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ArishMell · 70-79, M
It doesn't mean much at all. Those tests are not accurate!
If it is correct, it is credible that at least one of your great-great-great-great-grandparents was Scots from a long-established Scots family (16 X 6 = 96, approximating to 2^6 generations back). That's probably within normal, and more credible, geneological tracing.
If we take 4 generations per century as a very rough mean, then it might be than one of those ancestors came to America in the latter half of the 19C, or later.
These geneolocal tests by DNA, which I think is what you mean, are not reliable in more than very general ways, because we more-or-less halve our own family-line DNA by each generation. So it does not take long, historically, for the "original" line to fade for most people in highly-mobile areas of the world's populations.
Miss Bloggs marries Mr. Smith.. each child is half a Blogg, half a Smith, at genome level.
Mary Smith marries Mr. Green.... each child is half a Green, quarter Blogg, quarter Smith,...
... half A, quarter Green, eigth Blogg and Smith... and the first Blogg and Smith are as recent as Great-Grandma and Grandad.
etc. If all come from the same region their DNA may reflect that but people are mobile and all sorts of different regions enter the mix over many generations. It's even more complicated with descendents of North-Western European regional natives (such as I), naturally likely to have a right cocktail of origins over the centuries.
DNA does not read maps, does not know nations; and the halving series is a powerful piece of arithmetic!
If it is correct, it is credible that at least one of your great-great-great-great-grandparents was Scots from a long-established Scots family (16 X 6 = 96, approximating to 2^6 generations back). That's probably within normal, and more credible, geneological tracing.
If we take 4 generations per century as a very rough mean, then it might be than one of those ancestors came to America in the latter half of the 19C, or later.
These geneolocal tests by DNA, which I think is what you mean, are not reliable in more than very general ways, because we more-or-less halve our own family-line DNA by each generation. So it does not take long, historically, for the "original" line to fade for most people in highly-mobile areas of the world's populations.
Miss Bloggs marries Mr. Smith.. each child is half a Blogg, half a Smith, at genome level.
Mary Smith marries Mr. Green.... each child is half a Green, quarter Blogg, quarter Smith,...
... half A, quarter Green, eigth Blogg and Smith... and the first Blogg and Smith are as recent as Great-Grandma and Grandad.
etc. If all come from the same region their DNA may reflect that but people are mobile and all sorts of different regions enter the mix over many generations. It's even more complicated with descendents of North-Western European regional natives (such as I), naturally likely to have a right cocktail of origins over the centuries.
DNA does not read maps, does not know nations; and the halving series is a powerful piece of arithmetic!
