having the test repeated by a different lab. I know two people who got different--really different--results from different testers.

Or, you could save your money:
https://www.livescience.com/7384-genetic-ancestry-tests-hype-scientists.html

I think that it may be that people from those areas came to Great Britain centuries ago and left their genetic profile. We know that history tells us some of that. I am Scots, Irish and Brit also.

Mine is 39% Western European, 24% Scandinavian, 16% Ireland, Scotland, Wales, 10% Eastern European, 7% Southern European, and 2% Great Britain.

I had several ancestors in my family who were generations back in Great Britain... Hardcastle, Crouch, Lawrence, and that's 3/4 of my family.

Pre-Civil war - no idea when they came before that.

They married other people with similar names. (Brown, Smith, Jones, Gray a bunch of generic names)
My mom is an Appalachian mutt, which means Scots Irish married Scots Irish, if you know what I mean.

It is funny how the German/French is there but no British Isles.
And this is the most generic population out there.

I found it interesting that they got my dad's stuff down to a Tee. (I thought his stuff would turn out weird, because there are so few Armenians)

but Ancestry targeted exactly where in the US there are pockets of my family.

They got my Italian half correct showing Southeast Europe- 37%/Asia minor-8%/Iberian-3%,Sephardic-1%.

However, my other half which they estimate 17% British Isles and 34% Western/Central Europe is definitely wrong. Correct amounts should probably be reversed as I know my ancestry going back over 400 years under most lineages with the majority from England, Scotland and Ireland and rest from Netherlands and Sweden who all came to northeast.

I also tested on Ancestry and their test result was closer to what my documentation shows, with 33% Great Britain and Irish and the rest a mix of mostly Western Europe plus traces of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

I did find that several ancestors who immigrated to America in 1600's from England had parents who came to England from what is now Belgium or France, so that might have something to do with why FTDNA's estimates are heavier weighted to Western Europe vs British Isles.

The other website I have have imported my DNA to is Gedmatch which is free and has some interesting analysis tools, which seem more accurate than either FTDNA or Ancestry in estimating ethnic origins.

I put it in all the calculators

I think my British Isles DNA is just plain old diverse because that part of the world is plain old diverse. Although the K36 shows the epicenter of my mom's DNA as being in France, it turns out that it is actually British DNA. The British DNA encompasses a broad sweep of Europe.

I found a site with a map that allows you to subtract out one DNA group. I subtracted out the British Isles and was left with 50%. If I try to subtract out French the whole thing gets muddled and I am only left with 43% remaining DNA. This specific subtract-out works because my parents are from 2 different continents and seem to share only a small amount at the Balkans. (I don't think it would work if my mom was British and my dad was French.)

Armenians were traditionally highly endogamous and my DNA signals coming from that part of the world are more concentrated. I've got several strong focal points in Asia Minor, the Caucus and Assyria.

British Isles (My DNA - Armenian = 50% of remaining DNA)


Armenian (My DNA - British Isles = 50% of remaining DNA)
Europe and Asia

I have German Palatine ancestors that moved to South Carolina in the early 1700s as well as a Frenchman, probably Huegenot, who moved to Virginia along with some brothers/cousins. The original immigrants were indentured servants who had to work off the passage and the right to settle land through that servitude.

In addition, England allowed some Protestants to move to England and to Northern Ireland during the same periods. Some of those anglicized their surnames and some of their descendants later moved to America. At least one branch of my family tree were probably German origination (Fike is NOT an English or Irish name) who were allowed to live in Ireland and who later moved to the Americas. My husband has a branch who were French Protestants who lived in a French enclave in England. His direct ancestor and some of his siblings later moved to Maryland - proven by another sibling's will in England when she left property to their children.

Another route for introduction of Germanic and French genes was the Quaker migration - many had moved to the Netherlands during the persecutions and some married local people. When they or their children later moved to the Americas, they brought those genes with them. Quite a few Quakers moved from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas - some in order to spread the Quaker beliefs, some (as my ancestors) because they were more activist against the British and had been evicted from their Quaker communities. My main ancestor who moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina was one of the Regulators who protested and fought against the British rules before the American Revolution.

England just wanted to get settlers to hold land - and in the Southern colonies, there was a massive death rate from introduced diseases such as malaria and yellow fever - first among the indigenous populations, then among the Northern European colonists. This is one reason that African slaves became the main work force - many came from regions where those diseases had been endemic long enough that they had either genetic resistance or acquired immunity to them.

and Dublin was originally a Viking settlement. That could explain the 3% Scandinavian.

I was surprised by the trace of the Iberian peninsula that was found in me and my maternal cousins. Otherwise it was as I had expected, Irish, Scandinavian and British Isles.

my mom and sister had traces of Iberian and Greek/Italian and we have no idea where it came from

no Greek or Italian.

if you look at the path the Goths took from Sweden, that could one explanation for their test results because they did end up in Spain

I haven't taken the test yet; I'm curious to see if I turn out any different

I've got a significant amount of Western Mediterranean DNA in my European ancestry. I probably get it from both parents. The Western Mediterranean is a higher percentage than most in the British Isles. It is more aligned with a French/German ancestry. (Even though I do not have any French/German/Italian or Spanish ancestry)

they came back with 56% Ireland/Scotland/Wales, 33% Europe West, and "low confidence regions" of 5% Finland/Northwest Russia, 2% Europe South, 1% Scandinavia, 1% European Jewish and less than 1% Middle Eastern. I uploaded my Ancestry results to FTDNA and it came back as 78% British Isles (which fits better with what I know of my ancestry), 10% West & Central Europe, a completely anomalous (as far as I can tell) 2% Middle East (which may be related to my predicted mitochondrial haplotype being R, rare in Europe but common in the Middle East, I'm not sure), and less than 2% each for Finland and Scandinavia. And that's based on the same test; they use different reference samples.

I have mostly Southern US colonial ancestry (Maryland and Virginia), mostly British Isles, mostly pre-1700; 29 of my 32 3rd great-grandparents were born in the US, as were 56 of 64 of my 4th great-grandparents.

my mom's great-grandfather emigrated to the US from Germany; everything I've been able to find, which isn't much, says that he was born there

however, neither of them had any Europe West in their results

I figure he's Scottish like nearly everyone else in my tree LOL

All roads seem to lead to Edinburgh