In 2016 I had my DNA analysed by AncestryDNA. In the three years since, all the genetic matches I have been able associate with known people are on my father’s side.
Recently I persuaded my mother to have her DNA analysed in the hope of learning more about my German forebears and to help connect with the relatives who sent my great grand parents the CARE package my mother remembers. (See Sweetened condensed care.)
My mother has few cousins and, it seems, German people in general are reluctant to offer up their DNA for testing. Apart from me, my mother has only 25 cousins who are estimated to be 4th to 6th cousin or closer, and her closest match on AncestryDNA shares 50 centimorgans of DNA (quite possibly a 6th cousin sharing 5th great grandparents). Her closest match on MyHeritage shares only 38 centimorgans. I have contacted several of these genetic cousins but I have not been able to establish our most common recent ancestor for any of them.
For the moment the only DNA match of my mother’s that I can associate with a known person is me.
AncestryDNA cannot recognise from the amount of DNA we share which of us is mother and which is daughter. It shows we share 3,405 centimorgans and that it is 100% confident that the relationship is that of parent and child.
Apart from telling you that you share DNA with cousins, AncestryDNA provides ethnicity estimates. I have always taken these with a grain of salt. They’re not meaningful. I last wrote about this in 2017 (Looking at my ethnicity as determined by DNA testing) where I noted an apparent underestimate of my German ethnicity. Then I had 100% European:
- 59% from Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland, Wales and
the Isle of Man - 20% Europe East
- 12% from Ireland
- 4% from Finland / North-west Russia
- 2% from Europe-West
- 2% from Italy/Greece
- <1% from the Iberian peninsula
Ancestry’s more recent estimate is this:
- England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 65%
- Germanic Europe 25%
- Ireland & Scotland 10%
- Additional Communities: Southern Australia British Settlers – From your regions: England, Wales & Northwestern Europe; Ireland & Scotland -> Adelaide, South Australia British Settlers
So I have dropped Italy and Spain, and I have a new grouping linking me to my Australian forebears.
On my father’s side, five of my great great grandparents were born in Australia. I have connected with cousins who are also descended from these great great grandparents. The grouping makes sense.
On my mother’s side of the family all eight of my great great grandparents were born in what is now Germany, five in Brandenburg, two in Baden-Württemberg and one in Schleswig-Holstein. Based on their occupations, surnames, and religion, I have no reason to believe their immediate ancestors were from other parts of Europe.
My mother’s ethnicity reported by AncestryDNA is
- Germanic Europe 69%
- England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 17%
- Sweden 6%
- Ireland & Scotland 2%
- Norway 2%
- France 2%
- Eastern Europe & Russia 2%
The estimates looks credible as they are all European. However, AncestryDNA reports that my mother has “Additional Communities: Southern Australia British Settlers”!

My mother’s DNA results summary report from AncestryDNA in October 2019
AncestryDNA states about this community:
You, and all the members of this community, are linked through shared ancestors. You probably have family who lived in this area for years—and maybe still do.
…
The more specific places within this region where your family was likely from: Adelaide, South Australia British Settlers
It would seem that the Additional Communities derive from my DNA relationship with my mother. Since I belong to these communities from my father’s forebears, it appears that the DNA ethnicity estimates have been transferred by marriage! Not one of my mother’s DNA matches other than myself belongs to this community.
[When I attempted to explain this to him, my husband joked that it used to be said that after a while your wife seems to turn into her mother. AncestryDNA, however, has found a way of reversing the process. By counting half her husband’s DNA as her own, AncestryDNA is able to turn a woman’s mother into her daughter. The unfortunate husband, however, now finds that he’s copped his daughter for a mother-in-law, an arrangement no improvement over the earlier one]
I have suddenly acquired 10% German with Ancestry. All my ancestors are English/Scottish but my BF’s grandfather was an orphan in London who took on the name of the family he was living with. Maybe his parents were of German descent?
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I did my genetic testing through MyHeritage finding 89.3% is British and Irish, 4.5% Finnish, 2.5 Iberian, and 3.7 % South Asia. I am not sure if this is mother, or mother and father DNA. I found this really useless and disappointing as British and Irish is a wide definition. MyHeritage did not define what was meant by ‘British’ ‘Iberian’ etc. When I read the results which came with a fanfare, I looked for the links to further info… which was not there. I felt like I was looking under rocks, turning over paper searching for the further information that I was sure was there but there was only the above information. Add to that, this year, MyHeritage found a genetic link with a person who was related by marriage only. We think the link maybe from further back on the the Isle of Mull. I find that the DNA testing is not quite as informative as the ads make it. Also from your blog not as reliable as we are given to expect.
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You might find that some of your mothers matches might be descendants of early Prussian immigrants to South Australia. My great grandfathers family comes from a small town near Brandenburg with many descendants in SA. Ancestry may well be identifying that your mother has a connection to some them too. Her connection to them may well be back in Prussia. So her direct ancestor may have never left Germany but some siblings or cousins may have found their was to SA. Ancestry may have the British Settlers but wrong but I wouldn’t be surprised if the SA could be right!
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It is possible but unfortunately no such relatives aren’t showing up in any of her cousin matches so I don’t see where AncestryDNA drew their conclusions from.
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