Update:
This is the 2016 version of the article, the 2018 version of this article is now available!
There’s a meme going around on Facebook, started by J Paul Hawthorne, where people share their pedigree chart that shows the ethnicities rather than the names. In this article I am going to compare my ethnicity based on my paper trail to the ethnicity predictions by the DNA companies.
Ethnicity pedigree chart
Pedigree chart of Yvette Hoitink with ethnicity
Here is my pedigree chart, showing the countries of birth of ten generations of my ancestors. As you can see from all of the orange, I am quite Dutch.
The blue lines represent people born in Germany. Most of my German ancestors are from Suderwick, just across the border from the Achterhoek area where the rest of my paternal ancestors came from.
I have some unknown ancestors, including three unknown fathers of illegitimate children on my mom’s side, which show as blanks.
My father’s family did not move around. All 2,000+ ancestors of his that I have traced so far were born within a few miles of the house where he was born in Winterswijk. Based on naming patterns and archaeology, it is known that many farms in this area have been around since about 800 AD. That may well have been the last period when large groups of new people settled there.
My mom’s family is a bit more mobile, with ancestors from Noord-Brabant and Zeeland. On her Zeeland lines, she has some Huguenot ancestors from northern France. On her Brabant lines, she has some bastards of nobles, which tie into the royal families of medieval Europe, but these are all at least fifteen generations back.
All in all, I think I’m pretty Dutch!
Admixture predictions by DNA companies
So what do the DNA testing companies make of this? I had autosomal tests done by three different companies, who all provide their ethnicity predictions. Here is how they read my DNA.
Ancestry
Ancestry’s ethnicity estimate is spot on, showing I’m 100% European, and 94% from Western Europe. The trace regions could be explained by the medieval noble lines, although they are so low they could easily be noise.
23andMe
23andMe has three levels of predictions: conservative, standard and speculative. All of them have me as predominantly Northwestern European, which matches my paper trail.
At the speculative level, 23andMe tries to assign even DNA it isn’t sure about. French & German, a region which includes the Netherlands, comes up as the highest. Even combined with the unassigned “Broadly Northwestern European,” that only accounts for less than two-thirds of my DNA. The 28.2% British & Irish is way too high, as is the 6.5% Scandinavian. So not bad, but not particularly impressive either.
FamilyTreeDNA
Boy, did FamilyTreeDNA miss the mark on that one!
None of the regions cover the eastern part of the Netherlands, where my father’s family is from. When I first saw these results, I thought FamilyTreeDNA did not have a reference population for the area around the Netherlands, but I later had other family members tested and they had “Western and Central European” which covered the Netherlands.
It’s really unbelievable how FamilyTree failed to pick up even one percent of Western and Central European DNA, where my estimate based on my paper trail shows it should be close to 100%.
Paper trail versus DNA
In the past, when I’ve used my results to warn people about the unreliability of these ethnicity predictions, some people tried to convince me that my paper trail must be incorrect. However, I do not think that is the case:
- I match all the right people. If there was a recent non-paternal event, I would not expect to match all the fourth, fifth and further cousins that I do.
- Most of my ancestors lived in small villages. Even if I made a mistake somewhere and got the wrong parents, chances are that the right parents were from the same village. That should not affect my ethnicity predictions, as those people weren’t immigrants but usually lived there for many generations.
- My paternal uncle and mother tested as well. Their ethnicity predictions are quite different from mine. For example, FamilyTreeDNA shows significant Western and Central European DNA for both of them. DNA proves they are definitely my mother and uncle, so if they are Western and Central European, so am I.
- The predictions of these three companies are quite different from each other. This in itself shows we should not put too much faith in them and that the prediction models are in its infancy.
To me, these results confirm what Judy Russell was saying about ethnicity predictions two years ago: “it’s not soup yet.”
About Yvette Hoitink
Erg leuk om te lezen! Ik heb mezelf ook via 23andme en FTDNA laten testen. Hoewel het niet echt met elkaar overeenkomt vind ik het wel leuk. 23andme had mij ook een grote portie British toegekend terwijl mijn achtergrond toch echt vooral Nederlands/Duits is. Qua matches is het, denk ik, veelbelovend. Veel Amerikanen testen met Ancestry waardoor veel geadopteerden via deze weg hun geboortefamilies vinden. Kortom: fascinerend!
Hoi Yvette, for years I was content in the belief I had found the earliest occurrence of my surname line in The Netherlands. My most distant direct male ancestor seemed to be Pieter Blanckman, later Blankman, who lived in Oudesluis, de Zijpe, Noord Holland, ca. 1565. A few years ago I had my Y-Chromosome sequenced and learned that I belonged to Y Haplogroup N1c1, which is very rare in The Netherlands. Consequently, I now seems likely the my ancestor Pieter’s male ancestors were most likely from Finland, where 61% of the male population belong to that Haplogroup. Almost all of my matches are Finns. There is only one Dutchman in FTDNA’s Netherlands group who matches me, unfortunately Mr. Jan Duin refuses to have any contact with me, for reasons I can’t ex[plain. I’ve tried connecting him through his distant ancestor, but it was a patronymic and I could find no connection, even though I have compiled a database of 6,000 descendants from my Pieter. Most recently, I have located a female descendent of a Finnish Blankman family, but there are no male survivors alive to test. She and I are meeting in Finland this June, and although she now has her Family Finder test results, I am not one of her matches, but several of her matches are also my matches, mostly through the Y-Chromosome, which, of course, she could not test. It seems highly likely that Jan Duin’s line would tie into my Blankman line if he would only cooperate. It is just hard for me to understand why somebody would go to the expense to have tests performed, but then not be interested in the only match he probably has?
I had my DNA tested through Ancestry. My father’s parents immigrated from Friesland and my mother’s from Germany. The only surprise was 5% from Ireland. I had my Aunt (only sibling left of my father) tested and she is 49% Scandinavia, 46% Europe West, and 2% Ireland. Is so much of the Scandinavian odd in relationship to Friesland?
I would not be surprised if Frisian DNA is quite different to the rest of the Netherlands, since they are culturally a different people with their own language. So unless there were many Frisians in the reference sample, Ancestry would not be able to ID them properly. Contacts across the North Sea might explain why they resemble Scandinavian DNA more than Western European DNA. Friesland was also a frequent target for Vikings.
@Diane try downloading your information to the free website – gedmatch. They seem to have Frisian DNA. I say seem because my family is mostly western southern German, Swiss, and French and I get an outrageously high amount of Frisian DNA which might be due more to the French / Huguenot connection than actual authentic Frisian for myself. Give it a shot. If you find that you appear to have little Frisian DNA on that website than their reference samples might just be as I have assumed and as “hot air” worthy as 23&me’s idea to genetic ethnicity.
But a word of advice unless the ethnicity is giving you something completely alien take it with a large grain of salt. Most of these ethnicity websites can’t differ between major populations [French, German, etc.] due to population movement. Probably doesn’t help I have heard their sample populations in almost every ethnic DNA estimate only reference up to their grandparents which is pretty meaningless…. I mean someone with an English sounding name puts “English” down when two generations further back their ancestors were Russians for example.
I have yet to find a ethnic DNA website that is accurate to my known heritage. Close sure but they keep referring to me as “Hungarian” or “Croatian” or “Russian” or even “Serb” when the furthest east ancestors ever went was Berlin. But they can’t for the life of them identify the Japanese great-grandfather nor the Ashkenazi beyond minimal.
I got a small percentage of Scandinavian that surprised me in my AncestryDNA results. My maternal grandmother just took the test and got 35% Scandinavian, though she has done genealogy all the way back to the late 1500s of ancestors who all lived in Friesland. I had been wondering if the Frieslanders had different ethnic influences in their DNA than the Dutch do and they may test as Scandinavian? If anybody has any information that would be helpful, my grandmother and I would appreciate. 🙂
I dont know if I can give you any help but
I hail from south of Sweden and I can trace my roots which are Swedish and Danish at least 500 years back in time.
So I expecetd when I had my DNA tested to find 100% Scandinavian DNA. To my surprise I have 30% Dutch DNA probably from Friesland. I have later found that a lot of South Scandinavians have Dutch DNA. It hasnt got to do with anything from viking age but later around 1200-1400.At that time many Dutch traders and people within shipping moved to places like Gothenburg, Malmo Copenhagen. At the same time Scandinavians moved to Friesland.
Regarding 23andMe my experience is similar to yours.
According to their present Ancestry Composition analysis I would be even 31% British Irish, while paper records (regarding all ancestors) show no such ancestry down to at least the 17th century.
Apparently, 23andme messed things up by including customer data, which are only 2 generations deep. I.e.: I seem to relate to many 23andme participants who report to have grandparents from Britain or Ireland, but I actually relate to the ancestors of these grandparents, in mainland Europe (who go unnoticed by 23andme).
Due to US regulations the 23andme earning model collapsed a few years ago and in their effort to repair the damage they now seem to concentrate on health related data from North American participants ONLY (data they can sell!). Although they have started web offerings outside de US, the experience with the US main office so far does not bode well. Very unfortunate, as the huge 23andme database is certainly also of interest from the European perspective (and from the international perspective in general).
Would you know of any serious European dna ancestry research initiative?
Leg eens uit wat je bedoeld met Brits DNA en continentaal West Europees DNA? 99.9% van het dna van bevolkingen uit West Europa komen overeen. Er is heel veel overlap. Mensen met een Duitse achtergronden scoren heel hoog voor Groot Brittanie op ancestry en andersom zijn er Britten die heel laag scoren voor Groot Brittanie en met ‘Europe West’ eindigen. Het dna lijkt te veel op elkaar om van elkaar te kunnen worden onderscheiden.
Dit zijn de termen die de DNA-bedrijven gebruiken. Zij hebben referentiepopulaties. Dat is inderdaad erg onnauwkeurig, wat mijn artikel ook probeert aan te geven.
Er kan nauwelijks een verschil zijn tussen Brits en Continentaal DNA omdat bijna alle Britte van oorsprong uit Europa komen. Denk aan de Dene, de Frieze, de Anglo- Saksen, de Fransen en de Romeinen. Tja,… last but not least de Kelten !
https://support.ancestry.com/s/question/0D51500001rVa9PCAS/dna-results-showing-great-britain-when-no-ancestors-are-known-to-be-from-there?t=
Interessante discussie gaande op het ancestry forum aangaande het feit dat de verschillende populaties in West Europa genetisch gezien moeilijk van elkaar zijn te onderscheiden, dit verklaart voor een deel waarom er zoveel mensen met Duitse of Scandinavische voorouders tot hun verbazing “Britse resultaten” hebben. Brits DNA is, op Wales na, heel divers. In Noord Engeland en Schotland zijn er veel Scandinavische invloeden te bespeuren en in het oosten van Engeland wijkt het DNA nauwelijks af van dat van Friesland, wat niet zo verwonderlijk is, aangezien het laagland van Engeland, de zogenaamde ‘Fens’ in Norfolk en Suffolk, een voortzetting is van de Noord Europese Laagvlakte en gedurende de laatste Ijstijd gewoon aan Nederland vastzat.
Het feit dat iemand een hoog percentage Brits of Scandinavisch DNA heeft als men zich autosomaal laat testen bij ancestry of 23andme, wil nog niet gelijk zeggen dat de voorouders daadwerkelijk uit deze gebieden kwamen. Het zeg meer iets over het feit dat het genetisch gezien heel moeilijk is deze populaties van elkaar te onderscheiden omdat er zowel geografisch als historisch gezien een grote overlap bestaat tussen deze regios. Jouw DNA vertoont om deze reden grote overeenkomsten met de Britse proefpersonen uit het Ancestry DNA database, net zoals bij veel anderen hun DNA juist overeenkomsten vertonen met de Scandinavische proefpersonen uit het Ancestry database.
Ancestry biedt de mogelijkheid aan het ruwe DNA materiaal te uploaden naar Gedmatch. Gedmatch maakt gebruik van andere algoritmes dan ancestry.com en 23andme. Daarnaast biedt Gedmatch de mogelijkheid het DNA te vergelijken met verschillende populaties, zowel op Europees niveau als op wereld niveau. Op deze manier is het mogelijk te achterhalen bij welke populaties een individu clustert.
Gedmatch maakt op mij een meer wetenschappelijke indruk en werkt daarnaast op non-profit basis. Het probleem met bedrijven die louter op commerciële basis functioneren, zoals ancestry, is dat het wetenschappelijke aspect wordt ondergesneeuwd. Ancestry is voornamelijk gericht op een Amerikaans publiek die willen weten waar hun voorouders vandaan kwamen, aangezien Amerika van oudsher een ‘melting pot’ is van verschillende etnische groepen. Commerciële bedrijven als Ancestry springen hierop in. Het feit is echter dat verschillende populaties genetisch gezien niet van elkaar te onderscheidden zijn, generaliserende categorieën als ‘Great Britain’ of ‘Europe West’ zijn daarom zinloos. Ancestry geeft bijvoorbeeld ook aan dat categorieën als ‘Great Britain’ aangetroffen worden in andere delen van Europa. Mijns inziens is Gedmatch superieur aan ancestry. Daarnaast kan een mitochondriaal (X-chromosomen test) of een Y-chromosomen test uitsluitsel bieden.
Dutch DNA is in itself likely to be composite of Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and so on. The fact 23andme and FTDNA list the various subtypes as subtypes rather than the composite – i.e. Dutch – has to do with the levels of analysis the company chooses to use. They are not ‘missing the mark’ – Dutch DNA is simply a genetic composite, and therefore breaking it down into its constituent components makes sense.
Second, we tend to link DNA categorisations to national borders (and we shouldn’t). You state that 20% British-Irish DNA is way too high, and that’s because you’re looking at the figure as determining where ‘one is from’. DNA does not respect the artificial constructs that are modern-day national borders. A significant proportion of modern-day Brits and Irishmen are descended from Anglo-Saxon migrants from continental Europe who moved there over a thousand years ago. There will therefore be close genetic links between populations on either side of the Channel. The 28-something percent, then, is genetically conserved material tracing back to these common ancestors. It does not make you British-Irish; rather, it means that Dutch DNA is to a large extent Anglo-Saxon.
yea…could turn that upside down and say it means British-Irish and Anglo-Saxon DNA is to a large extend Dutch.. But Dutch itself isn’t really a clear word. It probably refers to the native Frisian/Frankish/Saxon mix that founded the Dutch republic. And the Franks were themselves a mix of different tribes to begin with. So…Dutch isn’t even really a tribal name. If you take into account that the Netherlands today has a 22% non-native population the word is really becoming next to useless in describing ancestry.
Bu I think this 23andme suffers from something that Americans inherited from the UK. They like to pretend the Netherlands doesn’t even exist. Just look at English/American movies. If they need a foreigner the English historically came into contact with they almost always use French, Germans or maybe vikings. Where is the English movie featuring the Dutch east indie company? or a backdrop of Anglo-Dutch wars? Blank – didn’t happen. So it makes sense 23andme has a big blind spot in that area. The Netherlands is just not a country many Americans feel connected with.
Angles and Saxons Germanic .Not British.
Yes, the high British score for Dutch is probably because of the Anglo-Saxons and neighbouring tribes, and apparently it is still difficult to distinguish between the descendants who stayed on the continent, and those who left to Britain.
I like this blog. It verifies why I do not want to waste my money on a DNA test since I know all my family is from Holland. If a test can only say European-who cares? I already know that with my lineage back to 1600 in Holland. I’m Dutch through and through. Too bad these tests are useless for us Dutchies.
You’re confusing DNA testing with ancestry. They are not the same. If ancestry is all you’re interested in then DNA testing is a waste of your time and money. DNA testing has to do human migrations and your roots in a much deeper level than international borders.
Great blog! I really like the ethnicity pedigree chart you have done – my paternal side would look much like yours I imagine, my mothers. I too have had the Ancestry DNA test and it’s pretty accurate (35% Europe West, 32% Great Britain (except for a surprise of 17% Scandinavia and minimal Irish). From your genealogical experience, would it be common to expect ancestors the Netherlands to have Scandinavian backgrounds?
Thanks! In my experience, few Dutch people have significant Scandinavian ancestors. There might be one or two in the 1600s, but not enough to make a significant impact on admixture. Rather, I think this is a sign that Dutch/German/Scandinavians all have similar origins in the first centuries AD. The DNA has not diverged that much.
I am so glad I found this blog. I have always prided myself as being pedigree Dutch. Not too many nowadays in the US. When I received my 23 and me results I was slightly taken aback. Now that I have read the blog and all the comments….I am happy to say, I am as Dutch (and proud) as ever. Thanks for the blog and thanks to those who commented. Now I will go have some Blackberry brandy and some pickled herring just like my Holland born Grandmother would have done.
I’ve traced my Winterswijk ancestors back to 1728. I had my dad tested by ancestry.com last week. I’m very excited to see what pops up! I was also surprised to learn how many generations of te Winkels there are in Winterswijk. It must a so much fun being a geologist! Thanks for sharing this info, I found it informative.
Thousands of Norwegians moved to Holland from the 1600s-1800s. Its estimated 10% of Norway emigrated to Holland in that period.
But not to the areas where my family lived 🙂 Almost all came to Amsterdam and the surrounding areas, while all my ancestors were from the south or the east. My tree is pretty much complete until 1600. I can imagine missing one or two, but not enough to seriously impact my DNA composition.
Starvation? Famines in the North? Historical reference please, Back up what you say.
So, everyone assumes that our ink paper trail is golden. But we should also consider that even paper and ink isn’t always legit, especially in historic times. Spouses cheat during those times as well. Not saying that you ancestors did, but for many a promiscuous ancestor may have resulted in a hidden birth. It would be more hidden during their time due to the consequences of infidelity.
In no way disproving, rather having people keep an open mind when they research their history.
I would have thought one of the most common Dutch Y – DNA’s would be R1b-Z381.
I did heritage DNA and was surprised by results. I was expecting, Dutch, German, Scottish. My DNA say I am 40% Scandinavian, 20 % Balkan, 21% and 6 % English. No Dutch or German showed up at all. Why would that be. We are definitely Dutch and German. Thanks you.
It would be because the ethnicity predictions are in its infancy below the continent level, and I’ve found MyHeritage to be one of the worst. If you read your results as “European” it makes much more sense.
My Heritage has made improvements this year? I just got back my results from them and from what I make of it, it seems quite accurate. I have done my family tree as far back as the 1600’s. Everyone from both sides is from NL and quite a lot of that is Friesland. My results were 59% NW Europe and 40% Scandinavian. The surprise however was the 1.2% West Asian (Persian, Turk). I realize this is probably a lot further back than a few hundred years but do you have insight on such an anomaly? Thank you. I enjoyed reading so far!
Hello! I received my y-haplogroup and it came back as t-m70– which is, to my knowledge, rare in the Netherlands and Europe. But it is not among Sephardic Jews. I was wondering that, because it came back that I have North African and Spanish ancestory from around the time Sephardic Jews entered North Africa, that they could be Sephardic Jews. But— my last name is Onstot(a duct and German name). Do you know if any North African influence in this area from the 1600/1700s? Are these ancestors Sephardic Jews?
Your Y-haplogroup represents just one line of descent (male). One line is not going to have much impact on your ethnicity predictions based on your autosomal DNA. Sephardic Jews came to the Netherlands at least from the 1500s onward, so that could be an explanation. You would have to trace your male line back in time. How high is the percentage of North African and Spanish? I have some predicted Spanish with some of the ethnicities and I have no Spanish ancestors in the past 400 years. And if I check the bandwidth of the prediction it’s 0-4% so it might be false.
I am .1% North African and .1% Spanish
Hello Max!
You should join to the Haplogroup T Project here: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/y-haplogroup-k2/
Also you can join here: https://www.yfull.com/tree/T/ (testing BigY or YElite)
And you can consult my T work here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Phylogenetic_T-M184_tree.png
My maternal grandfather is Dutch and my uncle took a Y-DNA test and got T-M70 too. Our Dutch paternal name is Van Pamelen, which was also the name of an ancient barony in Flanders who used to have a castle or fort in the town of Oudenaarde. We since traced the paternal line back to 1611 in Ruiselede, West Flanders, Belgium, which is only about 15 miles away from Oudenaarde, but I am still trying to figure out if and how we’re related to these Van Pamelens, because they have a long recorded history, and one of the earliest male patriarchs apparently spent many years fighting in the Crusades in the Holy Land. The Netherlands and Belgium was also controlled by Spain for a while. The 1611 record I found, had been indicated Ruiselede as being part of “Spanish Netherlands” so we also thought there might possibly be a Sephardi Jewish connection. In any case, it is still a mystery for us too, as all my uncle’s Y-DNA matches seem to be listing their earliest ancestors as individuals from the Middle East, which is a really long ways from Holland.
Have you gone back to 23andme recently to see if their predictions have changed? My father’s side of the family is from the Netherlands and the first results I got were overwhelmingly British/Irish (where part of my mother’s family is likely from). I don’t think it even included the region that includes France/Germany, so I was a bit confused. They recently updated their algorithm and the numbers look much more reasonable based on the paper trail we have from my father’s family.
So glad I found this blog! I was beginning to wonder if Ancestry ran my DNA based on my Swedish (married) last name! I know for a fact that both paternal grandparents, and all 4 of their parents, are from the southern Zeeland area in Holland. Research on a Dutch website is showing me that for several more generations back everyone is from the same area. Mom’s side is English, Irish and Scottish so I’m okay with my results of 35 percent Great Britain and 8 percent Ireland/Scotland/Wales. But I’m not so happy with results of 24% Scandinavian, 14% Iberian and only 12% Europe west.
My husband got his DNA results from myheritage and it says hè is 82,6% english. His grandparents are from the netherlands and germany, and their parents too. Is this a mistake do you think?
In my experience, MyHeritage is the least reliable. It has my mother as 50% English too, while she isn’t (and the other tests don’t show her as English). Especially below the continent level, MyHeritage is very unreliable so I wouldn’t read anything in it.
Ancestry includes the Netherlands in the Great Britain category. Historically, there seems to be some connection between Southern England and the Netherlands.
Ik my results, Ancestry shows The Netherlands as part of “Europe West” which makes more sense historically.
There was always a story that my father’s biological father was a Hemstreet. He had his mother’s last name. I was given a DNA test for a gift. Turns out, yup, Hemstreet. Several direct matches to Hemstreets, deBores, and others that were Dutch turns up. Looks like Friesland. The geniological paper trail connection disappears as soon as you look in Netherlands. They arrived in USA early 1600. Family Tree DNA did get this one correct. On a side note also had DNA from my moms side and found Saxon mostly. So parents not to far apart on DNA.
My ancestry dna turned up mostly British which I know to be true fro the paper trail..it’s at least over 80% English back to 1700s Virginia colonists then back to England, with a handful of irish and Scotish names in the mix as well, my mothers last name Windham has a paper trail to at least the norman conquest and claims by name a pre norman Saxon. When uploading my dna to Gedmatch.com I found my closest reference population was south Dutch, which because I have no known dutch ancestors, leads me to believe that Saxon DNA is what gives the dutch link. My genetic difference from dutch was 3.37 which is closer than the English reference, could some America English lines retain more Saxon DNA where the English themselves have become more British or “celtic” how else to explain why my English ancestry shows closer to south Dutch than to the modern English?
Hallo Yvette Hoitenk en anderen,
Nederlands zijn volgens Sforza het dichst bij genetisch van de europese landen:
1 Denen (139 immigranten gelijk aan vervanging 1 eigen kind) 13 Italianen 19,9
2 Belgen 104 14 Tsjechen 19,3
3 Duitsers 78,5 15 Hongaren 18,0
3 Zwitsers 78,5 16 Spanjaarden 16,8
5 Engelse 73,5 17 Ieren 16,8
6 Noren 59,9 18 ijslanders 12,8
7 Fransen 39,4 19 Finnen 10,5
8 Oostenrijkers 33,3 20 Joegoslaven 9,6
9 Zweden 30,9 21Grieken 6,7
10 Polen 23,5
11 Russen 22,3 etnsiche groepen :
12 portugezen 21,2 Basken 11,0
Sardiniers 4,4
Laplanders 4,0
Hier een afbeelding
https://www.google.com/search?q=sforza+genetic+distance&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTyIGVkILgAhWJb1AKHSb8BVUQ_AUIDigB&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=0RDpwa7hc5_krM:
“Some people tried to convince me that my paper trail must be incorrect. However, I do not think that is the case” (YH)
Great piece Yvette. Confirming my own dialogue with other seekers-of-ancestry whose DNA results are inconsistent and often out of phase with their paper trail. In my case, the paper trail leads to Norway which was an unknown (to me) source of Dutch citizens. The Schoutens & Jansen shipbuilders joining in more than good Norwegian Wood? Likewise the salt trade with Iberia led to my sailor ancestors spreading their genes, and the Huguenot emigration (French to Amsterdam….French to Neuchatel) revealing another source of my ancestry as yet unrevealed in DNA work. Thanks from all of us for your great website. Alan Scouten
I know someone who just did this and although her father, grandmother, great grandmother are all Dutch her dna shows no Dutch but instead says Germanic European. They got her moms Scottish heritage right but no mention of Dutch or Netherland anywhere in the results.
Apparently the Brits were trying to get back at the Dutch for the jealous fact they had better trade routes and didn’t want to share them. I read that was a big issue for them, they use to call the Dutch, stingy. Must of been real sore, cause they changed New Amsterdam to New York. You can’t just go around getting mad at people for something they are good at.
Aan je naam te zien komt je uit het oosten van Nederland weg wat Saksisch gebied is geweest, misschien vandaar het grote gehalte aan British Isles? Het is tenslotte grotendeels Angel-Saksisch daar.
Does the surname WEBER have originations in the Netherlands? I took a DNA test and I am finding a lot of DNA matches with people from this area. Being in the US, most of our relatives spoke German. Trying to find out if our family originated in Holland and moved to Germany and Switzerland. Any help would be appreciated.