Published on 12, July, 2020
II had mine done a few months ago and it was really interesting, I'm 88% southern English with a smattering of European and 8% Iberian. To have such a high percentage in one area is quite unusual, if true, I dont' know where the Iberian link comes in, I can't see anything in the ancestors I've already traced that would suggest Iberian ancestry. 8% would mean that it's a fairly recent addition grand parents or great grandparents and they all came from southern England, more specifically Kent, Sussex and Berkshire.
My Mum had hers done and she's real mix of British, Scandinavian, Welsh and European but no Iberian, so if it's true that I have some Iberian ancestry then it dosen't come from her, we know her Welsh connection, thats her great grandad, but she's only got 4% Welsh, so you can see my quandary with 8% Iberian?
I might get it done again, with a different company and get my haplotypes done too, I think it would be really fascinating to know my deep ancestry, when my people came to Europe and by what route, are they fairly recent, or have they been here since the end of the Ice Age?
In answer to your Iberian query, there are a number of ways that you could have inherited 8% Iberian DNA, One is a single recent ancestor, or, alternatively, through multiple more distant ancestors in separate ancestral lines. A single gt.gt. grandparent could give you around 8% DNA, but so could 2 gt.gt.gt. grandparents. The problem is that although you get very close to 50% DNA from each parent, because of random sorting on chromosomal chiasma (crossing over between paired chromosomes during the production of sperm and ova) this arithmetical progression soon breaks down the further back you go in generations. In practice, you could easily get twice as much DNA from one gt.gt. grandparent as you get from another.
In your cells you have paired chromosomes (except XY in males), one chromosome from each parent, But in sex cells, spermatozoa and ova, there is only a single copy of each pair, but this copy is a composite between the paternal and maternal chromosomes you inherited, due to random sections of DNA of these chromosomes switching between them - chiasma - during meiosis leading to sperm and egg production.
Ahh great Martin, thanks for explaining all this, as far as I can tell going back in my family trees theres no Iberian, this test said that Iberian meant as far east as the Levant, but I was dubious about that. I expected to find more foreign DNA than English as one side of my family grew up on the south coast near the main ports, I supose the other route, for the Iberian DNA is ilegitimacy?
I was fascinated to find how DNA had recombined in me campared to my Mum, we can't do my Dad's as he's dead, but all the southern English has come down strongly with only tiny amounts from elsewhere, except the rogue Iberian. My Mum's is a real mixture, Scandinavian, Irish, Welsh and southern English.
When young I had deep red/brown hair, a colour that cost a fortune to have done at the hairdressers, other hairdressers used to compliment my hairdresser on what a wonderful set of lowlights they'd done, everyone was amazed that this was my natural colour. Both parents had black hair. My eyes are hazel like my Dads, I have very white skin with a blue undertone, as did both parents, my son's so white he almost glows in the dark and really freaks out his Indian wifes family. But like my Dad I tan quite easily, the sun bounces off my Mum, she's one of the whitest white people I've ever seen
Have you had your deep ancestry done?
Just the Viking index. My skin is purely Irish, very pale with no real tanning, I just go an unpleasant brick-red, though I tend to avoid the sun as I have solar urticaria.