The family history pages on this site are about named people and documented records — census returns, certificates, parish registers. This page is different. In March 2026 I uploaded my AncestryDNA raw data to GEDmatch, a free site that lets you run your DNA through various analysis tools, and had a look at what came back. I have no specialist knowledge in this area. What follows is my attempt to report the results and note a few things that interested me.
Ancestry DNA ethnicity estimates
AncestryDNA produces its own ethnicity breakdown and can split each figure between the maternal and paternal chromosomes. The headline numbers weren’t surprising for someone with deep Yorkshire roots, but the split was more interesting.
| Region | Total | Maternal | Paternal |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Midlands | 53% | 17% | 36% |
| Southeastern England & NW Europe | 12% | 12% | 0% |
| West Midlands | 11% | 11% | 0% |
| Sweden | 6% | 6% | 0% |
| Northwestern Germany | 5% | 0% | 5% |
| The Netherlands | 4% | 4% | 0% |
| Cornwall | 3% | 0% | 3% |
| Denmark | 2% | 0% | 2% |
| Northern Wales & NW England | 2% | 0% | 2% |
| Leinster, Ireland | 2% | 0% | 2% |
Two things stood out. The 2% Danish falls entirely on my father’s side. Yorkshire was Danelaw territory, so that probably reflects centuries of Norse settlement absorbed into the population rather than a single identifiable ancestor. The 6% Swedish is different. It falls entirely on my mother’s side, in the Brown family line. As far as I understand it, ancient Viking heritage spread across many generations should show up on both sides of your DNA in roughly equal amounts, so a lopsided result like this might point to a more recent Swedish ancestor in the Brown line — someone within the past few centuries rather than the Viking age. But I cant identify any such person in the documentary record. Their identity is an open question.
GEDmatch admixture analysis
This is the output of an analysis known as Eurogenes K13:
| Component | Percentage |
|---|---|
| North_Atlantic | 50.20% |
| Baltic | 23.31% |
| West_Med | 13.39% |
| West_Asian | 6.97% |
| East_Med | 3.93% |
| Minor components | ~2% |
I looked into the first two. North_Atlantic — just over half — seems to represent the pre-Roman British population. Baltic covers Anglo-Saxon and Viking together in one number, which is frustrating. A different calculator (K36) separates them and shows Anglo-Saxon at around twice the Viking figure. For Yorkshire, that seemed about right.
Ancient DNA comparison
GEDmatch also lets you compare your result against published ancient DNA samples — actual genomes from archaeological finds. My three strongest matches were:
| Sample | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Rathlin individual | c.1900 BCE | Rathlin Island, Ireland |
| Bell Beaker individual | c.2400 BCE | Germany |
| Melton individual | c.200 BCE | Melton, Yorkshire |
The Rathlin and Bell Beaker matches apparently come up for most people of British Isles ancestry. The Melton one is more interesting, since Melton is in Yorkshire. The person lived around 200 BCE. I’m not descended from this specific individual — that’s not how these comparisons work. But my DNA resembles theirs. They were living in Iron Age Yorkshire around two thousand years before my earliest documented ancestors. I find that interesting.
The Swedish ancestry — an open question
The 6% Swedish is the result I keep coming back to. The 4% Dutch — also concentrated on the maternal side — might be part of the same story or might not. I have no explanation for either. My documented Brown line goes back to Albert Edward Brown, born 1858, and what lies behind him isn’t fully established. Somewhere in there might be an answer, but I haven’t found it yet.
A note on these tools
The GEDmatch calculators were built by volunteers using reference data from around 2013–2016 and haven’t been updated since. The percentages are estimates, not precise measurements. Anyone with real expertise in population genetics would have much more to say about the limitations. I don’t have that expertise, so I’ve tried to say proportionately less.
All admixture analysis was conducted via GEDmatch free tools (Eurogenes K13, Eurogenes K36, MDLP World-22) on kit GZ3914281 in March 2026, using AncestryDNA raw data.
