Incidence of DNA testing in western countries?

Question

I have a distant cousin who married a German prince.  The couple have descendants.  Should I look for dna matches with people living in Germany?

Apart from the family above, I remain interested in the takeup of autosomal dna testing across Europe and North America.  I have made google searches for statistics without success.  Someone may know of a reference.

Comments

Last I heard, relatively few people in Germany have opted for DNA testing. I manage some kits with German ancestry and most of the matches on those lines are via descendants that have emigrated elsewhere, like Australia and the USA.

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I have had several dna tests processed and the only one that I found possible German dna matches was My Heritage.  Now my problem with confirming is that I think they haven't added my direct line.  Still hoping.  Good luck.

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Thanks to Leandra, Janice and all who have answered/commented.

Answer 1

If your distant cousin is greater then a third cousin then it is likely you don’t have enough shared DNA for a Family Finder / AncestryDNA / 23andMe type test to report a match.  If your distant cousin lived relatively recently then she would not have many descendants, and who knows if those descendants have DNA tested at the same company as you or if they have uploaded to GEDmatch.

Comments

Peter, thank you for your answer.  I am finding autosomal  dna matches with other cousins having some of the same ancestry.  These matches are not strong but have been useful to me.  It’s true, the couple concerned have just a few descendants.

I do have matches with a few people having German family names but these are descendants of immigrants to Australia, USA etc.  I don’t think I’ve ever matched with a German though I have matches with Swedes and Norwegians.  One reason might be that few people in Germany take tests.

Answer 2

Purely anecdotal but, for what it's worth, my mother has several matches who list there current residence as Germany. I haven't kept specific track of them but I can recall at least three, mainly at MyHeritage if my memory serves me (which it doesn't always). Her father's parents both immigrated from Prussia to the US in the 1880s with their parents when they were young. I'm pretty certain there are no German ancestors on her mother's side within DNA matching range.

Comments

A MyHeritage member from Austria just confirmed a Smart Match with an ancestor of my maternal grandfather. You might want to upload your results there if you haven't already.

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Paul,  Thanks for your experience with MyHeritage.  I have dna there as well as some other sites.

Answer 3

Geneanet has added a DNA section.  Geneanet is like the European version of Ancestry trees.  User doated trees.  No sources required.  But a lot of Europeans use it and I have a lot of hits from people not USA based.

Also this is a German DNA firm.  So I suspect they are getting some European business. https://www.yseq.net/  I understand that the people who started  this were at one time involved with FTDNA or the lab they use.   

I know several people who have used them.  

I have a cousin who lives in Germany and had her DNA done she is here on WikiTree from time to time.  

If you are a member of the Germany Project and belong o the email group you could post a question there.   Or let me know if you want me to do that for you. Not everyone checks G2G so some might miss this.  

Comments

Laura,  Geneanet is a worthwhile site where I had a subscription once.  l have my dna there but need to look for matches more often.

That German firm is new to me so must check it out, thanks.  I had overlooked that WikiTree has a Germany Project.

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I use Geneanet for clues.  Every now and then I come across a sourced profile and do a happy dance!  But like so many other user sites without guidelines like we have here, I find a lot of inaccurate profiles.   I found one where someone had married two men in the 1700s.  They though Jean was a woman because in English it is a female name. But in French it is John and a mae name.  I sent an email and got that taken down...