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Ancestry.com/23andme3.com Thread

Does ancestry account for the Vikings changing the bloodlines of northern Europe way back in 8th-11th centuries? Aren't all Englishmen descended from Vikings?
Or do they ignore that, and "start" their ancestry after the Viking Age?
 
Does ancestry account for the Vikings changing the bloodlines of northern Europe way back in 8th-11th centuries? Aren't all Englishmen descended from Vikings?
Or do they ignore that, and "start" their ancestry after the Viking Age?

There were people in the UK before 8th century. The Romans came to the British Isles at the time of Julius Caesar.
 
Does ancestry account for the Vikings changing the bloodlines of northern Europe way back in 8th-11th centuries? Aren't all Englishmen descended from Vikings?
Or do they ignore that, and "start" their ancestry after the Viking Age?

England is a melting pot of Vikings, Anglo Saxons, and Normans. Not sure how the services characterize it though.
 
I have two distinct groups for Scandinavia and Great Britain, so I'm sure they split it somehow. I also do have a great grandfather/grandmother who came over to America directly from Sweden, so I assume their pureblood just dominates my genealogy.
 
My mom got everyone 23andme kits last xmas. It's interesting in a "huh, how bout that" kind of way. Like seeing how many people sneeze when they encounter bright lights or think cilantro tastes like soap.
 
My mom got everyone 23andme kits last xmas. It's interesting in a "huh, how bout that" kind of way. Like seeing how many people sneeze when they encounter bright lights or think cilantro tastes like soap.

Everyone in your family? It could be really awkward if you found out your "brother" had different ancestors than you did.
 
I've had 2 different tests done. FTDNA and Ancestry. I did the basic Ancestry test second because I realized that their resources are far more vast. It was a great way to confirm blood lines that were, until then, largely educated guesswork. I mean, it's pretty cool when you see that you share a 6th great grandparent with somebody and that's confirmed by DNA because that goes way back. Yes, there are concerns about privacy, but I don't really give a crap. I had uploaded stuff to gedmatch, but that really is a pretty limited service and most of the folks on it don't even have trees or have shitty ones with like 4 people.

You can find a lot of cool shit on Ancestry, but it really is a rabbit hole that you will find yourself spending hours on if you aren't careful. So much info to be had and you find yourself spinning theories about people you've never met. I've been quite fortunate, though, in being able to trace both my parents' lines back to the era of Scottish kings. There are all sorts of interesting and unsavory characters in my bloodline, and also quite a few literal saints. I think the furthest back I've been able to go is the 500s on dad's side and the 800s on mom's, but it isn't like I share that DNA anymore. This is also a pretty uncommon experience in my understanding.

Weird story...there are a few branches that are dead ends, but by and large I've been able to trace pretty much all the lines back to colonial times. One of my Irish lines has been enormously tough because they came over here, lived shitty lives, and basically all died young and potato famine records in Ireland are for shit. So in trying to find DNA confirmation for that line, I stumbled on one guy who basically couldn't be related in any way except that Irish line. I look at the tree, send an e-mail, and of course don't hear back, which isn't uncommon. But then I'm looking at the e-mail and the name on it is familiar. I hit up his Wikipedia page and confirm some of the names that are matches on this tree. These aren't common names either, so I'm thinking holy shit. Anyway, long story short but looks like I'm related to Jimmy Kimmell. Fucker needs to answer his e-mail. He has the resources to plug holes in that Irish line.
 
I've had 2 different tests done. FTDNA and Ancestry. I did the basic Ancestry test second because I realized that their resources are far more vast. It was a great way to confirm blood lines that were, until then, largely educated guesswork. I mean, it's pretty cool when you see that you share a 6th great grandparent with somebody and that's confirmed by DNA because that goes way back. Yes, there are concerns about privacy, but I don't really give a crap. I had uploaded stuff to gedmatch, but that really is a pretty limited service and most of the folks on it don't even have trees or have shitty ones with like 4 people.

You can find a lot of cool shit on Ancestry, but it really is a rabbit hole that you will find yourself spending hours on if you aren't careful. So much info to be had and you find yourself spinning theories about people you've never met. I've been quite fortunate, though, in being able to trace both my parents' lines back to the era of Scottish kings. There are all sorts of interesting and unsavory characters in my bloodline, and also quite a few literal saints. I think the furthest back I've been able to go is the 500s on dad's side and the 800s on mom's, but it isn't like I share that DNA anymore. This is also a pretty uncommon experience in my understanding.

Weird story...there are a few branches that are dead ends, but by and large I've been able to trace pretty much all the lines back to colonial times. One of my Irish lines has been enormously tough because they came over here, lived shitty lives, and basically all died young and potato famine records in Ireland are for shit. So in trying to find DNA confirmation for that line, I stumbled on one guy who basically couldn't be related in any way except that Irish line. I look at the tree, send an e-mail, and of course don't hear back, which isn't uncommon. But then I'm looking at the e-mail and the name on it is familiar. I hit up his Wikipedia page and confirm some of the names that are matches on this tree. These aren't common names either, so I'm thinking holy shit. Anyway, long story short but looks like I'm related to Jimmy Kimmell. Fucker needs to answer his e-mail. He has the resources to plug holes in that Irish line.

my mother is a bit of an amateur genealogist and and has been working on our tree and friends/family trees for the past five years or so. She uses ancestry to build her trees and uses their message boards and what not to work with others but it turns out that about 75% of the stuff that's on ancestry is garbage because it's an un-moderated data set (basically anyone can add any information and make links as they see fit).
 
my mother is a bit of an amateur genealogist and and has been working on our tree and friends/family trees for the past five years or so. She uses ancestry to build her trees and uses their message boards and what not to work with others but it turns out that about 75% of the stuff that's on ancestry is garbage because it's an un-moderated data set (basically anyone can add any information and make links as they see fit).

I don't add stuff to my trees based solely on what somebody else has in their tree. That stuff can be garbage for sure. But you can track anything back to 1850 pretty easily due to the census records naming every member of the household. Before that, you just get male members of the household. It helps immensely if you have northern roots, as their records were much better than those in the south (NY and New England states especially. PA is also pretty good), plus I think a lot of the records in the south were destroyed in the Civil War. But DNA is another way to patch up holes in the tree. For example, if you have a 5th great grandfather that you're unsure about but see a link that splits off at that 5th GG after getting DNA tested, that's verification there unless you're related in some other way. Anyway, I feel pretty confident in all my trees. That doesn't mean there isn't some bastard in there somewhere that screws up my line, but it's really freaking cool when you stumble upon some moderate nobility and suddenly you're able to trace it back 500 years in a couple hours.
 
My sister did it a while back. We're a veritable who's who of white people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
We've done 23andme, and I just picked up the fourth (ancestry+health) kit this morning on Amazon for $99 for my daughter. The health reports used to be better before the FDA cracked down on them, but they're slowly getting back to where they were before. My ancestry breakdown was fairly interesting, solved some longstanding debates.
 
Like everyone who's ancestors have been here for 100+ years is partially Native American. That's my main takeaway from their ads. Pocahontas is probably my great (x10) granny.

My cousin did 23 and me and we have 0% Native American in the family. We have a great great grand father named LaMaire from Minn who was supposedly 1/2 native, but either he wasn't or my great great grandmother was stepping out while he worked as a sailor on ships in the Great Lakes.
 
Anybody done this ? Anybody have recommendations for which one is better. I hear that Ancestry wants to sell all my information but 23andme won't do that.

I have memberships with both. I go to 23andme maybe twice a year. I am on Ancestry daily. It is a lot of fun to trace your ancestry.
 
I will say we discovered we're 7th cousins of Celine Dion and my mother and father are related through a massive 23-step connection that runs through all the minor European royalty.
 
I really hope I'm not closely related to that Gretchen Wilson chick who sang Redneck Woman back in 2004. Really, I hope I'm not related to anyone named Gretchen except Gretchen Mol, who is silly hot, which is a genetic marker of mine.

I bet you were bummed to find out Gretchen Mol was one of Harvey's girls.
 
Why would somebody want to be related to a woman he finds to be "silly hot?"
 
But second cousin is cool?
 
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