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[Misc] Archaeological DNA matches



Fungus

Well-known member
NSC Patron
May 21, 2004
7,155
Truro
I have been thinking this over. The ancestry algorithm only works a few generations as it's regressing from living people. If this 23 thing produces actual matches with historic people, is that issue irrelevant?
Not really relevant, whichever end you look from. For historical matches, I believe* they only use Y-DNA (direct male line) and mtDNA (direct female line), as Autosomal DNA (your typical Ancestry and MyHeritage tests) is too diluted after so many generations (ie. sharing mum's and dad's DNA). At such small amounts, pretty much everyone would "match" everyone else - but 99.99% would be false matches, and unprovable by other means. Also Y-DNA and (especially) mtDNA mutate at much slower rates than Autosomal, meaning it's feasible to estimate a date range for matches (ie. number of generations back to common ancestors).

* happy to be corrected.
 






alanfp

Active member
Feb 23, 2024
81
I normally state my ethnicity on box-ticking forms as "100% Anglo-Saxon with perhaps just a dash of Viking".
 


Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
25,504
Worthing
I’m 14% Italian and 86% ****.
 


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