europe West region.

Matches

The Member Matches feature of the AncestryDNA test is really awesome. I have lots of matches. At the top of the list is my 1st cousin one time removed. She and I had already been in touch with each other. There are some great features included in the Member Matches including lists of shared surnames, a map showing birth locations that appear in both your family tree and your potential cousin's family tree, and even a shared ancestor hint feature.

Conclusion

I'm really glad that I took the AncestryDNA test in addition to the FamilyTreeDNA tests I've taken. I also took the mtDNAPlus test with Family Tree DNA. But, I haven't shared those results on my blog yet.

I love the Member Matches feature on AncestryDNA. I have a long list of matches to look through. And hopefully, I will be able to make new cousin connections soon.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

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