Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Updated DNA Ancestry - interesting

So, Ancestry has updated their regional reporting:

  • 79% Irish
  • 12% English
  • 9% French (they didn't have French before)
At the 4th generation back, I have:
  • 8 known Irish ancestors
  • 2 suspected Irish ancestors (based on last name)
  • 2 English ancestors
  • 3 French/Québecois ancestors
  • 1 unknown origin (Célina Boulé)
So that means:
  • 79% Irish vs.  62 1/2%
  • 12% English vs. 12 1/2%
  • 9% French vs. 18 3/4%
OK - so the English is a great match.   I don't understand the under-reporting of the French because even though a FEW Québec relatives married English or Irish immigrants, they were mostly at the distant cousin level, and not among the direct ancestors, but there are a few Europeans in there (at the 1-2% level or so).

If Célina is French/Québecois, then that would make it 25% French (observed) vs. 9% in the DNA results.  On the other hand, if she is Irish (a famine refugee) then it's 67 3/4% Irish vs. 79% which is a better (but not complete) match.

The only other possibility is that one entire sub-branch of my family (at the 5th generation) is not Québecois but is Irish.   That doesn't seem possible: the other Québecois branch has a set of first-cousins (which is another oddity, but I'll leave that aside) at the 4th generation, which ONLY leaves the Guimond/Sévigny marriage.and there's nothing odd in that family record to suggest that anyone (specifically Elusippe Guimond) was illegitimate.

So we're back to trying to discern what the range of errors are in the reporting.


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