DNA survey - please respond

[peter]

I don't have any known roots in Wales - is there any point in people like me doing this latest version?

Absolutely - for a start it might highlight some Welsh roots you don't know about, secondly I'd like to know whether updating the population figures from 1801 to 1881 has improved the results you're getting for the ancestors you do know about.

And finally, I need to know that the spreadsheet accurately detects who has Welsh roots and who doesn't.

 

[Pauline]

Absolutely

OK, will have a go but don't have time today, I'm afraid.

 

[hibnit]

The simplest approach is too look at each of your 3G grandparents in turn then allocate them according to your best information (not a guess). You don't have to allocate them to one county or another: for example, if you are fairly certain that it's one of two adjacent counties allocate 0.5 to each - which is what I've done with my 3G grandmother who said on the census she was born in Bristol.

I wasn't sure about this either. I went from very light yellow all the way to dark orange but I saw your example had blue in there also - before I try the new sheet with Wales added please can you clarify what blue vs. yellow means?

Thanks.

 

[peter]

I wasn't sure about this either. I went from very light yellow all the way to dark orange but I saw your example had blue in there also - before I try the new sheet with Wales added please can you clarify what blue vs. yellow means?

You can use any colours you want - I just felt there weren't sufficient shades of yellow (starting from bright yellow for the most important county), so I used grey for the least significant counties.

As long as you include an extra column showing the breakdown of 3G grandparents, others will be able to interpret your colour scheme.

 

[PhoebeW]

Here is my spreadsheet - with Welsh ancestry showing up well. Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire at the top of the list include a great many north American matches.

Just to note an anomaly - I have far more than 50 matches with Anglesey born ancestors but Ancestry doesn't seem to be handling Anglesey place names properly.

 

[Helen7]

NEW VERSION

There is a new version of the spreadsheet which now includes Wales

Attached new spreadsheets for myself (no known Welsh ancestry) and my husband (half Welsh). All the Welsh counties come at the bottom of my spreadsheet as expected. They are further up in my husband's list but not as high as I thought they would be, with his main county (Montgomeryshire) only mid-table.

In going through my English counties again I realised I'd previously given too many pages to Oxfordshire giving it a falsely high position - now corrected so that anomaly removed. My dominant county Lancashire has moved down from top to 4th but this is probably a result of hitting the Ancestry limit of 40 pages of matches, as only another 4 would put Lancs on top again. Many of my ancestors come from Manchester so that maybe explains why nearby Cheshire is so high (top!) in my list.

 

[trebor]

Updated to the Wales version.
With a Jones 3x GG (birth location not known but only known descendent born in Staffs) I was hoping for a hit from the Welsh counties but they are all at the bottom of the list :-(
Staffs has been pushed back down to 2nd place by Wilts (no known connection)
Yorks has been pushed down to #7 from #4
Durham now down to #33 from #8
These new calculations appear to be less accurate compared to the last as far as I am concerned.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Just returned from a break but picked up there is a revised version including Wales. I attach my updated Spreadsheet. I have shown the numbers of 3xG ancestors as requested to explain my highlighting. I personally think it is not as good prediction wise for me as the 1801 version but not really had time to digest its overall impact.

 

[MaureenR]

NEW VERSION

There is a new version of the spreadsheet which now includes Wales

Here is my updated version, and I have also now done my husband's. So far, all his ancestry is from 5 adjoining counties.
Neither of us appear to have Welsh ancestry.

 

[BerylMC]

Here is my updated version including Wales. There doesn't appear to be much difference between this and the 1801 version. Glamorganshire was a surprise, given that my two known ancestors from Wales were from Flintshire and Denbighshire in the north. Possibly relates to my Hughes family in Wiltshire?

 

[jorghes]

Here are my two updated versions - version 1 (with updated colour shades) and version 2 - Version 2 doesn't feel as accurate as version 1 however.

Neither of my paternal lines have any Welsh ancestry and I added a smaller addition of the number of ancestors (on appropriate sheets) born outside of either England or Wales.
I have included myself, my two brothers (B1 and B2), my mother (maternal), my father (paternal) and my paternal grandmother (PG). We each have a sheet at the bottom of the spreadsheet so that I don't clutter the place up with too many different documents.

 

[hibnit]

Here is the spreadsheet with my results for the Wales counties added and I also adjusted the weightings for the 3G Grandparents - Previously I just using 1 for each county regardless of whether the ancestry was split between 2 or more counties.

I don't have any "direct ancestors" born in Wales that I know of but they lived very close to the border in Shropshire/Cheshire and some of them did cross over to Denbighshire/Flintshire at some point so I have known "Blood relatives" born there although I Haven't traced all the lines down to see if they remained there. If they did I would have expected more pages.

I definitely think Yorkshire would be higher up on the list if it wasn't for the 40 page limit.

 

[peter]

Once everyone has posted their updated spreadsheets I'll experiment with different census years to see which give the best results.

 

[stevejm]

my results on the new version spreadsheet

 

[PhilGee]

My updated sheet is attached. I have left some "calculation" data which may be of use - columA is the old county order (England only), columnG are the old columnB county results for comparison with columnF. ColumnI was calculated from the data to the right (formula in I53).

Note that this is a Libreoffice output in .xls format.

Phil

 

[Tim]

Here's my latest file, with 1801, 1881 populations and Wales added.
Columns are colour coded

 

[peter]

Thanks, Tim - unfortunately you're up against the 40 page limit for Lancashire. which prevents that county from going any higher in the table. As for the Isle of Man - I suspect it may suffer from the problem as Anglesey (see above).

 

[Bob Spiers]

Can't remember if I sent my wife's spreadsheet previously although I do recall a separate analysis highlighted a heavy Northamptonshire element as well it should considering some 60% of her ancestry springs from that County. Here is her updated Spreadsheet with the Wales contingent added. Wiltshire appears an anomaly at the top as is Worcestershire but for the opposite reason; I believe it should be higher based on ancestry numbers.

 

[Pauline]

Here are my results for the new spread sheet, and I've added a bit more variation to the highlighting as well. My four main counties are towards the top but Gloucestershire still seems to me lower than it should be, as does Leicestershire.

 

[peter]

Wiltshire appears an anomaly at the top

Yours aren't the only results to have Wiltshire too high up the list - but I know why it's happening and am working on a revised version. If anyone has spotted other persistent (ie across multiple individuals) anomalies please let me know.