Dna Tests

[237SJ]

Just wondering. Has anyone ever had one of those DNA tests that tells your ancestory? Colleagues were telling me about the Eddie Izzard programme that I missed. Thought I might give it a go.

[jno]

a woman I know was told she was descended from an Eve from somewhere in northern Spain, I think it was. I'm not really sure that says very much, though it might be interesting if you thought you were European and turned out to be from South America a very long time ago.

I think men get more detailed results, but not sure.

[FredPuli43]

Think they can show which areas of the world your ancestors came from. That's interesting. If they can show that I am descended from a mass murderer, on the other hand, I'd prefer my family not to know!

[woofgang]

The concept of Mitochondrial Eve is interesting I think.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/female-ancestor.htm

[237SJ]

A friend of mine in Australia had it done but it was a long time ago. I think the tests would have moved on a bit now. His genetic ancestry was from Central Europe somewhere. I expect the results are vague but it`s interesting nonetheless. BritainsDNA was the company that did Eddie Izzard`s test. Women can do the motherline and a complete test. I don`t know which one to do - maybe both.

[jno]

I believe current thinking (based on DNA) suggests that after the ice age, the "Celtic fringe" - Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and islands, Ireland - was settled by people who came up from the Basque country, which would probably be the northern Spain bit.

Central Britain (basically England) was settled by people who came overland from somewhere round Bulgaria/Ukraine - quite a wide area but it might be the "central Europe" you mention.

I don't know whether an individual test, at least for females, would tell you much more than that. I could be wrong, so it's probably worth googling it and reading as widely as you can, since they're not cheap.

[jno]

I've been looking into this myself and I've just come across this page (dated 2007) which suggests more detailed results about your immediate ancestors can be uncovered with an "autosomal" test, for both men and women, if that's what you're after.

http://ancestry.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2920/kw/ancestry%20DNA

Research continues...

[sandyRoe]

They're claiming now that Prince William has Asian blood.

[pastafreak]

I've just found this...a project of National Geographic to map human migration and ethnicity.

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/

There is information on that site about the DNA testing kit available for participants. Unlike other tests that test only male or female this seems to test both.