RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: oldfashionedgirl on Tuesday 18 March 25 09:31 GMT (UK)
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I just received the results of my mother’s DNA test which she wanted for a Christmas gift.
Considering I/we have no tree on Ancestry I was intrigued by the results which mirrored what I have discovered over the years.
There were only two surprises which were 14% Germanic Europe ?
But mostly was the lack of any connection to France as I have good evidence that we have a Huguenot line.
Having done a little searching it appears that the French government doesn’t allow DNA testing for ‘recreational’ purposes.
Is this correct and have others experienced the same
.
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In France, DNA paternity testing is solely performed on the decision of a judge in the case of a judiciary procedure in order either to establish or contest paternity or to obtain or deny child support. Non-consensual private DNA paternity testing is illegal, including through laboratories in other countries, and is punishable by up to a year in prison and a €15,000 fine. The French Council of State has described the law's purpose as upholding the "French regime of filiation" and preserving "the peace of families." I believe this is reviewed every 7 years, but it is still in place following a review. For a while, people could upload DNA to geneanet but this service has been removed. In working on a Family Tree for a French friend the only French DNA showing is for family members who moved to Canada.
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The ethnicity results are dubious anyway, you will find when they 'review' them they will change. Put them on to My Heritage and they will be different again.
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I just received the results of my mother’s DNA test which she wanted for a Christmas gift.
Considering I/we have no tree on Ancestry I was intrigued by the results which mirrored what I have discovered over the years.
There were only two surprises which were 14% Germanic Europe ?
But mostly was the lack of any connection to France as I have good evidence that we have a Huguenot line.
Having done a little searching it appears that the French government doesn’t allow DNA testing for ‘recreational’ purposes.
Is this correct and have others experienced the same
.
Yes, Ancestry do not market or send DNA tests to France because of their laws, but a few French ex pats have tested, as well as many thousands of Quebecois and French Americans. I manage a French person's DNA, and when they first tested, the result was very inaccurate giving them seomething like 25% French. But it's now over 50% so some improvement! I think Ancestry may use Quebecois as their main sample for 'French' which likely has pitfalls in that Quebecois are descended mainly from a limited number of original settlers who came from specific areas of France and not others. There is also the problem that likely northern French DNA in particular is very similar to the southern half of England, as well as Welsh for Bretons, due to a very similar ancestral mix. There are probably more French people on MyHeritage as these kits were sold for several years in supermarkets somewhat unofficially. But the accuracy of low matches on MH is also a problem, especially if you are talking about a very distant connection.
Regarding your example in particular, what percentage of Huguenot DNA would you estimate your mother has? So, does she have one great grandparent (1/8) or one great great grandparent of mostly Huguenot ancestry which would be 1/16 or 6.25% on average? Or is it further back? When you start going past your great x 4 grandparents, you start to lose some DNA connections completely from some ancestors beyond that generation as DNA cannot be diluted infinitely.
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<<it appears that the French government doesn’t allow DNA testing for ‘recreational’ purposes.>>
Yes, that's right, we heard it on the radio relatively recently, listening to the news I think (we live in France).
Margaret
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Yes I’ve found absolutely no French DNA matches on Ancestry due to the laws mentioned on this thread. I do have a handful of MyHeritage ones though - I think that’s more common than Ancestry in Europe, it’s definitely worth downloading your DNA from Ancestry and uploading it to MyHeritage which is free to do.
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Thank you very much everyone for your help and information.
I understand the situation so much better now.
I will be able to explain the results to my mother with a better understanding.
It’s a shame though as the Huguenot branch of our tree was the most intriguing and I was hoping that it would be confirmed.
Oh well it’s not to be.
Thanks again to all.
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<<It’s a shame though as the Huguenot branch of our tree was the most intriguing and I was hoping that it would be confirmed.>>
But can't you confirm it with written records, burials, marriages, baptisms, wills etc. ? Lots of Rootchatters can help you with reading/translating French records if that's a problem.
Margaret
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I have quite a bit of Huguenot ancestry through my 3xgreat grandmother Clara Auber, and the paper trail has gone back to Poitou in France, and Luneray in Normandy, and a lot of my Huguenot lot were among the later immigrants who came to the UK in the 1750s.
OP, if you suspect a Huguenot link, what info have you found to suggest that?
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oldfashionedgirl
What do you know of your Huguenot ancestors? Where did they settle? Many worked in Spitalfields in London or elsewhere where there was weaving. I see the Saltire Cross against your name. Does that mean your family is predominantly Scottish? If so, according to The Huguenot Society:
"Scotland: Although some Huguenots went to Scotland, especially to Edinburgh, only one settlement is known to have left detailed evidence of its short existence: Picardie Village in Edinburgh. For that see: J. Mason, ‘The Weavers of Picardy’, The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club 25 (1945), pp.1-33 A. Springall, ‘A Huguenot Community in Scotland: the Weavers of Picardy’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 27 (1998), pp. 97-109
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I just received the results of my mother’s DNA test which she wanted for a Christmas gift.
Considering I/we have no tree on Ancestry I was intrigued by the results which mirrored what I have discovered over the years.
There were only two surprises which were 14% Germanic Europe ?
But mostly was the lack of any connection to France as I have good evidence that we have a Huguenot line.
Having done a little searching it appears that the French government doesn’t allow DNA testing for ‘recreational’ purposes.
Is this correct and have others experienced the same
.
To address the Germanic Europe part, this was something that happened in the most recent Ancestry update, many Brits suddenly got significant percentages of Germanic, which whilst perhaps equally as valid as the Sweden/Denmark/Norway %s as indicative of ancient Viking ancestry, the Germanic presumably pointing to ancient Anglo-Saxon etc. connections, it was decided that if for historical reasons only it probably isn't the best idea to tell Brits they are German :o! Perhaps it brings up the possibility that we should have two versions of our ethnicity estimates, one for an ancient ancestry breakdown i.e. Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Ancient Britons, Picts etc. and one for a more modern i.e. pertaining to modern states or ethnic groups. That might be more possible (and accurate) as more and more ancient genomes are sequenced from ancient human remains. 23andme now allows comparison to ancient DNA, and I think is one of the few main sites to have this. MyHeritage once speculated of a facility to match to more recent celebrities.
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Thank you all for the Huguenot suggestions.
Maybe I should have been clearer.
My mother’s cousin had done some work re the Huguenot line many years ago, probably 60s or 70s.
They were silkweavers and had settled in Spitalfields, London. He apparently had samples of silk that had been handed down.
I took the research a bit further several years ago with help from a very knowledgeable Rootschatter who traced the line to the outskirts of Paris.
Re my mothers DNA test I meant I was a bit disappointed that due to the lack of testing in France (which I didn’t realise when we submitted the sample) the research that had been done was not confirmed by DNA as the other areas were or her ancestry.
Yes I was born, grew up and live in Scotland but my folks are from down south.
Thanks for all the replies.
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Thank you all for the Huguenot suggestions.
Maybe I should have been clearer.
My mother’s cousin had done some work re the Huguenot line many years ago, probably 60s or 70s.
They were silkweavers and had settled in Spitalfields, London. He apparently had samples of silk that had been handed down.
I took the research a bit further several years ago with help from a very knowledgeable Rootschatter who traced the line to the outskirts of Paris.
Re my mothers DNA test I meant I was a bit disappointed that due to the lack of testing in France (which I didn’t realise when we submitted the sample) the research that had been done was not confirmed by DNA as the other areas were or her ancestry.
Yes I was born, grew up and live in Scotland but my folks are from down south.
Thanks for all the replies.
What you may find though, is connections for your mother to other descendants of that Huguenot line. That could well point to her having 'Huguenot' genes :)! I know my own mother has many Quebecois matches, but shows no French on the Ancestry % which is clearly not logical! But she does have more recent French ancestry than Huguenot though so probably a bit more likely to register. When would you say your mother's last 'pure blooded' Huguenot ancestor was born in number of generations back? Huguenots continued to intermarry for several hundred years after the first wave arrived in the late 1500s, up to the 1800s in some cases. It might be worth searching her matches for clusters of people born in Quebec or France. I know French people do also match French Americans but they are a bit more difficult to specify by state, you could try Louisiana, although you find them in other states too.
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That’s very interesting M-S, I hadn’t thought of it from that angle, thanks very much.
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That’s very interesting M-S, I hadn’t thought of it from that angle, thanks very much.
In fact I realised on one of my mother's Huguenot lines, which remained intermarried within the Huguenot community until the early 1800s, she has many shared matches and common ancestor links on this line. So essentially all those relatives on that line to which my mother connects on the DNA, I can say with some certainty it is French Huguenot DNA that they share :)!
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I like the idea in reply10 that we could have an ancient DNA breakdown.
Melba also says that the Germanic Europe is recent, but it appears in my 2022 list, though it is now considerably more. I have also lost my 3% Wales, which I don't think should ever have been there.
Confession - I understand very little about all this and treat it mainly as a bit of mildly interesting fun!
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My most recent ancestor of full Huguenot heritage was born 1765, and is my 6xgreat grandmother. She was born in London to a mother of full Huguenot heritage and a father who was one of the last to come to the UK in 1752. Her ancestry is from Moncoutant in western Poitou, and Luneray in north Normandy. Both areas of France that are quite a way from one another. Some ancient DNA maps surmise that Poitou has a lot of Roman DNA there.