Have you ever taken an Ancestry DNA test? What was your result?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I have. I got interesting results. It told me I was 60% European [31% Southern European (25% Iberian, 6% Italian) - 20% British and Irish, 9% French and German]

38% Arab and 2% East African. I am kind of surprised since my father's family has no record or verbal stories of any relatives coming from Europe.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Something about the concept seriously bothers me, tbh.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

I somewhat agree with this. I only took mine because as is common in the Arab world, written records of family history and members is a fairly recent phenomenon, I only know up to the name of my great-great-grandfather, but yet have records of my mothers family going back 9 generations on Ancestry.com.

My father's family were Arab Christians who converted to Islam from Greek Orthodox Christianity about 3 generations ago with my great-grandfather.

[bagelman]

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

I somewhat agree with this. I only took mine because as is common in the Arab world, written records of family history and members is a fairly recent phenomenon, I only know up to the name of my great-great-grandfather, but yet have records of my mothers family going back 9 generations on Ancestry.com.

My father's family were Arab Christians who converted to Islam from Greek Orthodox Christianity about 3 generations ago with my great-grandfather.

Do you know for certain that the conversion was not coerced or caused by societal or economic pressure?

[Figueira]

My parents have both done it, so if I did it it would be kind of redundant.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

I somewhat agree with this. I only took mine because as is common in the Arab world, written records of family history and members is a fairly recent phenomenon, I only know up to the name of my great-great-grandfather, but yet have records of my mothers family going back 9 generations on Ancestry.com.

My father's family were Arab Christians who converted to Islam from Greek Orthodox Christianity about 3 generations ago with my great-grandfather.

Do you know for certain that the conversion was not coerced or caused by societal or economic pressure?

My grandfather says his dad converted because he wanted to marry his mother and non-Muslim men can't marry Muslim women so he converted to marry her and it split the family into the Christian half and the Muslim half (my half of the family).

[Mr. Smith]

No need, my Mother is the Ward (that's Mormon for Parish) Genealogist. 

[America Needs R'hllor]

Nope, but I want to.

[dead0man]

not yet, but I plan on it

[Tender Branson]

LOLno.

No need to.

I know that I'm 100% Austrian, maybe a thousand years back (if not longer) ...

[ilikeverin]

I have the 23andMe test from back when they were offering health reports, too.  No surprises.  If I set the settings on the most speculative, I get 100% European, 99.2% "Northwestern European", mostly from the British Isles (61.7%). 

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

tbh I mostly enjoy the genetic matching aspects - I've made some connections (and found some promising leads, albeit ones that might not be substantiable thanks to 19th century courthouse fires ) that I wouldn't have without the genetic reports.  For example, it can really help fill in some of the "what happened to that random daughter who disappeared after her 18th birthday?" problems.

Along those lines, though, I'm always intrigued by what happens when I match with African-American users of 23andMe.  It's painfully obvious that many of them have had negative experiences when matching with white users (see also: Tender's hilarious reply) and are almost apologetic to inform me that I may have some black relatives.  I mean, I had southern ancestors, so it's not too surprising... although oddly enough most of my non-white matches are on my mom's side, where I know of no ancestors before 1850 living anywhere other than the island of Ireland.

[Illiniwek]

I would love to hear more about the narrative of my ancestors, but you just get to a point where you run out of info and sources. Plus some of the stories you heard might be wrong (my mom was told growing up that she was French because her mom was embarrassed of being so eastern European). DNA results certainly shouldn't define you, but when you are someone like me who wants to know about the story, any info you can get is priceless.

As far as Ancestry, I am very interested in doing it some day, but I also want to wait and see if they can become more precise.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I care way more about the narrative aspect of genealogy than attempting to isolate some sort of blood quantum or whatever.

I somewhat agree with this. I only took mine because as is common in the Arab world, written records of family history and members is a fairly recent phenomenon, I only know up to the name of my great-great-grandfather, but yet have records of my mothers family going back 9 generations on Ancestry.com.

My father's family were Arab Christians who converted to Islam from Greek Orthodox Christianity about 3 generations ago with my great-grandfather.

Where in the Arab world were they from?

I am somewhat hesitant to do this because I am afraid it would come up 100% European and I like to wonder if there might be something else.  Maybe if I get to a complete dead end in the documentation, but thankfully I am far from at that point, at least as far as those who lived in US and Canada.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Unless a judge orders one I'm not taking any freakin' DNA test.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

LOLno.

No need to.

I know that I'm 100% Austrian, maybe a thousand years back (if not longer) ...

Good for you

[Kingpoleon]

LOLno.

No need to.

I know that I'm 100% Austrian, maybe a thousand years back (if not longer) ...

This is statistically unlikely.

[sparkey]

I've had a lot more success with Y-DNA tests than with autosomal tests. My grandmother on my father's side, who is entirely colonial American by ancestry, tested through AncestryDNA and got:
GREAT BRITAIN 34%
IRELAND 25%
SCANDINAVIA 13% (NORWAY, DENMARK, SWEDEN)
TRACE REGIONS - EUROPE 11%
EUROPE EAST  8% (POLAND, UKRAINE, ROMANIA, BELARUS)   
EUROPE WEST 8% (GERMANY, FRANCE, ITALY)
TRACE REGIONS - WEST ASIA 1%

I have her genealogy studied pretty well, and at least it got it right that the British component is the largest, and that she has some notable German ancestry. The large-ish amounts of "Europe East" and "Trace Regions - Europe" are weird, and may just reflect a bad clustering algorithm that they were using when she gave these results to me (I think 2014). The Irish percentage is also almost certainly too high, but at least that could be understandably getting mixed with her non-trivial Scottish/Scots-Irish ancestry.

My uncle on my mother's side, who is about half colonial American, 1/4 Cornish, and 1/4 Welsh, took a Geno 2.0 test. It was much better than AncestryDNA IMO, but the clustering was less precise:
43% Northern European
37% Mediterranean
18% Southwest Asian
That matched a typical German pretty well. I would have expected it to match British better, but maybe there was something about being largely descended from the Celtic fringe that made him look more similar to a German to Geno 2.0's clustering.

Meanwhile, Y-DNA tests of me and my relatives have confirmed 3 facts that I didn't know: (1) That my direct paternal line is originally from Switzerland, (2) That my mother's paternal line is originally from Scotland, and (3) That I am related to Thomas Sumter (already suspected but confirmed with a Y-DNA test).