Friday, July 29, 2016

The average Briton is 37% British - with the remainder of their genes coming from European ancestors from as far afield as Scandinavia, Spain and Greece

DNA testing has also revealed how the people of Yorkshire are officially the most British people in the land, with their genetic makeup containing an average 41% Anglo-Saxon stock. London, meanwhile, is the most ethnically diverse, while the people of Wales have the highest proportion of ancestry from Spain and Portugal. The analysis of the genetic history of two million people worldwide by family history website Ancestry was based on data collated from the AncestryDNA home DNA test that examines a person's entire genome via a simple saliva sample. Results reveal the genetic ethnic make-up of the average person in Britain and what countries and regions they can trace their ancestry back to over the past 500 years. They found that the average British resident is 36.94% Anglo-Saxon, 21.59% Irish (Celtic) and 19.91% Western European - the region covered today by France and Germany. The next three regional ethnicities in the average British resident are Scandinavia, which accounted for 9.20% of the genetic heritage, the Iberian Peninsula, with 3.05% of their gene coming from Spain or Portugal, and Italy and Greece, which accounted for 1.98%t of their DNA. Breakdowns of the data also reveal differences between residents of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and even within English regions. English people have significantly less Irish ancestry - just 20% of their genetic make-up - on average compared to people living in Scotland (43.84%), Wales (31.99%) and Northern Ireland (48.49%). But residents of England do have the highest amount of Scandinavian (9.39%) and French/German ancestry (20.45%). People living in Scotland have the highest amount of Finnish/Northwest Russian heritage (1.31%), which is perhaps explained by their geographic proximity. Welsh residents have the highest proportion of ancestry from the Iberian Peninsula (3%). Within England, London is the most ethnically diverse region, having the highest amount of heritage from 17 of the 26 regions analyzed. Yorkshire was found to have the highest percentage of Anglo-Saxon ancestry (41.17%), while the East Midlands has the most Scandinavian ancestry (10.37%) as well as the most Eastern European (2.47%). The East of England has the most Italian/Greek (2.53%) and French/German ancestry (22.52%), as well as the highest amount from the Iberian Peninsula (3.43%). Within England, the North East is home to people with the most Celtic ancestry (27.58%). Analysis of the data provides a prediction of the locations of ancestors from 26 separate worldwide populations including Great Britain and Ireland, Europe, Scandinavia, Asia and South and North Africa. In contrast to Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA tests, which only test the male or female lines of your family respectively, the AncestryDNA autosomal test targets the last few hundred or thousand years - enabling people to learn more about their more immediate ancestral history.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you mean 37% English?

Average Joe said...

I was just summarizing the Daily Mail article. Personally I would have put it as "37% Anglo-Saxon".