Will I ever know my African heritage? My actual percentage? 23andme v. Ancestrydna? (native, accuracy)

[Joe1994]

I did a DNA test back in June got it back in august. My results showed I'm 90% African heritage 9% European and under 1% native american. But the problem was I got 17 results. All but one result in Africa and all but one result in Europe. Yet all but 2 had range that included 0%. I got Nigeria 30-46% and cote divoire 2-25%. I was told ancestrydna just adds it and puts it in the middle. And this was the most accurate route but it didn't make sense because my trace regions were really low in their own range. Especially my Europe result was 0-32% range but only 9% estimate many European results were up to 4 or 5% but estimated at 1%. Well my mom did 23andme and this is where it gets really weird. My mom got 90.6% African and 8.8% European .4% east Asian most of her Europeans wasn't very specific and she didn't hit many results for Europe anyhow her great grandfather is supposed to be mixed with white but there's no other known European heritage. My fathers mother has some louisiana creole heritage so I was really curious about actual percentages but I got so much range it was hard to tell. Well I didn't know about the confidence level until recently. I heard of a omali woman who did her results at speculatively 96% east African heritage. Her results at 90% accuracy was 57% east Africa. Well I looked at herresults again and she's 48.1% sub Saharan African 44.9% west African heritage 3.2% broad Sub-Saharan African heritage 7.1% European and 44.8% unassigned. At 80% accuracy it continues to claim she's 89% African heritage but by this point she's 18% Sub-Saharan African broad category and 70% west African. At 90% much of this goes as unassigned. And I was looking at her results at 90% her results look very unknown as her first set has no African heritage its all unknown except a small tip that shows European heritage. Then also they show her hair texture to be wavy or straight 72% to curly or kinky at 28% and she has 3a hair texture. So I guess that would suggest admixture. But with what? Because her family is all black and added to that it appears its not European as hardly any European actually ended up unassigned. I was wondering are the Fulani apart of their reference panel because her haplogroup and gedmatch are similar to the Nigerian Fulani mixture. The Fulani are north Africans and west African heritage. So they are distantly mixed. What do they do with mixed DNA? I know ancestrydna includes the Fulani as west African. I'm confused as to what 23andme does though?

Also I sent in my sample a few days ago. And was wondering how do they process genetic abnormalities?

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by Joe1994

I did a DNA test back in June got it back in august. My results showed I'm 90% African heritage 9% European and under 1% native american. But the problem was I got 17 results. All but one result in Africa and all but one result in Europe. Yet all but 2 had range that included 0%. I got Nigeria 30-46% and cote divoire 2-25%. I was told ancestrydna just adds it and puts it in the middle.

They run 40 different analyses and then average the results. They use a mean average (add all results together, then divide by the amount of results - 40, in this case), not a medium average (which is the middle result). A mean average will not necessarily be right in the middle.

Well my mom did 23andme and this is where it gets really weird.

You really can't compare you and your mom's results since you tested with different companies. If you were take 23andMe's test, the results would be different from your AncestryDNA results. ALL ethnicity results from all companies are only an estimate and will vary because they are using different sample groups and different algorithms. It's best not to take the ethnicity results too literally.

[Joe1994]

Originally Posted by PA2UK

They run 40 different analyses and then average the results. They use a mean average (add all results together, then divide by the amount of results - 40, in this case), not a medium average (which is the middle result). A mean average will not necessarily be right in the middle.



You really can't compare you and your mom's results since you tested with different companies. If you were take 23andMe's test, the results would be different from your AncestryDNA results. ALL ethnicity results from all companies are only an estimate and will vary because they are using different sample groups and different algorithms. It's best not to take the ethnicity results too literally.

Yeah but the results for hers were very similar to mine. We both had 90% African but when I looked at my ranges I only had 32% African 0% euoprean 0% anything other than Nigerian and a little cote divoire the low end of the range only hard 32% of my DNA marked. And according to the ranges I could be 100% African and different Africans like I could be 12% Senegalese or no Senegalese altogether. I could be 20% Mali or no Mali altogether I could be 10% Cameroon or not Cameroon all together. If I was 64% Nigeria and 25% cote divoire ud ave 11% left for the rest of the possible ancestries. I was estimated for those 2 at 46% and 14%. The rest of my heritage was may or may not exist lol.

My mom got the same results genetically as I did with Sub-Saharan African heritage and west African. She got 90% African with speculative. And I got 90% with ancestrydna estimate. But with more accuracy she got 48.1% subsaharan 44.9% west Africa and 44.8% unassigned. My ranges made me actually feel like I didn't get an answer with my results. That's why I was drawing a correlation to 23andme confidence level to ancestrydna ranges which were downright confusing. I prefer 23andme because instead of a speculative guess they give the most accuracy. Still don't quite get what the other 44.8% of her heritage is. That would leave me with 22.4% unassigned heritage which is a lot less to deal with. I read somewhere that mixed race people get more unassigned than someone who is more monoracial. Etc...