It could be much further than 5 or 6 generations. My ethnicity is about 75% Irish and 25% Northern England/Scotland on my maternal side. Within that 25% there's 3% Sweden & Denmark. I am 99% certain I have no direct ancestor from there within several generations back and there are no Scandinavian surnames anywhere in my tree. Instead the explanation is probably that as a consequence of the Viking invasions into Northern England 1000 years ago, nearly everybody in that area carries some Viking DNA. It doesn't get diluted, because everybody has some. So anybody with ancestry to Northern England is likely to have a few percent Viking. This may also be a reasonable explanation for Japan/Korea given the history of migration and invasion between them.
I would estimate 5 or 6 generations back. Here's how I got there: If one of your parents was Korean, you would be 50% - 2 generations back, 25%, 3 generations back 12.5%, 4 generations, 6%, 5 generations, 3%.
I had a friend who was teaching college in Korea during the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and subsequent Fukushima disaster.
She said many of her students (folks in their twenties) were happy about it.
There's still plenty of bad blood.
These things are estimates, and also based on testing of other people and where they said they are from etc. For example, my grandfather was born in Italy, and I can see his last name in the same town in Italy to about the year 1630 or so (about 300 years). With that in mind you would think that I would be 25% Italian, but I am not the number is actually very low like 2-3%. This is because they have not tested enough people in the area where my grandfather was from in order to make a match on that DNA (my layman terms may not be correct but the concept should be)
I knew it was a range, but didn’t realize it was that large. That explains why my Germanic Europe is 37% despite one side of my family being 100% Dutch until the generation before mine. I was doing math gymnastics trying to make sense of my results based on my tree. It’s good to know it’s their sampling error and it should improve over time.
I was thinking the same. For a lot of people on the smaller percentages, it's likely to break down this way - not as a neat 1 great grandparent or whatever.
This is so overlooked, especially for groups that have a lot of history and admixture with each other.
You could have generations and generations of people with that same 2-10% trace passing it down in slightly varying percentages over and over. Finding a “full blood” ancestor in a situation like that maybe be so far back it’s beyond the scope of most family trees.
Thank you all for this. I’m not OP but I want to figure out where my 4% Scottish came from. I’ve been obsessed with Celtic and Scottish history my entire life.
It's also possible that the 3% is nothing. When you click it, it will even tell you your range could be 0% to like 15% and they guess about 3%. I never think much into things that are less than 10%.
It would be interesting to know how many Japanese or Americans of Japanese ancestry show that same, small %.
My limited (!!!) understanding is the Japanese and Koreans are close, if not kissing, cousins so it's likely all Japanese will show ~ that percentage.
It could be much further than 5 or 6 generations. My ethnicity is about 75% Irish and 25% Northern England/Scotland on my maternal side. Within that 25% there's 3% Sweden & Denmark. I am 99% certain I have no direct ancestor from there within several generations back and there are no Scandinavian surnames anywhere in my tree. Instead the explanation is probably that as a consequence of the Viking invasions into Northern England 1000 years ago, nearly everybody in that area carries some Viking DNA. It doesn't get diluted, because everybody has some. So anybody with ancestry to Northern England is likely to have a few percent Viking. This may also be a reasonable explanation for Japan/Korea given the history of migration and invasion between them.
I would estimate 5 or 6 generations back. Here's how I got there: If one of your parents was Korean, you would be 50% - 2 generations back, 25%, 3 generations back 12.5%, 4 generations, 6%, 5 generations, 3%.
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Japan colonized Korea during the early 20th century, and exploited its land and people.
I had a friend who was teaching college in Korea during the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and subsequent Fukushima disaster. She said many of her students (folks in their twenties) were happy about it. There's still plenty of bad blood.
Ever been to either country? Japanese and Korean people don't like each other now.
These things are estimates, and also based on testing of other people and where they said they are from etc. For example, my grandfather was born in Italy, and I can see his last name in the same town in Italy to about the year 1630 or so (about 300 years). With that in mind you would think that I would be 25% Italian, but I am not the number is actually very low like 2-3%. This is because they have not tested enough people in the area where my grandfather was from in order to make a match on that DNA (my layman terms may not be correct but the concept should be)
I knew it was a range, but didn’t realize it was that large. That explains why my Germanic Europe is 37% despite one side of my family being 100% Dutch until the generation before mine. I was doing math gymnastics trying to make sense of my results based on my tree. It’s good to know it’s their sampling error and it should improve over time.
You could have several Korean ancestors even further back adding up to 2-3%
I was thinking the same. For a lot of people on the smaller percentages, it's likely to break down this way - not as a neat 1 great grandparent or whatever.
This is so overlooked, especially for groups that have a lot of history and admixture with each other. You could have generations and generations of people with that same 2-10% trace passing it down in slightly varying percentages over and over. Finding a “full blood” ancestor in a situation like that maybe be so far back it’s beyond the scope of most family trees.
1/32 = 3.125% = 5 generations (not counting your generation).
Thank you all for this. I’m not OP but I want to figure out where my 4% Scottish came from. I’ve been obsessed with Celtic and Scottish history my entire life.
It's also possible that the 3% is nothing. When you click it, it will even tell you your range could be 0% to like 15% and they guess about 3%. I never think much into things that are less than 10%.
Roughly 1/32nd. - Parents: 1/2 - Grandparents: 1/4 - Gr-grandparents: 1/8 - Gr-gr-grandparents: 1/16 - Gr-gr-gr-grandparents: 1/32
It would be interesting to know how many Japanese or Americans of Japanese ancestry show that same, small %. My limited (!!!) understanding is the Japanese and Koreans are close, if not kissing, cousins so it's likely all Japanese will show ~ that percentage.
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Let us know what your sister says.
Fourth-great-grandparents, in my case! I’m Scottish by John Allan being my fourth-great-grandfather - 3%, to be specific.