DNA Results

I had DNA testing done by the Genographic Project ($200 from National Geographic) and AncestryDNA ($80 from Ancestry.com). For an extra $40 I uploaded my AncestryDNA data to FamilyTreeDNA for further analysis. Here I will summarize the results.

Genographic Results

The Genographic Project determined that my maternal haplogroup (determined by mitochondrial DNA, shared by my mother and her mother and her mother ...) is H3AS, a fairly rare group, shared by less than 0.1% of the participants in the project.

The H3AS maternal haplogroup is rare, but its members are spread far and wide throughout Europe, as you can see in this heatmap.

My paternal haplogroup is I-P109, a much less rare group, shared by about 1.0% of participants. It is concentrated in a small part of Western Europe.

My Regional Ancestry (5,000 Years - 10,000 Years Ago) is 47% Northern European, 34% Mediterranean, and 17% Southwest Asian (the Middle East). My closest matches today are currently living in Denmark and Germany. My Hominin Ancestry (60,000 Years Ago & Older) is about 2.0% Neanderthal and 1.1% Denisovan, which is about average, for people born outside Africa.

AncestryDNA Results

The results from AncestryDNA contain different information, which is not inconsistent with the Genographic results. My Ethnicity estimate is

59% (49-69) England, Wales & Northwestern Europe

16% (0-40) Germanic Europe

13% (0-16) Ireland & Scotland

6% (0-15) Norway

4% (0-11) Eastern Europe & Russia

2% (0-3) Sweden

The confidence intervals are large - for example, Germanic Europe is 0% to 40%. So the results are only approximate. In all but the top category, the confidence intervals go to 0, so only England, Wales & Northwestern Europe is sure to be part of my ancestry. Also, these ethnicity estimates are based on where people are now living, not where they were thousands of years ago. So the numbers don't compare directly with the Genographic results.

These results do not include Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry. They don't include maternal or paternal haplogroups.

The AncestryDNA results included several close matches, to whom I could send messages, through their message system. There was 1 close family, 5 approximate 1st cousins, 8 possible 2nd cousins, 26 possible 3rd cousins, and many more distant cousins. Most of these people have posted their ancestry trees, in hopes of finding their distant relatives. I don't have much to offer them in kind, but I am starting to gather some information.

By a very long search, I have found some pairs of distant cousins that had a common ancestor. So they are each distant cousins of each other. This makes it seem highly likely that their common ancestor is also mine, or at least a close cousin or sibling of mine. So I think I have identified some of my ancestors named Boyd, Martin and Adams, in addition to Gapinski.

FamilyTreeDNA Results

The ethnicity breakdown is a bit different than AncestryDNA, although it is based on the same data.

European 99%

British Isles 45%

East Europe 4%

Finland < 1%

Scandinavia 27%

Southeast Europe 0%

Iberia 0%

West and Central Europe 23%

This gave me 738 close matches, many of which I already had. The interface is very frustrating and inefficient. There does not seem to be a quick way to go to a specific one of the matches. However, they did have a spreadsheet that I could download and play with. Out of 738 close matches, 286 had their Y-haplogroups listed, and 268 had their mt-haplogroups listed.

Out of the 286 Y-haplogroups, there were two I-P109 matches. This is consistent with the fact that about 1.0% of AncestryDNA participants had this haplogroup. So these two individuals join my paternal line, possibly many thousands of years in the past. On the other had, they are close matches, so they must share an ancestor we me in the recent past, and it may be that the common ancestor is in the paternal line. The two close matches with I-P109 had surnames Hunter and Julian.

Hunter is a 2nd to 4th cousin, with predicted relationship 3rd cousin. So we should have a pair of gg-grandparents in common, or thereabouts. There are only 8 pairs of gg-grandparents, so it would be quite a coincidence if we both had our Y-DNA through one pair and our closest common ancestry through another. The Hunter line is traced back to gg-grandparents Joseph and Jane Hunter, who immigrated from Ireland to Peel County, Ontario, Canada between 1816 and 1837.

Julian is a more distant cousin, at least 5th. This makes it much more conceivable that our common ancestry and paternal line are separate. Even if we share a pair of 4g or 5g grandparents, the surname could have changed. There are many possible reasons for a paternal line to change surnames: adoption, illegitimate birth, rape, and many others. The Julian/Julien line is traced back to Colonial Maryland, South Carolina and France.

Out of the 286 close matches with Y-haplogroups listed, 140 were from the single Y-haplogroup R-M269. This Y-haplogroup is very common in western Europe.

I did not find any matches with my mt-haplogroup, H3as, which is not too surprising, since it is rare.

FamilyTreeDNA also gave me a slightly different heatmap. This one is general, not just Y-DNA or mt-DNA.

Last updated 23 Aug 2020 by William Haloupek. Contact haloupek at gmail dot com.