DNA survey - please respond

[peter]

I hadn't considered that, but it is quite possible and may well explain why Kent is so inexplicably high in the chart, They were in Holborn in 1800 but born 25 years earlier. Thanks.

"From approximately three-quarters of a million people in 1760, London continued a strong pattern of growth through the last four decades of the eighteenth century. In 1801, when the first reliable modern census was taken, greater London recorded 1,096,784 souls; rising to a little over 1.4 million inhabitants by 1815" (OldBaileyOnline)

 

[BerylMC]

Second go at attaching my file. I hope it's of use. My results seem to be all over the place - my highlighted counties are at rows 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 25, 35, and 36.

 

[stevejm]

My first post to the forum, fingers crossed that this works.

My results attached, including 3xGs.

No surprises with Berkshire at the top (God's Own County), but I was surprised that Bucks was so far down, especially as I have no ancestry in some of the counties above it, eg Yorks.

Lord knows where Kent comes into this!

Hurrah - patience is always rewarded (as grandmother always said) - thanks Peter for sorting this out

 

[peter]

Second go at attaching my file. I hope it's of use. My results seem to be all over the place - my highlighted counties are at rows 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 25, 35, and 36.

That's because you've used the original spreadsheet, not the revised one, which you'll find here. Don't worry - it'll only take you a moment to update it.

But Buckinghamshire will still come top so it's worth considering whether the forebears of your Berkshire ancestors might have come from the adjoining county. BTW, if you haven't read through the discussion you might not be aware that it's the ancestors of your 3G grandparents that you need to know (or surmise). Some people have added an extra column to the spreadsheet indicating how many 3G grandparents there are for each county - I'm attaching a copy of my latest apreadsheet for information.

 

[PhoebeW]

I don't qualify for this exercise as I don't have recent English ancestry. But as most Welsh people seem to have at least one English Genetic Community on Ancestry, reflecting migration, I thought I would have a look.

It does make sense for some of my known migration connections:
# 1 Lancashire 33 pages 25.8
# 2 Cheshire 17 pages 27.1
followed by Staffordshire; Yorkshire; Devon; Gloucestershire; Warwickshire;Wiltshire; Somerset

 

[peter]

I don't have recent English ancestry

How far back are your English ancestors?

We'll be expanding to cover Wales soon - my wife is 3/4 Welsh (her spreadsheet correctly put Gloucestershire, which accounts for the other 1/4, at the top of the list).

 

[Helen7]

We'll be expanding to cover Wales soon.

That would be good. My husband is half Welsh so it would be interesting to see how that works out. The English half puts his main county - Middlesex - near the bottom, but I think you said the London factor makes Middx results unreliable.

 

[PhoebeW]

How far back are your English ancestors?

Two known 6 x great grandparents from Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
A 4 x great grandmother surname Booley born Flintshire (her paternal line might be Cheshire)
A 3 x great grandmother surname Barrington born Pembrokeshire (more likely to be from Ireland)

 

[MaureenR]

Here is my spreadsheet. It worked fairly well.

 

[peter]

It worked fairly well.

I suspect that in time you'll find that some or all of your Cumberland and Shropshire lines originated elsewhere - a lot depends on how far you've been able to take them back.

 

[BerylMC]

That's because you've used the original spreadsheet, not the revised one, which you'll find here. Don't worry - it'll only take you a moment to update it.

Trying again - 3rd time lucky? There are fewer counties in this one, because in my previous attempts I included ancestors going further back - e.g., a Wiltshire one's parents came from Berkshire.

 

[peter]

There are fewer counties in this one, because in my previous attempts I included ancestors going further back - e.g., a Wiltshire one's parents came from Berkshire.

Apologies if I haven't made this clear - what matters is not where your 3G grandparents came from, but where their ancestors came from - so in that example Berkshire would have been correct (assuming that's as far as you have traced back those lines).

When you upload your revised spreadsheet please use a range of colours to highlight the counties, as in my example - it enables me and others to assess the effectiveness of the algorithm at a glance. Thanks!

 

[Helen7]

Apologies if I haven't made this clear - what matters is not where your 3G grandparents came from, but where their ancestors came from

I've had another go at the highlighting in my spreadsheet, concentrating on my 3G grandparents' ancestry not just where they happened to be born, and added the extra column about the 3G grandparents. It doesn't change things much, Lancashire still dominant, with the others rather spread out.

 

[MaureenR]

I suspect that in time you'll find that some or all of your Cumberland and Shropshire lines originated elsewhere - a lot depends on how far you've been able to take them back.

One family came to London from Cumberland (via Liverpool) in the 1840s. I can trace most lines back to 1650s in Cumberland.
The Shropshire ancestors go from about 1750 back to 1670s or so in the county. Some moved to Kent 1760s.

 

[hibnit]

Spreadsheet attached

3G Grandparent Ancestry County Totals:
Yorkshire 12
Shropshire 8
Staffs 5
Cheshire 4
Lancashire 2
Lincolnshire 2
Suffolk 1

 

[BerylMC]

Apologies if I haven't made this clear - what matters is not where your 3G grandparents came from, but where their ancestors came from - so in that example Berkshire would have been correct (assuming that's as far as you have traced back those lines).

When you upload your revised spreadsheet please use a range of colours to highlight the counties, as in my example - it enables me and others to assess the effectiveness of the algorithm at a glance. Thanks!

I've redone the counties, and added the colours. All traced back to the 1700s. Of my remaining 3xGs, ten were from Scotland, two were from Wales, and three are unknown so far, although one, a Gravatt, must have come from south-east England where the surname originates.

 

[jorghes]

I am trying to change the tones of the colours in my spreadsheet, but I am having a lot of difficulty figuring out which ones to darken.

If I take my maternal ancestry back as far as I can, I have (other than the Welsh contingent - mindful most of that is in the borders) Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Middlesex/Surrey, Durham, Yorkshire, Hereford, Northumberland and a large portion of simply "unknown" - though some of that is likely to be Wales, the rest most likely somewhere around Staffordshire. If we're highlighting for largest portions, my maternal ancestry would probably come down to Staffordshire/Shropshire and Gloucestershire, with a good dose of Durham and Wales (Monmouth/Montgomery/Radnor).

My paternal ancestry is a little harder, although a large dose of it is Scotland, Ireland (Ulster) and Dutch Jewish.
My paternal grandfather had a total of two English grandparents (the other 2 are Scottish), and of those two English grandparents we get the counties of: Hampshire, Yorkshire, Sussex and Middlesex (with a firm ? as I haven't traced that particular family back any further).

My paternal grandmother had one English grandparent - the other 3 are Scottish, Ulster Irish/Scottish and Dutch Jewish. From that single grandparent we get the counties of: Surrey/Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Cambridgeshire (with a ? - simply because everyone else moved to Cambridgeshire, and I can't figure out if they did too as of yet.)

If you count my 3xGG's birthplaces, it becomes even more confusing, which is why I haven't offered it (too much moving around, my Dutch Jewish 3xGGs were both born in England - Middlesex and Sussex, but you can't offer that as an ancestral homeland). But it's difficult to decide what should be highlighted as having the majority of my ancestors when I can't really narrow it down all that much - and the further back I go I seemingly find more and more variety!

- I don't know if it helps, but my LivingDNA results give me 79.3% British Ancestry (it's still struggling to appropriately categorise my European Jewish Ancestry) and gives the following totals:
Standard subregions: Devon (16.7%); South Central England (12.3%); North Yorkshire (10%); Northumbria (9.8%); South Wales (5.6%); South Wales Borders (5.1%); North Wales (3.6%), South England (3.2%), Aberdeenshire (2%) and Orkney & the Shetland Islands (1.6%)
Cautious subregions: South England related (32.9%); North Yorkshire related (19.9%); South Wales related (10.7%); North Wales (3.6%); Orkney Related (3.6%)

These don't particularly help me (nor possibly anyone else) since I don't have records to link back to some of these places - and because while I'd love to say all the Southern England could be my paternal side - the "South Central England" would include my mother's Gloucestershire relatives.

I will be very interested to see if the same algorithm can be used to compare my Welsh ancestry and possibly the Scottish as well - anything that's a help would be appreciated.

 

[peter]

I am trying to change the tones of the colours in my spreadsheet, but I am having a lot of difficulty figuring out which ones to darken.

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.

 

[peter]

NEW VERSION

There is a new version of the spreadsheet which now includes Wales, and which has population counts updated from 1801 to 1881 (which seems to give better results). The two spreadsheets attached show my results - note that I have zero matches for Anglesey so inserted 0.51 as the number of pages of results - and my wife's. Sian's ancestors are 3/4 Welsh and her English ancestors came from Gloucestershire (I haven't highlighted the counties as my wife's tree is a work in progress).

 

[Pauline]

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

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