FT-DNA Family Finder My Origins 2.0 - April 2017 update

If there is anyone out there reading this blog, you know my recorded ancestry - all SE English, mainly East Anglian. No recorded evidence of anything but English over the past two or three centuries. This is not to say that I don't think any actually happened.




51% British might seem low for an Englishman - but I'm aware that my personal DNA flavour is a bit atypical for a Brit, more Continental. My Origins 1.0 gave me 36% British. 23andMe un-phased gives me 32% British / Irish. I do however suspect that my flavour isn't so atypical for an East Anglian of local rural ancestry. Living DNA gave me the most, a whopping 74% British. Therefore on that score, you could say that for myself, My Origins 2.0 actually comes in at 2nd place - better than 23andMe, DNA.land, or WeGene. I'm currently waiting for Ancestry.com results, but I'm not expecting better.

46% West and Central European where I have no record of any such ancestry - but East Anglian has been noted as close to North German, and certainly, SE England has plenty of early medieval admixture from that part of the world during the Anglo-Saxon event. In addition, we've continued to have immigration from the Continent over the past several hundred years, particularly but not exclusively, from the Netherlands and Northern France. I recently noticed that a 5xgreat grandparent had the surname Moll that is often found in Germany. However, it is also found in East Anglia, but are they connected? One day I'll find a recorded non-English ancestor! So as an East Anglian, I forgive autosomal DNA for ancestry algorythms that suggest that I have Dutch, German, French, or Danish ancestry. 23andMe (un-phased) gave me 27% French & German". Even Living DNA gave me 4.6% Scandinavian and 2% Germanic.

Now the Traces. I find these really interesting. Because they could fit in with other evidence. The My Origins 2.0 "Southeast European" designation appears to include Italy. My Origins 1.0 gave me a very silly 32% Southern European. 23andMe gave me 2% Southern European (although I have noted that the majority of English testers get a small percentage of this). Living DNA gave me a whopping 9.6% Tuscany. A friendly discussion with one of the LDNA techs, suggested that it looked to them, to be genuine. There was a family story on my father's side, that there was a "foreigner" - but I've never found any recorded evidence. I've scanned and scanned the tree for any sign, but nada. Not in great gp to 3 x great gp range. I'm open to a possible NPE, but I need more evidence than one auDNA test result.

The trace West Middle East and Ashkenazi are interesting, because although I have no recorded West Middle East or Ashkenazi ancestry, my Y-DNA does originate in SW Asia, possibly the area of Iran or Iraq. However, no auDNA test or GEDmatch calculator so far has provided any surviving evidence in the autosomes of any Asian, above that of average for a Brit. It all appeared washed out by genetic recombination. I share my Y with another family (different surname) from England, and we trace our lines back to the 1740's in Southern England (32 miles apart). That to me suggests that our immigrant Y ancestor most likely arrived in Southern England at least 400-500 years ago. I suspect earlier, maybe Medieval or even Roman. However, has the new algorithm picked something up? Maybe just a coincidence. The nearest non-English STR tester to us hailed from South Khorasan, Iran

A better prediction for myself than the My Origins 1.0 (below).

Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2017


I caught four workshops!

Workshop 1. Total Genealogy. This one was a little disappointing. I hoped that it would combine genealogy with DNA, landscape archaeology, local history, etc. Instead it was surname study - genealogical collecting of all records of a surname and applying it to a database - then trying to work out the connections. Would have benefited if the speaker had also applied Y DNA projects, but I sensed that he was a DNA skeptic. Lots of those in British genealogy, although the number of DNA stalls and workshops clearly suggests that the tide might turn, although it was corporate money funding a lot of it. I say that, but a later speaker suggested that 85% of DNA testers have no or little family tree. They are not all traditional genealogists.

Workshop 2. The Y-DNA and mtDNA Landscape (of Britain).



This was presented by Mark Jobling, Professor of Genetics at Leicester University. He discussed the history of genetic studies of European and British populations, starting with blood types, moving onto STR, a few SNPs, mtDNA, then onto the flood of information over the past few years, including autosomal DNA and POBI (image above).

A few observations - that the Yamnaya R1b is of a different basal lineage, that they found that 1) POBI failed to recognise the Danish contribution to Britain as being ingrained into the Anglo-Saxon - along with later migrations from the Continent, 2) that the Anglo-Saxon event appears male mediated rather like the Steppe signal, and 3) that some British R1a (not all) do look likely to be "Viking". He also said that surprisingly, they had not yet found genetic evidence of Vikings in Ireland in the modern population.

Workshop 3. High Definition Ancestry DNA Testing across the World. This was lead by the Living DNA team. David Nicholson company MD started with the company profile and philosophy. Dr Martin Blythe, their bioinformatician head then took over, followed by Alex Cocker, their anthropologist. Observations that I noted: they are very proud of their fineStructure algorythm, the chip, and of their computation ability. They claim that their system works better at finding shared patterns on admixed populations than do some older systems still used by other companies. Nicholson duruing questions told us that they plan to (and he did state over the next 3 - 5 years for some of the following):

  • Complete the three confidence modes (very soon)
  • Map Ireland with 13 or 14 sub regions using POBI principles
  • Map Germany next with 26 - 28 sub regions
  • Map France
  • Enrich and fine tune the British data set
  • Introduce genetic matching / matches
  • Promote inter-company and 3rd party matching
  • Introduce parent and relative phasing




Above, Dr Mark Blythe of Living DNA.

Workshop 4. Outside the Law? Illegitimacy 1700 - 1987

This was presented by Professor Rebecca Probert. An interest to myself, but not perhaps of great interest here. It detailed the history of changing legislation towards children born outside of marriage in England & Wales.

Otherwise, I purchased a few Family FHS CD-ROMs, and a few small books. Talked to a number of specialists and FHS members. No exciting discoveries this year, but enough material to feed off for a while. I will just say that I had a lengthy chat with Dr Martin Blythe of Living DNA. I was highly impressed. He was a really nice guy, and clearly loves his job, and is enthusiastic as hell about what he and his company can do in the future. Kudos to him. I saw Debbie Kennett during a part of her workshop, and she would love to chat with her sometime. I've noticed a distant match between two of our kits.

Another great day, loved it.