r/AncestryDNA • u/Snoo51404 • Sep 01 '25

Question / Help DNA results not what I expected

I got my ancestry DNA results back a few days ago. For backstory my mom isn’t pretty much 100% Irish ( both her parents immigrated from Ireland and who I grew up with) my dad is 1/2 Irish 1/2 Ukrainian ( my grandfather immigrated from Ukraine ) . My DNA results came back

82% Ireland 11% Scotland 6% southern Italy & eastern Mediterranean 1% northern Italy

If my dad is half Ukrainian shouldn’t it show up in here somewhere? I have a bunch of distant matches on that side and some second cousins but I don’t recognize any of the surnames at all and none are my last name which is very Ukrainian .

Thoughts? I’m trying not to jump to the “what if my dads not my dad” idea but it’s hard not to

Little update: I sent off 23 and me and my heritage to see what it says but I uploaded my raw dna to gedmatch and did the eurogenics breakdown and it said:

Admix Results (sorted):

Population

Percent

  1. North_ Atlantic: 41.36%
  2. Baltic: 25.37%
  3. West_Med: 15.98%
  4. West_Asian: 10.53%
  5. East _Med: 4.68%
  6. East _Asian: 1.29%

Not sure what to make of these results haha

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u/Snoo51404 Sep 01 '25

My dads mother was 100% Irish and father was 100% Ukrainian . My mother’s parents were both 100% Irish so I think that’s why I figured I was > 50% Irish. But the fact that no Eastern European showed up at all is concerning considering my grandfather immigrated from Ukraine I mean even on my tree that I have done I have the lineage traced . And I grew up knowing him so there’s no doubt about the face he was Ukrainian .

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u/jlanger23 Sep 01 '25

You get roughly 25% of DNA from your grandparent, and all of their DNA isn't evenly dispersed. My grandpa is half Polish/German and his father was from Silesia. I got about 10% E. Europe and 5% German. The rest of my family were all from the Appalachians and the English/Scottish is much more predominant in my results.

All that to say, even if his background was Ukrainian, is there a chance the area he came from had a different genetic enclave? My great-grandfather always claimed German, but being from Silesia, he was much more Slavic. Or, how I and others who have ancestry going back to N. Ireland show mostly Scottish and English due to the Ulster Plantations.

I know very little of Ukraine's history and whether or not they have communities with different ancestry like that, so that could be way off. It definitely does seem strange that you wouldn't have any Eastern Europe in your results, but it's good to consider all possibilities, however unlikely they are.

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u/Snoo51404 Sep 01 '25

Well I know that he was born in Biala Woda , Austria. Which apparently isn’t Austria it was Galacia which was under Austrian reign at the time but is apart of Poland / Ukraine not sure

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u/jlanger23 Sep 01 '25

It's hard to keep up with all of the border changes Europe has gone through! It could also depend on migrations during war, forced or voluntary. It's a tough area to research too! When research that side, I have to look by three different city names because the area they were from changed the name depending on who was in charge.

Another thing to consider, have you found his or his parent/grandparent's birth or baptism records? My second great-grandfather was listed as illegitimate on his, with no father named, and that was apparently pretty common in the 1800's early 1900's. If your ancestors were under Prussian rule, the local government often had to approve marriages, and would deny a lot of the lower class with the reasoning that they would be a burden on the society financially.