FamilyTreeDNA starts rolling out MyOrigins v.3
It’s admixture estimate update time again.
And The Legal Genealogist is so relieved.
Not because the results are any better than we’ve gotten any other time from any other company.
But rather because we’re getting all the “whaddayamean I’m not Irish” updates all at once this year so we can move past it quickly.
Yes, the MyOrigins version 3 update is rolling out from FamilyTreeDNA, just as the DNA Origins update did recently at Ancestry.1
And, as usual, the end result is numbers all over the map.
I was 87% West and Central Europe and 11% Scandinavian, with a trace of Asia Minor and the West Middle East.2
Now, I’m 48% Central Europe, 41% Great Britain, and 6% Magyar, with traces of Scandinavian, Baltic, Sephardic Jewish, and Southern Caucasus.3
Or maybe I’m 32% Germanic Europe, 25% England & Northwestern Europe, 16% Norway, 13% Scotland 8% Ireland, 4% Wales and 2% Eastern Europe & Russia.4
My sister was 88% West and Central Europe, 5% East Europe, and 5% Sephardic, with traces of South Central Africa and the British Isles.5
Now, she’s 57% Central Europe, 30% Great Britain, 7% Ireland, and 4% Baltic with a trace of Southern Caucasus.6
Or maybe she’s 31% England & Northwestern Europe, 17% Sweden, 16% Scotland, 12% Germanic Europe, 9% Norway, 8% Eastern Europe & Russia, 4% Ireland, 2% France and 1% Benin & Togo.7
And our half brother — whose ancestry is 50% German and 50% Swedish — was 65% Scandinavian and 33% East Europe, with a trace of Asia Minor.8
He’s now 74% Scandinavian, 9% Great Britain, 14% West Slavic, and 2% Baltic, with a trace of Southern Caucasus.9
Now it’s pretty obvious there are some weirdnesses here. My half brother has absolutely no British ancestry whatsoever — unless some Swedish Viking grabbed a British girl and took her home hundreds of years ago. Yet he’s showing now with 9% Great Britain.
And although he tests out as a paternal half brother both in autosomal and YDNA tests, he shares none — not a drop — of the Central and West Europe ancestry the rest of us got from our shared father.
And you know what that means, right?
Do I even have to say it again?
There’s a reason admixture estimates are called estimates.
They’re really really good at the continental level, distinguishing between Europe, Asia and Africa, just to name three continents. But once they get below the continental level, to a regional or even country level, every single admixture estimate from every single DNA testing company starts to run into issues: country boundaries have changed; entire populations have moved; people from one area have invaded and intermarried with people from another.
So — let me repeat one more time — we have to keep in mind always what these admixture estimates 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, let’s keep in mind, every time, that 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.
Which all means we all need to repeat, one more time:
“It’s not soup yet.”10
Got that?
Let’s go back to trying to figure out who my second great grandfather’s parents were, shall we?
And enough with the percentages already yet.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Enough with the percentages,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 27 Sep 2020).
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “In 2020, still not soup…,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 13 Sep 2020 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 27 Sep 2020). ↩
- MyOrigins v.2, for Judy G. Russell, FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 6 June 2020. ↩
- MyOrigins v.3, for Judy G. Russell, FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 26 Sep 2020. ↩
- DNA Origins, for Judy G. Russell, AncestryDNA (https://www.ancestry.com/dna/origins/ : accessed 26 Sep 2020). ↩
- MyOrigins v.2, for (Sister 1), FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 6 June 2020. ↩
- MyOrigins v.3, for (Sister 1), FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 26 Sep 2020. ↩
- DNA Origins, for (Sister 1), AncestryDNA (https://www.ancestry.com/dna/origins/ : accessed 26 Sep 2020). ↩
- MyOrigins v.2, for (Brother 1), FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 6 June 2020. ↩
- MyOrigins v.3, for (Brother 1), FamilyTreeDNA.com (https://www.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 26 Sep 2020. ↩
- 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.” ↩
I won’t waste your time with details, and I totally agree with your basic point. I will say that this revision from FTDNA looks way, way off from my known ancestry, far worse than before. (Unfortunately, I’m still boringly all European, but now with 9% Basque!!!! Not rational.)
That’s kinda funny… mine is basically better. My brother’s is far worse. It’s all a WAG anyway.
I really appreciate 23andme for making the effort to incorporate your parents’ ethnicity estimates (where available) into your ethnicity estimates. I wish FTDNA and Ancestry would do the same. It would eliminate a chunk (although certainly not all) of the wonkiness and complaints.
Only for those fortunate enough to have been able to DNA test their parents. Both of mine were deceased before autosomal DNA testing became available.
Oh sure, and I think this is something that all the sites should do (assuming it is technically feasible), to “harmonize” the results for all close relatives (not just parent-child) as much as possible.
And for what it’s worth, the new FTDNA estimates for all the tests I administer seem pretty poor. As one example, they apparently misinterpreted my one-quarter Slovenian ancestry to assign me 17% Italian (<1% Italian for dad, 0% for mom; zero documented or likely Italian ancestors). Ancestry's recent ethnicity update did a much better job with my family. YMMV of course.
This may help with your next post about ethnicity estimates. (grin)
Definition of ethnicity from dictonary.com, accessed 30 Sept 2020: “… a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like: …” [– no mention of DNA in the definition of ethnicity]
Yeah, definitely something wrong with the FTDNA Great Britain calculations. My grandfather was born in England, his parents were born in England, his great-grandparents, etc., etc., with some lines documented back to the 1500s. And what % am I from Great Britain? 0%!!! Good thing he’s not around to find out. Lest you think he’s not my biological grandfather, I have at least 6 confirmed 2nd & 3rd cousins (currently living in England) from his side of the family–all tested via FTDNA. Sigh.
23andme seems to be overall, the closest to what my paper trail shows. The only surprise is a small amount of Italian, other than that it checks all the boxes. Other sites can be so far off. A couple of comments based on what you said: the sites don’t generally claim to go back “thousands of years”. 500 is probably a good time frame, overall. My mother is all Danish (well documented) and it’s not uncommon for Danish and other Scandinavian DNA to show up in other countries. They not only invaded, they also settled areas. So a Scandinavian showing British ancestry is not uncommon. It reflects the fact that there are British people with Scandinavian ancestry.
Everybody invaded everywhere for centuries, which causes lots of problems in trying to identify geographical origins based on DNA.
The new 3.0 version is completly off.
Now my dna from my mother counts 58%, while dna i get from my father counts only 42%.
It is completly whacked.
Humans get aprox 51% of our dna from our mothers, and 49% from our fathers. So familytreedna myorigion version 3.0 algorytm is BROKEN.
(a) 3.0 isn’t new. It’s been around for a while.
(b) You’re being way too literal on percentages. Count it as correct at the continental level, more or less, and not below that.