DNA Test Results & Question For Others

[mjclayton1]

If you guys can swing it, I recommend getting tested with 23andMe. They're known for their accurate breakdown.

The Italian side of my family (from my maternal grandfather) is from Messina, Sicily. I got 4% Italian, 5% Middle Eastern, 17% Broadly Southern European, 13% Balkan, and 0.1% Scandinavian.

From what I've read, Sicily was a melting pot and it's not uncommon to find a strange mixture of things from those that descend from this location.

Also, Iberian (Spanish) and Balkan (Greece) DNA seem to be very similar to that of Italian and can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) north by knowledge and Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian Wow. That. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

[mjclayton1]

If you guys can swing it, I recommend getting tested with 23andMe. They're known for their accurate breakdown.

The Italian side of my family (from my maternal grandfather) is from Messina, Sicily. I got 4% Italian, 5% Middle Eastern, 17% Broadly Southern European, 13% Balkan, and 0.1% Scandinavian.

From what I've read, Sicily was a melting pot and it's not uncommon to find a strange mixture of things from those that descend from this location.

Also, Iberian (Spanish) and Balkan (Greece) DNA seem to be very similar to that of Italian and can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) north by knowledge and Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian Wow. That. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

[mjclayton1]

If you guys can swing it, I recommend getting tested with 23andMe. They're known for their accurate breakdown.

The Italian side of my family (from my maternal grandfather) is from Messina, Sicily. I got 4% Italian, 5% Middle Eastern, 17% Broadly Southern European, 13% Balkan, and 0.1% Scandinavian.

From what I've read, Sicily was a melting pot and it's not uncommon to find a strange mixture of things from those that descend from this location.

Also, Iberian (Spanish) and Balkan (Greece) DNA seem to be very similar to that of Italian and can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) north by knowledge and Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian Wow. That. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

[mjclayton1]

If you guys can swing it, I recommend getting tested with 23andMe. They're known for their accurate breakdown.

The Italian side of my family (from my maternal grandfather) is from Messina, Sicily. I got 4% Italian, 5% Middle Eastern, 17% Broadly Southern European, 13% Balkan, and 0.1% Scandinavian.

From what I've read, Sicily was a melting pot and it's not uncommon to find a strange mixture of things from those that descend from this location.

Also, Iberian (Spanish) and Balkan (Greece) DNA seem to be very similar to that of Italian and can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) north by knowledge and Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian Wow. That. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

[mjclayton1]

If you guys can swing it, I recommend getting tested with 23andMe. They're known for their accurate breakdown.

The Italian side of my family (from my maternal grandfather) is from Messina, Sicily. I got 4% Italian, 5% Middle Eastern, 17% Broadly Southern European, 13% Balkan, and 0.1% Scandinavian.

From what I've read, Sicily was a melting pot and it's not uncommon to find a strange mixture of things from those that descend from this location.

Also, Iberian (Spanish) and Balkan (Greece) DNA seem to be very similar to that of Italian and can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) both by "knowledge" and also various Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian. Wow. That. Really. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

[datxcali]

I recently tested with 23andMe and the results were quite surprising. I'm mostly a Brit (English/Scottish/Irish) north by knowledge and Ancestral data, but the test has me at 13.4% Italian Wow. That. Blew. My. Mind. I know of no relatives of Italian descent, yet the suggestion is that I had a great-grandparent that may have ben 100% Italian. Double. Wow. I've since uploaded my raw (autosomal) data to MyHeritage, which shows only 4.1% Italian and FTDNA, which shows 0%, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'm aware that it's possible that an NPE may have occurred in my ancestry, but such an occurrence eludes me. Alternatively, 23andMe may be completely wrong. I just don't know. The "obviously" Italian folks (matches) at 23andMe that I've tried to contact haven't responded. It's frustrating. I note here that several of them seem to point to Messina, Sicily.

I hope to someday figure it all out, but the irony of me searching and posting here in search of relatives for my my Italian wife's family, and also my best friend's Italian roots, is not lost on me. Sometimes, you just never know...

Not sure what to tell you. Do you descend from Sicily? How much Italian were you expecting? For me, only one of my grandparents was 100% Italian. While I definitely got a lower percentage than what I initially expected, I did have matches that I was able to trace to a common Italian ancestor (I was able to trace one line to a third great grandmother because of it). Likewise, I had my mother tested (who is 50% Italian). That also helped me with matches.

Have you tried tracing your line back and then working forward for the matches that didn't respond? I did that and, while I couldn't figure everybody out, I was able to figure out 4 different people's ancestry without their help.

[mjclayton1]

Hi, datxcali-

Thanks for your response. I don't think anyone is sure what to tell me and I have very low expectations, as this is a very puzzling circumstance. It may just be that the DNA is "wrong" (meaning a couple of the companies testing it are interpreting/grouping it incorrectly). Most of my older family members are deceased, so no way of tying together some of those (possible) results (to other people). Also, as stated, I get no response from my Italian "matches" at 23andMe. It's weird. Why do this test if you aren't willing to communicate about such things? As stated, very frustrating...

Mark

[Df73608]

Wow. Gedmatch seems to be the way to go. In in ancestryDNA and I have 25% Italian, 38% western European, 26% Irish and 5% middle eastern and iberian pn.
I too have traced family names of those matching my DNA back to Campania in Benevento.

[Df73608]

ancestry DNA advised me I was 25% Italian but that incorporates a percentage of western Asian (middle east) which is commonly detected in Italians due to proximity, army and trade movements of therr middle ages.

[mjclayton1]

Tough to know which testing company to believe the most. I think we all tend to gravitate more towards a given company when it aligns with what we "think" we know of our heritage. However, many of us - even those that are "100%" Italian - can't be completely confident of such things.

I've heard rumblings that 23andMe's v5 chip cuts down the Italian component (%) in the admix results. Not sure what my results would be on the newer chip, but I suppose I'm glad I had my DNA processed by the v4 chip, as I may not have been as "curious" otherwise (meaning if I was given scant Italian from the v5 chip right from the get-go).

As to figuring out the Italian component in my admixture, I've made some minimal progress here and there in the last couple of months, but am still trying to figure things out. I have what I think is a half-aunt testing with Ancestry right now. That promises to explain a lot. Or not. At minimum, it should solve the question of my maternal grandfather (whether I know who he was or not) - once and for all. I should be privy to those results in, oh, another 4-6 weeks.

Also, an interesting (Italian) connection was recently made thru MyHeritage. I'm hopeful that will narrow the chase, if only a little, as there also appears to be still more Messina, Sicily possibilities here.

[brogie62]

These ethnic percentages are very gross approximations. At least Ancestry gives ranges which indicate the lack of precision. Always take these with a grain of salt. The number of people who formed the training set that established the links between the SNPs and the ethnicity is much smaller than the number of people who have used the tests.

Kevin

[Ariana61]

I received my DNA ancestry results and they were quite surprising:

47% Europe South (Northern Italy)
25% Europe West
19% Scandinavia
6% Great Britain
3% Europe East

Both my parents come from the town of Asiago in northern Italy.

Just wondering if anyone out there with Northern Italian heritage got similar results, especially the high Scandinavian percentage?

Thanks!

[ChrisMosca]

from Ancestry.com mine is

52% Europe south- Southern Italy
15% Iberian Peninsula
9% Native American
8% Ireland/Scotland/Wales
5% Middle East
5% Caucasus
3% European Jewish
2% Europe West
<1% Asia Central

My last name Mosca so far has been from the Marche region of Italy. 3 of 4 granparents were from Italy with one grandfather born in Argentina which explains the Native American side.