I’m a serious amateur genealogist & had both the Ancestry & 23 and Me tests done, along with a few smaller, lesser known companies.
Yes, we did confirm a lot of the lines I’ve worked on forever, like my mom’s New England & dad’s Irish roots. No real shockers there.
However, we did have a few surprises and a confirmation of a suspected lineage. On my mom’s side we have a small amount of Spanish/Portuguese/Italian ancestry, and on my dad’s side, we have a small amount of African/Russian/Finnish ancestry. We were utterly shocked about the Spanish bit from my mom. We were not expecting that. Mom’s side always thought they were completely Anglo-Saxon-Celtic.
The African side from my dad wasn’t a shock; we had suspected it for years but had to wait until some relatives died off to prove it. Sadly, none of the black people that I have the African link with want to make contact. It’s also from an illegitimate connection, so there’s a lot of questions from the non-black relatives from that side too. As you can tell, I’m not too popular with most of the folks from that branch!!
The DNA testing is amazing, and I strongly recommend it to all, even with the small chance you might find something ‘shocking’. As a genealogist, that stuff is the most fun to find!
See my comments #212 and #213. Perhaps something of interest there. Regarding your Spanish bit, a number of Spanish sailors from the Spanish Armada against Queen Elizabeth were shipwrecked on Irish shores and perhaps Welsh shores. The Irish and Spanish were Catholic and the Welsh weren’t too happy with the British either. Many a liaison probably took place. Have you ever heard the term “black Irish?” That refers to the coloring of those Irish with some Spanish ancestry. If you read #212 you will see that my husbands mother from Iowa hid the fact of his Indian ancestry for many years. In the early and even mid 1900s Indians were often refused service of alcohol in Iowa.