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Saying "MyHeritage" is huge in Europe is a slight exaggeration. It's just that Ancestry and 23andMe have virtually no European user base because technically they're not selling their product there. So for Europeans inclined to do this, MyHeritage is the only real option among the bigger players.
That said, DNA testing and genealogy in general are a lot less popular in Europe and a real niche thing, so it's not like MyHeritage has huge numbers of European samples either. They also don't really seem to be inclined to use what they do have in samples to make their ethnicity estimates more accurate.
Saying "MyHeritage" is huge in Europe is a slight exaggeration. It's just that Ancestry and 23andMe have virtually no European user base because technically they're not selling their product there. So for Europeans inclined to do this, MyHeritage is the only real option among the bigger players.
That said, DNA testing and genealogy in general are a lot less popular in Europe and a real niche thing, so it's not like MyHeritage has huge numbers of European samples either. They also don't really seem to be inclined to use what they do have in samples to make their ethnicity estimates more accurate.
A lot of Europeans do test as evidence by the matches living in Europe to all of my kits. I've connected with cousins who still live there.
My Heritage will put an update out, I'm not sure when but they are due.
People in Europe also use Ancestry, I have a few matches living there. It's more so the die hard DNA people who also use the various ethnic FB groups
Just checked out my new Ancestry breakdown, they have England pretty accurate at 68% but the rest is way off. My German ancestry is completely missing. One of my grandparents is fully German. But none of the companies is good at picking up German. Except 23andMe which hugely overestimated mine at 63%.
Then they increased "Wales" to 10%, but I have no ancestry there. They also claim I have Norwegian ancestry on both sides, but I have none.
A lot of Europeans do test as evidence by the matches living in Europe to all of my kits. I've connected with cousins who still live there.
My Heritage will put an update out, I'm not sure when but they are due.
People in Europe also use Ancestry, I have a few matches living there. It's more so the die hard DNA people who also use the various ethnic FB groups
There are a good number European MyHeritage users obviously, and it's probably several thousands, but consider Europe has like 700+ million people (i.e. more than double the U.S. population) and then consider that Ancestry has over 20 million DNA samples, 23andMe another 10 million plus and most of them are in the U.S.
MyHeritage's entire database is much smaller (est. a little over 2 million), so even if there's just say 100k European samples, it will be pretty common to see European matches if you have European ancestry.
So in terms of the % of people who're participating..it's pretty common in the U.S. as probably 5+% of the population have had a test done whereas in Europe I'd guess it's well, well below 1% - likely below 0.1% even.
I'm not good with the ethnicity parts, geography is not a strong point for me, it's never interested me.
My understanding is you would have to compare a map of My Heritage's ethnicity to Ancestry's, you should find the overlap.
Ancestry has been around forever where My Heritage is about 6 years in. My Ancestry DNA was uploaded December 2016. They started before that, I want to say 9 months to a year from memory. I'm part of their DNA database founders project. They saw both of my parents immigrated from Hungary. They asked me if I wanted to win a kit, I had to say why I wanted to be part of their database. I do not know where they got the main bulk of that database in the beginning. I remember it took close to a year for them to send me my results. That's why I ended up doing Ancestry back then with one of the Spring sales, I then uploaded there because I couldn't wait to use their database.
My ethnicity is pretty bland, 96.3 Eastern European with 3.7 Italian, coming back as Hungary (no surprise) Slovakia, Czech, Romania, Serbia. At Ancestry I'm Eastern European, Germanic Europe, Euro Jewish, Balkans, Sweden and Denmark which is new.
I'm also on FTDNA with a free upload, pay $19 to unlock ethnicity. East Europe - West Slavik 31%, South Europe - Greece & Balkans 18%, Italian Peninsula 12%, West Europe - Central Europe 12%, Scandinavia 5%, Baltic 11%, European Jewish 7%, Finland 4%
I've also done 23 and me which says Eastern European (Budapest, Hungary) 69.2%, Southern European 8.9% - which is Greek & Balkan 7.7% plus Broadly Southern Europe 1.2%, Then Northwestern European 8.2% - which is French & German 8.1%, plus Broadly Northwestern European .01%, Ashkenazi Jewish 8% and Broadly European 5.4%
I know that My Heritage is very big in Europe. Best suggestion, go to their blog, try to find their beginning DNA blogs, you will see they actually sent teams of employees to test as many native people as they can. When I say native, I'm talking about families that have been in those places for hundreds of years. I've never seen that Ancestry has done that.
For my Hungarian uncle who is my dad's brother that still lives there, My Heritage is more on the money because it does show he has West Asian DNA. My 1st cousin on my mothers side who also lives there is also more accurate there because he has central Asian. My Hungarian mother has West Asian.
Having said that, I do not have enough experience with DNA even though I do run 11 kits, it has been a long time since I compared my "mutt" mother in law 1 at Ancestry and My Heritage, nor have I looked at my hub who is 50% Italian from his dad, then his mothers side has various other ethnicities like French, I want to say German and I'm not sure what else off the top of my head plus my 2 mixed grand kids.
You're going to have different ethnicities depending on what company you use. They may define areas differently, they also may check different areas of your DNA.
Thanks for this...lots of good info I would like to try 23 and me someday . I wish I could upload my existing data but I will have to buy a kit directly.
Off hand have you ever uploaded to My True Ancestry? It's more about ancient ancestry....interesting but I wonder how accurate it is.
Just checked out my new Ancestry breakdown, they have England pretty accurate at 68% but the rest is way off. My German ancestry is completely missing. One of my grandparents is fully German. But none of the companies is good at picking up German. Except 23andMe which hugely overestimated mine at 63%.
Then they increased "Wales" to 10%, but I have no ancestry there. They also claim I have Norwegian ancestry on both sides, but I have none.
Another disappointment.
The same thing happend to my aunt...showing only 2% German ancestry for the longest time. The recent update gave her more but still not where it would make sense given our history. My German went from 24% to 31% down to 19%. My English jumped WAY up from 24% to 61%! My Welsh and Irish decreased a bit, scottish increased a bit and i lost Sweden adn Denmark completely only to gain Norwegian! I'm assuming that is directly related to Viking ancestry as I have no known relatives from those areas.
Both keep updating. Regardless I’m a big mutt with several ancestries that make me proud. Including the Neanderthal test offered by the latter of the 2 named above. I’m a bit less than 2% Neanderthal. The highest ever recorded was 3%.
Its sometimes confusing, yes, but this whole thing is a lot of fun for me and await each updates.
Both keep updating. Regardless I’m a big mutt with several ancestries that make me proud. Including the Neanderthal test offered by the latter of the 2 named above. I’m a bit less than 2% Neanderthal. The highest ever recorded was 3%.
Its sometimes confusing, yes, but this whole thing is a lot of fun for me and await each updates.
Thanks for this...lots of good info I would like to try 23 and me someday . I wish I could upload my existing data but I will have to buy a kit directly.
Off hand have you ever uploaded to My True Ancestry? It's more about ancient ancestry....interesting but I wonder how accurate it is.
Yeah, we have to buy at 23 and me, they don't offer free uploads any more. They did on DNA day a few years ago but it's probably been 3 to 4 years since then.
It is usually cheapest on Black Friday, $99 for the normal sale price of $150 health test.
Don't bother with my true ancestry. They only show you a few things but want money for the rest. Supposedly they delete your upload in 30 days but I call BS on that, I think they keep them for their database. I stupidly uploaded because hey, it's free. There's at least one thread here about them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CEN2RION
I did Ancestry and 23andMe.
Both keep updating. Regardless I’m a big mutt with several ancestries that make me proud. Including the Neanderthal test offered by the latter of the 2 named above. I’m a bit less than 2% Neanderthal. The highest ever recorded was 3%.
Its sometimes confusing, yes, but this whole thing is a lot of fun for me and await each updates.
I’m not familiar with MyHeritage.
You should upload your ancestry DNA for free to my heritage. If you want ethnicity and advanced DNA tools it's a one time fee of $29. Very worth it, they have the best DNA tools
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I would like to try 23 and me someday . I wish I could upload my existing data but I will have to buy a kit directly. 
