If u have lots of nationalities in your background wouldn't it be better to check via DNA (blood)?

Question

my ethnic background comes from almost all of northern Europe, and I am interested in Genealogy however I read somewhere that DNA (maybe a mouth swab, not blood) can tell your genetic ancestry which in turn can tell where your ancestors are from

Answer 1

DNA can tell you that you had ancestors with common traits as others from various countries. But you already knew your ancestors were from a variety of countries. What DNA won't tell you is that your grandmother was born in a small town on the Canadian border and that her father was born in Quebec and her mother was born in northern Minnesota. It won't tell you that her mother was from Belgium and her father was from the Netherlands. Nor will it tell you that your grandfather's family was exiled from France for standing up to the tyranny of Napoleon III, nor that his family left France for Switzerland and married into a line Anabaptists separatists who were exiled to the Palatinate.

DNA won't tell you the names of the people in your tree, their stories, their lot in life. The only thing it can tell you is that you have a little Swedish and a little Polish, but it won't tell you if the Swedish comes from the invasion of Poland or whether it came from someone marrying into your family in Minnesota.

Personally, I want to know the people from whom I descend...not just a random list of countries that I already knew for myself from good research. But we're all different, I guess

Answer 2

Genealogy is the identification of your ancestors and relatives, starting with yourself, and working back methodically to locate records concering THOSE direct individuals. It is far easier to become familiar with those records (they are easily found, with some logic and skill), that will verify that your gr grandfather was born in Ireland or Germany.
Dna is much broader than that... it may tell you that all your ancestors came from Europe, perhaps as far back as 500 or more years. But.. you already guessed as much, right? Given that "nationalities" are a political concept, and political boundaries are very unstable, it still won't tell you much.
DNA gives you an ethnic group. It tells you nothing about what kind of people your family was. Doesn't even tell you WHICH of them were from England, France, Russia, et al.
The common use of DNA in current genealogy is not focused on what you are discussing. It normally is used by several individuals, who believe they have a common ancestor in the more recent history, and by comparing samples from those persons, it either confirms or denies the already available research.

Answer 3

Many nationalities...you mean, you parents / grandparents...were all from different countries? Or you think that from your physical appearance you must be mixed and you want to make sure?

You can do DNA testing, but you wouldnt use blood for such tests. Blood testing is quite limited, used in paternal testing. It can also be used to compare 2 ppl (like in a crime scene). Certain limitation markers need to be used to narrow down differences between individuals.
For knowing your origins, you would use mouth swabs to obtain a sample of all of your body's cells. Then the testing could be carried out on either your Y-chromosomes to know about your paternal lineage (up to 500 years) or your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to know about your ancestors maternal lineage (up to a few 1,000 years, maybe 50,000- 100,000 years).
mtDNA is passed on from mothers ONLY to ALL offsprings (explained by the fact that mitochondria are the power station of the cell, and sperm cells used up all their energy to reach the ovule and so the remaining mitochondria are from the mom only). mtDNA undergoes mutationsvery very very rarely, after few thousands years. For this reason mtDNA testing enables you / scientist to know about human migrations through time, and estimate your ethnic background and relatedness to a certain group of ppl.

Answer 4

It can certainly tell you where your ancesters have been. Remember that nationality is a very new thing in the history of man. Some are very new. This will not tell the human stories of who and what they were, just where they have traveled. All of our folks left Africa a long time ago.

Answer 5

???? better for what ????

What is your question ???

here is a possible answer ...

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

Give it a try ... it will cost you few dollars ... but you will learn a lot about where you came from. Unless, of course you have no clue about what your question really is. Then ???? I have no idea what to tell you .. other than ... rewind your brain and start over.