And maybe never
The Legal Genealogist wants everyone who’s ever taken a DNA test that provides a set of ethnicity or admixture estimate percentages to repeat after me:
“It’s not soup yet.”1
And it may never be.
So… while I was on the road (and coping with the now-dry-but-once-flooded basement), Family Tree DNA released its new myOrigins ethnicity estimates, a major upgrade from the old Population Finder.
It’s a major step forward in our quest to gain information about our distant ancestors — where they lived, where they came from. It’s as good as it comes given the limits of science. It applies the very best of a set of statistical algorithms to what science knows to come up with a formula that tells us what it can about our origins.
And the very best of what it can tell us is still a guess.
Now you may be sitting there thinking, “but they don’t teach this in law school. How can she know?”
I know because I’ve spent a fortune testing relatives who’ve been kind enough to let me manage their results. And I can see what happens when, for example, you apply the very best of a set of statistical algorithms to what science knows to come up with a formula — and then apply that formula to people whose results should be pretty much identical.
People like my mother’s full blood siblings.
Four of them have tested. They all share the same mother, same father, so same grandparents and great grandparents on back into the mists of time. Their DNA establishes that fact beyond any question. No non-paternal events here, no undocumented adoptions.
So if all four have exactly the same parents, and grandparents, and great grandparents, and on back through the generations, they ought to have the same genetic admixture, right? Ethnically, looking back at their heritage 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years ago, they can’t be different.
Except they are, at least according to this very best of statistical algorithms. Take a look at the chart below:
So… the population group labeled European Northlands “centers on the people of Scandinavia.”2 Does this family have any Scandinavian ancestry? Three of the four show traces, the fourth shows none at all.
Well, then, what about the North Circumpolar group — a group that “began around the arctic as hunter-gatherer peoples … (and) stretches from Lappland east to Greenland”? Three of the four show traces of that, the fourth shows none at all.
What about the North Mediterranean Basin population? A “distinct European cluster… situated in the southwest of Europe from Spain to Greece.”3 Three of the four show traces of this group, the fourth shows none at all.
We might be tempted to say yes to all three of those cases, because three out of four — 75% — of the siblings tested do show traces.
But what about the Trans-Ural Peneplain? The “dominant group between the tundra and the steppe in Eurasia’s northwest … from the area where the North European Coastal Plain joins the forests of Central Siberia.”4 One has it, three don’t. Eastern Afroasiatic? A group that “developed in the Persian Gulf north toward the Zagros Mountains.”5 One has it, three don’t.
How can this be?
We have to keep in mind what these admixture tests do: they take the DNA of living people — us, the test takers — and they compare it to the DNA of other living people — people whose parents and grandparents and, sometimes, even great grandparents all come from one geographic area. Then they try to extrapolate backwards into time. Nobody is out there running around, digging up 500- or 1,000-year-old bones, extracting DNA for us to compare our own DNA to.
So coming up with these percentages in these tests requires this fundamental assumption: that the DNA of the reference populations — those groups whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents and more all come from the same area — is likely to reflect what we might see if we could test the DNA of people who lived in that area hundreds and thousands of years ago.
In other words, these percentages are:
• estimates,
• estimates based on comparisons not to actual historical populations but rather to small groups of people living today, and
• estimates based purely on the statistical odds that those small groups tell us something meaningful about past populations.
These limitations are true of all of the testing companies, not just Family Tree DNA. I’ve tested with them all, and my own results are — literally and figuratively — all over the map. I’m German with some companies, not German at all with another. Largely Scandinavian with one, only slightly Scandinavian with the others.
It isn’t soup yet.
And because we aren’t about to go digging up those old bones, it may never be soup.
DNA testing for genealogical purposes is a wonderful tool. But people get disappointed when they see these percentages and they don’t match up to their own paper trail and don’t match up from company to company. And when they get disappointed, they may lose interest in genealogy or in DNA testing. And when they lose interest, we lose out on the paper trail information they might add to our mix.
Bottom line: We need to educate our friends and our families, our DNA cousins, to the limits of what these percentages can show — and to show them all the other things DNA testing really can help with.
Because friends don’t let friends do DNA testing only to get these percentages.
SOURCES
- For those too young to remember the reference, the Lipton Soup Company had a string of ads in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The mother in the ad would begin preparing Lipton soup, a child would ask, over and over, “is it soup yet?” and the mother would answer “not yet” over and over until finally she’d say, “It’s soup!” So “not soup yet” means “not finished” or “not ready.” ↩
- “Population Clusters in myOrigins,” Family Tree DNA Learning Center (https://www.familytreedna.com/learn : accessed 17 May 2014). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
Thanks, Judy! I too have tested with Family Tree DNA and I too was amused when I saw myOrigins. The 95% European didn’t change (didn’t surprise me since I’m so white I’m OMG!) but the other 5% skipped a whole continent.
I did a statistical analysis of my own and realized that Family Tree DNA only has a fraction of 1% of the world population to compare results (same with every other testing company). Genetic DNA isn’t there yet and won’t be until a few million more people get tested.
I guess I better get out and promote DNA testing.
If I can offer a minor caveat… Genetic DNA is there. It’s just this one little part of it, the admixture part, that isn’t — and may never be there in the kind of detail we all want. (I don’t know about you, but forget just telling me what country my DNA comes from — I want every last jot and tittle of my DNA to have a name tag!) We absolutely can — and do — use DNA for all kinds of research questions right now. But answering the question of exactly where in the world our ancestors came from in more detail than the broad continental basis? Not now, maybe never.
If one of the siblings had an estimate of greater than 25% of one of the reference populations and each of the other siblings did not at least have a trace of that same reference population then I think the results would be suspect. But as the difference between the siblings is all in those estimates of reference populations below 10%, it really just looks like the random shuffling of the deck that is DNA recombination. But hey, it’s been a long time since college statistics so perhaps someone more up-to-speed on statistics could comment?
I’m not a statistician, and don’t play one even in makebelieve life! — but there’s an awfully wide gap to my way of thinking between 69% European coastal plain and 39%!
For my ethnicity estimates on AncestryDNA, my Great Britain percentage is given as 30%, with a range of 0%-56%. The 30% represents the *average* of each of 40 different segments tested for a Great Britain ethnicity (apparently at least one of my segments showed no Great Britain ancestry, and at least one showed 56%).
I have no idea how many segments Family Tree DNA tests for, but if they use a similar procedure, it would probably be more interesting to see what *range* they predict for each geographic area, and then to see if the ranges overlap between siblings.
I would love to see how each segment tests out, Drew! That’s a piece of information that might actually be useful for genealogy!
Drew, as with most things to do with DNA I feel clueless. But, since two great minds such as Spencer Wells and Judy Russell both express opinions that it’s a valuable tool I demur to their intellects.
However, I am not grasping the percentage, range, or those 40 segments of Great Britain ethnicity that Ancestry DNA uses. Can you, Ancestry, or Judy clarify that a bit?
I’m still new to DNA testing, but I’m not impressed with FTDNA’s latest ‘myorigins’. I am a multiracial person and know most of my family history, (African, Native,-both of these are recent, G-G grandparents were African,- East European, French, Swedish, Irish, Scottish, East Asian, and West Asian),and FTDNA’s results didn’t pick up on anything but the Swedish and Irish, (aka European Coastal and European Northlands. I’ve tested with other companies and they showed some of the other racial components.
As far as I can see, each company has its pluses and minuses — and nobody has it right.
Thank you for being on top of this. My 23 autosomal has turned up some cousins on both sides. And I posted results to myheritage also.
An Ancestry spit kit goes out tomorrow (I flunked their 1st one !)
I’m hoping hard my lost since birth half brother has tested. Or a child of his?
The matches that have turned up for me so far have given me hope this is not like palm reading. Not just for entertainment purposes only.
August 2017
What you say was pretty clear to me after reading Ancestry.com’s explanation of how their DNA Ethnicity Estimate is generated. The problem is you do not get to access this information before you buy the DNA test (as far as I know). So thanks very much for enlightening potential customers about this. In my case the Ethnicity Estimate did not show me anything I did not already have a good idea of. My only surprise is I’m more Irish than expected. For those who are truly clueless about their origins an Ethnicity Estimate may point where to go looking. I think for most folks it is a waste of time.
I can’t stress enough that ONLY the ethnicity part is at issue here. There is so much we can all learn from autosomal testing — it’s just that these percentages aren’t really a good reason to test in the first place. So anyone interesting in genealogy SHOULD do autosomal testing, but for genealogy — for finding cousins and getting access to those parts of our family story that only those cousins have. And if we ever get decent percentage to go along with the autosomal cousins we find, well, that’ll be a net plus.
I am new to the DNA testing. Just received my results and have been avidly reading and educating. I think what needs to be pointed out when testing siblings is the randomness of that 50% you receive from each parent. Just because you share the same parents does not mean you inherited the same genes. Each of us is a unique genetic combination. I am looking forward to seeing my brother’s results. We look nothing alike so I don’t need a DNA test to tell me we inherited different versions of those genes. Comparing our DNA results using the admixture testing will be very interesting and I will not be surprised if our percentages are way off.
Your admixture actually should be fairly close… but it’ll be interesting to see if it is!
I agree with Barbara. On AVERAGE, we get 25% of our DNA from each grandparent. But that’s an average. The possible range is 0%-50% from each grandparent. YOU may have inherited 10% Paternal GFather, 40% Paternal GMother; 10% Maternal GFather, 40% Maternal GMother. Now, assume the two grandparents you got a heavy mixture of happened to both be made up of a certain population type that neither of the other two grandparents had. Are you seeing the possibilities? If your sibling gets an opposite disbursement — or even just a more even disbursement — then what showed up STRONG for you might show up extremely weak in your sibling; or what showed up as moderately decent amounts for you may show zero for your sibling.
Did you get the results yet? I’d be curious to know. 🙂
I think you have it right. It’s really a crap shoot for each person as to where all those thousands of ancestors, as you go further back in time, genes will fall. In my family 4 of my siblings & I take after my paternal grandmother while my one brother looks like my paternal grandfather. The other brother and sister are strawberry blondes (the rest of us brunettes). The sister has very similar facial features to the rest of us. The brother, the youngest, aside from our grandmother’s pug nose which all of us except the brother who takes after our grandfather have, takes after my mother’s maternal grandfather.
Don’t confuse phenotype (what you look like) with genotype (what your genes say); they really are two different beasties. You can look very much like one grandparent and yet be genetically much more similar to another.
AncestryDNA had it’s Scandanavian ethnicity so ramped up that people got mad at them. So they came up with v2 which still has its problems. Some I have pointed out here:
http://ancestryforums.custhelp.com/posts/cd43442e65
Anyone should be taking these estimates with a teaspoon of salt.
Yours is another side to the Scandinavian issue, for sure.
Yep, my phenotype definitely doesn’t fit with 23’s having me as 37% Scandinavian. Plus yet more as Finnish and Baltic. Closer to the 7% Greek and Italian and Persian I’ve been pegged as all my life. Wondered why Scandinavian.
I have requested Combo Chromo 2 tests from BritainsDNA and I a waiting for my results later this month or early Jan/15. I am confirmed Y-HP I1*(Ultra Norse Viking descent of either norwegian or Danish origin) (at least 5,000 to 8,000 Yrs old) and mtDNA HP H*. The star indicate undetermined. I
I think you are sure of the four siblings parents, and perhaps grandparents, but how can you be sure of the parentage farther back? Would that not show up in the dna of the siblings? The only parentage we can be sure of is the mother to child line…
Judith, the point here is that — no matter what the distant parentage of the siblings turns out to be — all four of them have exactly the same parents and therefore the same grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents and so on. Presumably, an ethnicity test should record the same ethnicity for all of them. It doesn’t. It can’t. That’s why it’s at best an estimate.
That’s just the thing though. We are NOT the same ethnicity as our siblings — not identically; not when it comes to genetics. Sure, siblings have identical ethnicity in the genealogical sense, which basically assigns the same evenly-divided percentage to every ancestor. But genetically, siblings are not (exactly) the same ethnicity. On average, many families will have siblings with very similar ethnicity (but never identical!), and likewise statistics tell us there will be some families whose siblings have fairly different ethnicity. Obviously, if MOST families start showing up as having siblings with massively different ethnicity, there is a problem with the algorithm or something. But statistically, there will be a whole range of outcomes possible.
EDIT: Maybe the issue here is the definition of ethnicity? It sounds to me that you are thinking of it in terms of purely genealogical descent. However, we are clearly discussing DNA tests, so in this context, ethnicity must mean “what part of the world did your DNA come from” and not “what part of the world did your genealogically ancestors come from.” Since each sibling gets a different percentage of the grandparents DNA, they will get different percentages of those ethnicities, and hence siblings will never be perfectly identical matches ethnically unless they got the EXACT same percentage from each grandparent that their sibling did (I.E. 23.4532947562623758573…% )
PS: Let me add that I am loving your articles, in case you haven’t noticed from all my comments. haha And please take my comments as me thinking out loud, and asking for your input, confirmation or otherwise. I probably should phrase more of my “statements” as questions since I don’t mean to imply I am 100% sure but am rather simply trying to make sense of the issues. 🙂
As you note, defining ethnicity is at the heart of this, Walker. And the whole point here is that even if you could assign those very detailed percentages down to the one-kazillionth of a percent, we still wouldn’t know for sure that the admixture assignments were right. No matter what we do, we’re still comparing living people (you and me and our siblings who test) against other living people — and therein lies the rub.
I read that siblings can technically be a different “ethnic mix” because they DON’T inherit the same genetic info from each parent. So one sibling could inherit more genetic info from one ethnic region and another could inherit more info from another ethnic region, making their admixtures legitimately different. What wouldn’t make sense is if they show genetic ancestry that neither of the parents possess. As long as the parents possess that genetic info, though, then siblings can inherit it in different ratios from each other.
Correct, but every test must be evaluated through the prism of the inherent limitations of ethnicity estimation. This isn’t science, not yet. It’s merely an estimation based on reference populations that may or may not be accurate.
I did the Ancestry DNA test, uploaded my raw data to FTDNA, and uploaded the date to Gedmatch. I just sent in a sample to 23 and Me. My reasons for testing and uploading are simple…. I needed ideas for which countries to search in to go further back in my family tree. In the results of Ancestry I found a first cousin that I never knew I had. He had been given up for adoption a couple of years before I was born. I am thrilled to find more and more cousins both recent and distant. I was not surprised by most of my Ethnic results except for having 26 % Italy/Greece region on Ancestry. I still have not found a paper link to any Italian person, but I have lots of fresh ideas on where to search because of DNA testing.
It really does open a lot of possibilities, doesn’t it? Good for you for testing!
As someone with relatively rare comorbid conditions, one of which is currently being studied to eradicate it, I find it incomprehensible that so many people are paying to basically give up all rights to confidentiality concerning their medical status. As to determining ethnicity, I can’t help but wonder why, given the fact that it seems to add to xenophobia. I’m delighted to know that more people are diversifying when choosing partners with whom they want to procreate, and long for the day when we evolve enough to use this information strictly to develop medical treatments that are tailored for the ailing individual via their DNA. As long as all our DNA shows we are the same species, that seems sufficient to satisfy my ancestral curiosity.
I find it incomprehensible that anybody would think having a genetic genealogy test would “give up all rights to confidentiality concerning their medical status.” As the song says, “it ain’t necessarily so…”
Hi Judy, I hope this site is still active. My question is how would I determine (approximately) my MATERNAL grandmother’s heritage/ethnicity? Which site, which DNA test, etc. My mother is 83 years old and the only living member of her immediate family. Both her parents are deceased. After my maternal grandmother’s passing, my grandfather shared her secret with all their children. My grandma was VERY ashamed that she was left on an English preacher’s doorstep in Chicago, in the1800’s. She made my grandfather promise to never share her secret with their children until after her death. Therefore, my mom’s 8 maternal cousins are not really biological cousins after all.
I know my mom would LOVE to find out her ethnicity/heritage before she passes. I would LOVE to give her as close as possible an answer.
How do you recommend I go about this? I’d obviously get her tested for mDNA, but if I tested and had my maternal cousins tested, would this give more accurate results?
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS.
Christine Keese
You’re better off testing your mother, not you, when it comes to ethnicity. Yours will be mixed — your mother’s and your father’s. Hers will be closer to the people she wants to know about. And keeping in mind that none of the ethnicity estimates is better than just that — an estimate, and not set in stone — the general view is that 23andMe has the best ethnicity estimates right now particularly for those of European ancestry.
A simple statistical analysis of the results for the 4 siblings gives:
E. Coastal Plain: Average 53% Standard Error ± 7.5%
E. Coastal Islands: Average 33% Standard Error ± 3.4%
North Med. Basin Average 4% Standard Error ± 2%
E. Northlands: Average 5% Standard Error ± 2%
N. Ciercumpolar: Average 4% Standard Error ± 2%
Trans-Ural Peneplain: Average 0.8% Standard Error ± 0.8%
E. Afroasiatic: Average 0.5% Standard Error ± 0.5%
Each individual sibling has a random sample of 50% of the parents’ DNA, but the average of 4 siblings’ results represents a sampling of 15/16 of the parents’ DNA, so gives a much more reliable estimate of the % values in each category.
You can see from the Standard Error of the Average values that the uncertainties in the percentages in each category are fairly large.
>> the uncertainties in the percentages in each category are fairly large. << To put it mildly. Thanks for the input.
Since the DNA sample from four siblings represents 15/16 (93.75%) of the parents’ DNA, the uncertainties in my earlier post are indicative of the uncertainties in the DNA test results.
And that’s been precisely my point all along: this isn’t soup yet, and it may never be soup (at least not until or unless we can factor in a broad enough sampling of ancient DNA).
http://www.faculty.umassd.edu/michele.mandrioli/chm167/statindex.html
That worked!! Thanks!
Happy most of my DNA is Greek. Always knew I love stuffed grape leaves and tomato salad with olives.
And baklava. Don’t forget the baklava.
Hi Judy,
I really have enjoyed your blogs and decided to post since you seem really good at replying to all comments and doing so in a timely manner. I plan to follow your advise and get autochoromsomal testing with AncestryDNA. My question is about africanancestry.com which offers mtDNA and yDNA testing to determine your african ancestry to the continent and the ethnic group. The testing is pricey and I just wanted to know how accurate this could be and is it worth the price ($250)? Or should I just try to find out through research by matches to others family trees and through testing with other autochromosomal DNA compaanies (i.e. Family Tree and 23andme?)
Thank you for yor help. All the time and effort you put into answering everyones questions is greatly appreciated.
(a) The DNA test other than YDNA and mtDNA is autosomal, just in case you need the exact name for any reason.
(b) African Ancestry as a testing company does only YDNA and mtDNA testing, and no autosomal DNA testing. You may get to drill down a little better to African ancestors in the direct lines (your father’s father’s father etc. if you’re male or your mother’s mother’s mother etc. for both men and women), but you get no information about any other part of your ancestry — and that leaves out a LOT of people who contributed to who you are genetically. Once you get those results from African Ancestry, they can’t be used for US-based genealogical purposes: you can’t join a surname project, for example. So overall they’re not as useful for genealogy as testing with the major genetic genealogy companies.
When I received the results of my Ancestry DNA test, I was surprised since I can trace all my lines back to the immigrant ancestors, none of which were Scandinavian, so I have no understanding of those dominant results. After reading your article, I’m inclined to believe that if results are based on comparisons of groups of people, none of us will positively know anything, and we’re better off with our paper research. The DNA results have done nothing for me except confuse and agitate me, and make me question the value of testing. I do think it’s valuable for those who are trying to locate parents, siblings, and I rejoice with those who find out who they are, after not knowing. Trying to identify where my distant ancestors were from, however, will remain a mystery, at least for now.
These results absolutely are based on comparisons of groups of people, called reference populations. But DNA testing as a whole is worthwhile for much more than just finding parents or siblings. Distant cousins may have the family Bible, photographs of shared ancestors, information about your own lines and collateral lines that can greatly advance your research. Making contact with people who share your genes is a good idea. Just not for these silly percentages.
Your Scandinavian dna could be via Vikings who landed in Ireland and interbred with the local women, if, of course, you have some Irish genes.
The problem is, the companies are reporting Scandinavian for people who don’t have Irish ancestry (and so can’t blame the Vikings). It’s hard, if not impossible, to distinguish Scandinavian, north German and south English.
I have a daughter who I adopted at birth. Her birth is African American and I do not know anything about her birth father; except I was told that he is NOT African American. Which test is best for my daughter to discovery her racial, ethnic, ancestral make-up.
At the continental level (African versus Asian versus European), any autosomal test will work. Two are on sale right now: Family Finder from Family Tree DNA, and the AncestryDNA test.
I think one of the things we lose sight of when we start thinking about Great Britain vs. Scandinavian is the Viking invasion. I had no idea of any Scandinavian ancestors yet I reflected far more Scandinavian ancestry than English, where I am sure that I had ancestors. Then I got a DNA hit for a lady that lives in Stockholm. Her family has always lived in either Sweden or Finland. The DNA was all ancient DNA, nothing current. Amazingly enough she had a small amount of England and Irish DNA. We know from history that the Vikings both raped in England and took some English ladies home with them. I have tested with 3 different sites, FTDNA, National Geographic and Ancestry. They are all different. Then when I go into Gedmatch, I get still different results. In DNAland, yet another. The most interesting thing is I get a match to a unique DNA that is found primarily in Wales, with only 1-3% of the people outside of Wales showing the same thing.
I don’t think the Vikings are thy cause of the overrepresentation of Scandinavian in the AncestryDNA results. I think the reference population is off.
We must also remember that the Danes lived in England (the area was called the “Danelaw”) and Ireland for hundreds of years. Then, there was the Norman invasion of England in 1066; the Normans were Norse descent: “Viking blood.” The Norman invasion of Ireland in 116/70 brought more “viking” blood to Ireland.
The mixing of populations is beyond question. It’s the impact of the mixing that’s at issue.
Hello Judy. I’ve read most of the comments and questions here concerning ethinticity. My 9 year old son wants to know what he is. I do too. My son’s father didn’t know who his father was and neither did his mother. Since my son has darker skin, a lot of people ask him what he is out of curiosity. I never know what to put as his race when filling out papers. I understand completely that in purchasing a DNA kit, I will be able to receive a continental based estimate of his ethinticity. And even that is not necessarily reliable. My question is, should I do it anyway and just “go” on that estimate? Should I test multiple times with different companies? Or should I just leave well enough alone? Also, Do doctors do more extensive testing than the companies offer? Thanks so much for your time.
Whether you test him at all is your choice, and how you report the results will also be your choice. Medical testing is generally not done for purposes of assigning a racial or ethnic origin.
What people have to also remember is most of these reference populations are asked their ethnicity to grandparent level. Such limited genetics is in a way meaningless. Particularly when population movements in the last 100-200-500 years.
Take myself for example. I have a very English name, a very English surname. The conversation or anglicizing started late 1700s & early 1800s as survival by French fleeing Napolean. If you didn’t guess in reality, I am very French on my father’s side of the family. Southern French, Basque, northern Italian, Spanish and Sardinian. My brother, father and my father’s uncles have light olive complexations that stays year round and which gets ridiculously dark in the summer. Enough that my brother can pass among the Italians here as if he is one of them and when he was in Portugal my father had someone running across a busy road shouting at him because he thought my father was some local man.
However, if I didn’t know this particularity, and was asked to be part of an ethnic reference population well I’d put “English”. My grandparents were, after all, all born in England. And my name is English so I am English right? Wrong. Aside from my father’s side my mother’s mother’s side is actually Dutch intermingled with Japanese and her father’s side is western German. The actual English or UK part of my family lineage accounts for two small fractions – my father’s father’s mother’s side is old Sutherland and my mother’s mother’s father’s side is old Cornish.
So when you get people who barely know their own background posing as reference populations, of course, you’re going to get a mess. I keep laughing my arse off with the supposed Ashkenazi. My german side is very old Ashkenazi yet I barely score on these ethnicity sites. Ironic seeing as less than half MAY have had ashkenazi grandparents in the sample population and well the others based it off assumption & surname – oh so accurate. NOT.
James, as you suggested, historically and still today people migrate from country to country. So without referencing a particular date, how can the genetic makeup of a county be determined? If went back to the pre-Roman era in England, or to before the Norman conquests, or before England became a global power, or before WWII, or today, and you tested everyone living in England, you’d get different results. So which population base represents “true” Englishmen? Without a baseline, how can we estimate composition? (England is just used as an example, the same argument hold for most regions.)
I think it is all maths. So your grandfather and grandmother had both coastal plain european(CPE) genes. We can say that because at least one of them had that dna more than %50 percent.
Of course it is all estimates but still. One of them had at least 2% percentage of eastern afroasiatic. Such a small amount did not pass down to other siblings but one sibling got them. If you can get both parents to take the test, you will find out one of them will have that 2% percentage too.
David will pass down that CPE genes to his children. Anyone who has some gene over than 50% will. David will pass down 19% to 69%. Coral might not pass down CPE genes at all and her kids result might show a plain 0.
It is all random and it is all maths. You get half your dna from your mother and the half from your father. But that afroasiatic gene will not pass down as 1% gene to your kids. You can say you are 12.5% Native American from your mother’s side but chances are you are 0 to 50% Native American. There is a possibility you might not get those genes at all.
Think of inheriting 100 cards for example. Your grandparents will have some cards you won’t have because they simply did not pass down to you. You only got 25 cards of your cards from your paternal grandmother. Those cards might not include the Native American ones
So your mother can claim that Native American or whatever heritage. Our racial mixture will be different from our grandparents. When people say they are 1/8 Native American they think they must have that heritage in their genes. You might not. You don’t cut the cards into 8 pieces. You simply get randomly selected cards from your grandfathers cards. And you might not get those Native American cards at all.
It’s only “all maths” if the math is being applied to accurate scientifically-based reference populations. And that’s the heart of the issue.
Hi Judy. I enjoyed reading your blog.
I agree with it all, but tell me this. My birth parents ARE my birth parents; I look like them and my siblings, and I have a whole intact family of aunts and uncles who know who I am and I knew well my grandparents. And I understand how the percentages differ from sibling to sibling.
BUT how can my DNA report, from Helix/NatGeo, have my regional history as 62% Central European, 18% Northeastern Europe (Finland and north and east), 15% Iberian Peninsula, 5% Northwestern Europe (Britain, Iceland, to The Netherlands and south), and 2% Northern India? Because. . .
My father’s parents came as teens to the U.S. from Lithuania; my father did not speak English until he went to school. He could speak seven languages from just growing up in the “hood” of Hartford, CT. So the profile above would fit him to a T.
My mother’s grandparents came from northern Netherlands. We can trace all those greats back six generations and go back 70% to the 1400s and two ancestors, from two greats, go back to the 1200s. And I have only 5% Dutch in me? This info didn’t come as hints from Ancestry or other sites; it was researched in the early 1900s, on one side, by a cousin who was a physician in The Netherlands. The other side was researched by a cousin in The Netherlands and several cousins in the US.
Helix and NatGeo say on the report that the Regional History goes back thousands of years, but can only go back six generations. So, where’s the Dutch? So. . .where’s my Dutch?
I’m a History major who has worked on other’s family trees in order to understand the historical makeup of various Virginia communities. I understand the complications of genealogy. However, I have cousins in The Netherlands and many of my ancestors were ministers (predikant); one was in legal papers with Rembrandt (he was an artist also); others were in high courts; one studied in Heidelberg, Germany and brought back the Reformation to three Dutch states (there’s a statue to him); one was convicted of murder, a religious crime; one was murdered, a religious crime; and so on. These people are in Dutch Encyclopedias. A well-known Dutch/Frisian genealogist is my cousin, a double cousin. On one side he is my 11th, 13th and 14th cousin once removed; on the other, he’s my 4th cousin once removed.
Helix/NatGeo said, when I called them, that I only “think” I’m Dutch. Whatever that means.
We know nothing about my father’s grandparents except they stayed in Lithuania and my maternal great grandmother (and her three unmarried daughters) were hauled off to a gulag in Siberia after WWII; it took my grandmother nearly a decade to find out what happened. There is no paperwork to look up there. I know info from my grandparent’s citizenship papers and what I asked my grandmother when I was 18 (we didn’t not live anywhere near her and she told me how she ran away from Lithuania). My cousins have written down what their parents said about their parents.
Can autosomal DNA be that random that I would only have 5% of my mother’s six generations’ DNA in my code? I just find that hard to believe. I think a mistake happened somewhere.
My haplogroup is “rare” at Helix/NatGeo. It is J1C8A2, which is one tenth of one percent of their 834,000K participants. There just must not be enough data to understand my strand of DNA.
Thank you.
None — I repeat, NONE — of the DNA companies can reliably determine ethnic/geopolitical origins below the continental level with any degree of reliability on a global basis. It’s all dependent on the size of the reference population and the state of the art in terms of analysis. That 5% being read today may end up as 50% in tomorrow’s analysis. There’s no mistake in the testing; there’s just a mistake in what people think the testing can tell them on a reliable basis.
Thank you.
Cynthia, Have you uploaded your DNA to Gedmatch.com? The commercial companies have favorite calculators that they use, and report results based on a single admixture calculator. At Gedmatch.com There are at least 16 separate calculators, from different statisticians, representing different ethnicity. For best results download all of them and you will find they are, by design, each skewed toward different populations. Place all of your measurable locations on a map. Include ALL of the calculators. I would be willing to bet that your Dutch and every other ethnicity will show up on the finished map. Admixture has little to do with time, or genealogy, but everything to do with location.If your ancestors shared DNA anywhere in the world it will show up on your map.
Hi Judy,
Great blog!
I know most lines of my maternal and paternal family hx, but like most immigrants in 20th Century, Ellis Island is my maternal baseline (as verbally reported, edited by officials, and now is easily found on web.
I want to fill in gaps for my children, knowing limitations, however, I am concerned about:
missing native American blood on (my spouse’s) maternal side
& uncertainty on my maternal mothers side.
New updated FDA rules, do they help with testing?
Is 23&me still best for (medical) DNA, in order to focus research on family, espec. Re: medical?
Thanks!
Mike
23andMe and AncestryDNA both test the most medical-related SNPs and so produce the most data for medical analysis. In either case to get any useful medical information you’d probably want to run the data through a service like Promethease. For pure family research AncestryDNA is probably better because of the size of its database.
Thanks for the commentary on DNA testing and its relevance to ethnicity. I am among those whose DNA ethnicity finding is radically different than that of my siblings.
MY HUBBY INSISTED I DO THIS. WHY? 1 LINE GOES BACK TO YEAR I. ANOTHER 26 GENERATIONS. 2 MORE TO 1400’S, ANOTHER 1500’S. ACCORDING TO YOU I WILL LEARN NADA, ZIP, ZERO. IF IT SAID 10% WALES, 10% SPANISH THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL. I THINK IT’LL BE MONEY WASTED.
You may not get useful information from the ethnicity estimates alone, but finding cousins, getting confirmation of your paper trail research and more are great benefits from autosomal DNA testing.
there is an interesting sleight of hand trick going on here. we are looking at ethnicity, thinking it has something to do with historical populations and then testing people for location persistence. for that is really what these tests are doing, finding populations who appear to remain in one place for a long time and test their descendants.
the first big problem is we have no idea what ethnicity is genetically.
the second is population location persistence, each the the terms is really ill defined
Ethnicity means more than what your DNA can tell you. Ethnicity also includes aspects of culture. My ethnicity is 20th-century American. My atDNA “ethnicity” results do not change that ethnic identity. I worry a little that the new use of this word -ethnicity- in a biological context can be misinterpreted by individuals as a replacement for the discredited term “race”. All humans share 99% of their DNA. The thing the testing companies call “ethnicity” is based on testing less than 1% of the DNA you inherit from your ancestors. Tiny portions of this 1% changes over the generations as new (meaningless) mutations occur. None of the companies test that same full 1% of your genome that potentially differs from everyone else.
My DNA-based ethnicity percentage is equivalent to taking a still photo of a bird in flight with B/W film while using a slow shutter speed! Does it really tell you anything about the living bird or its kind? History has shown that over time the migration of peoples into and out of a geographical region will change the DNA component of
the residents of any particular “ethnic homeland”. It you want to leave a living ethnic legacy for your posterity write about your family and your reaction to events in your life.
My atDNA matches led to distant DNA cousins. But it was the communication with those cousins that has yielded the only truly important genealogical answers to open questions about my family history.
So my kids gave me a 60th gift – “get tested dad” – but I don’t wanna throw away their $. My interest in DNA is the hope I’ll find where in Ireland I’m most likely from, and ID any potential relatives in that region. Best product to use?
For the UK and Ireland right now, and exclusively for where-am-I-from, the best product is probably LivingDNA (https://www.livingdna.com/).
I like your post. I’m one of thouse loosing interest in the tests rather to mi family research. I’m still wondering how I inherited the haplogroup C1 if my ancestor was born in Spain. Native American? If I”m a C how come my mother have 2% Native American? Maybe my great grandmother was adopted.
If I”m 1% Native American, my daughter is .5% and my grandaughter .2% and my great granddaughter will have Nothing but still be in haplogroup “C”? So her test may read like haplogroup “C” with 0 Native Amercan. Isn’t this rare????
Nope, not unusual at all: remember that your maternal haplogroup comes from only from tiny part of your family tree: your mother’s mother’s mother’s line. The rest of your DNA — the autosomal DNA — comes from all of your ancestors, including your father’s side. So if your many times great grandmother on your mother’s side was Native American but married a Spaniard, you’d still have haplogroup C (from that many times great grandmother down through all her daughter’s daughter’s daughters to you) — but very little overall Native ancestry because it would have been mixed with all the DNA of the husbands and fathers over the generations.
I am looking at these posts and see they go back several years. Do you now see refinements after more people have been tested since you first posted? Also, were all of the tests done within a close time window? The reason I ask is because my AncestryDNA has been refined and updated over time.
There are refinements all the time. The problem is that the reference populations are not as good as we might like, and the companies don’t all use the same reference populations. So if we can’t all agree that “this” (whatever this is) is the DNA signature of, say, modern day eastern Poland, our results are always going to be skewed based on the reference population used by a particular company.
My guess is that there is nothing statistically inconsistent with the results you posted above. 😉 Ethnicity estimates are painted with a very broad brush.
They are broad but more importantly they are estimates. People forget that fact… and they shouldn’t.