Ancestry/Genealogy

This article is from 2012, but it seems nothing has changed.

My husband and I did Ancestry DNA a year ago. My family history is already well documented back to when dirt was invented. My initial DNA results did not tell me anything surprising. In fact, I thought they were quite accurate.

My husband is Hungarian. My research on his family has been difficult since his ancestors arrived through Ellis Island in the early 1900s, and it has been difficult to trace before that. His results initially came back 95% Eastern European Jew, which was not surprising, with a dab of Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe thrown in.

A few months later, we were notified that our results had been updated and “improved”. Wow. Gone were my connections with Spain, Western Europe, Northern Africa, and a few other areas that I had documentation of being connected to, and Great Britain, Ireland, and Scandanavia were bumped WAY up. Obviously artificially up when compared to my records.

My husband learned that he was now 98% Eastern European Jew and 2% Italian! I cannot completely discount this, as his record is still spotty, but the only Italian I have found are people who marry into his family line and are of no blood relation.

You can count me as another Ancestry skeptic.