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So at first glance it may seem that way... basically 23andme gives you their equivalent of family finder plus your y dna and mtdna haplogroups.
FTDNA mtdna gies you more than just your mtdnahaplogroup, for one you can get increasing levels of analysis for you mtdna haplogroup if you want to pay for it, vs 23andme's single included option. FTDNA also gives you mtDNA based matches, these are people who share a purely maternal line ancestor within a timeframe (usually pretty big), 23andme I believe only matches on your autosomal DNA.
That's correct, you don't get mtDNA matches with 23andMe, nor do you get your RSRS and rCRS values, mutations, etc. You certainly don't pay $200 with FTDNA just to get your mt haplogroup!
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Additionally you can test for many different markers to dig your haplogroup down much further than what 23andme offers.
I don't know if yDNA is different but I did the full sequence mtDNA and my haplogroup was no more specific than what 23andMe gave me (T2b), but that might just be my luck. Regardless, I didn't take it for that reason anyway, I took it for the mt matches (which so far haven't been any help but that again is just luck of the draw).
I don't know if yDNA is different but I did the full sequence mtDNA and my haplogroup was no more specific than what 23andMe gave me (T2b), but that might just be my luck. Regardless, I didn't take it for that reason anyway, I took it for the mt matches (which so far haven't been any help but that again is just luck of the draw).
Yeah, since mtDNA haplogroup branches and clade's move at a much slower pace than Y DNA research (due to Y DNA mutating more often) I doubt you'd get anything different on that end. Though as we both know it's a very different story on the Y DNA end. I'm really looking forward to my Big Y results.
Maybe the ethnicity results have to do with how far back they go. 23andMe says they go back about 500 years. There ethnicity results certainly reflect known and likely background to about 1500 in my family. Whereas FTDNA may go back farther. Many of my ancestors live in parts of Britain and Ireland that were settled by Scandinavians. I'm tall and blond and have been mistaken for German more than once. I could see that further back the ancestry may have been Scandinavian.
I'm also guessing FTDNA lumps Irish together with British, though they say British Isles and don't mention Ireland at all, in my results anyway.
As for the mtDNA, on 23andMe you can identify people with the same haplogroup and people who share genes on the X chromosome. What else can you look at or do on FTDNA?
Maybe the ethnicity results have to do with how far back they go. 23andMe says they go back about 500 years. There ethnicity results certainly reflect known and likely background to about 1500 in my family. Whereas FTDNA may go back farther. Many of my ancestors live in parts of Britain and Ireland that were settled by Scandinavians. I'm tall and blond and have been mistaken for German more than once. I could see that further back the ancestry may have been Scandinavian.
I'm also guessing FTDNA lumps Irish together with British, though they say British Isles and don't mention Ireland at all, in my results anyway.
As for the mtDNA, on 23andMe you can identify people with the same haplogroup and people who share genes on the X chromosome. What else can you look at or do on FTDNA?
All autosomal based ethnicity results from all the providers use pretty much the same data, they just come to a different conclusion. It's like hearing an accent and trying to place specifically where that person comes from, you may hear a bit of Brittish, French, etc... or a combination there of. If you collect a massive reference sample of accents you will potentially be more accurate at guessing it. Though simplistic in comparison this is pretty much what the ethnicity reports do, the same data though.
I have not taken 23andMe, but I also received some curious results from FTDNA.
I took the AncestryDNA autosomal and they estimated:
67% British Isles
14% Irish
7% Eastern Europe
4% Iberian
3% Scandinavian
2% Western Europe
This matches pretty well with my paper trail, which is overwhelmingly British. No Irish ancestors that I know of, and I can go back on all lines at least to the 18th century. However, Eastern Europe was a good hit, as I have a Polish g-grandmother.
FTDNA gave me:
82% West/Central Europe
11% British
7% Eastern Europe
I do have some German and Dutch lines, but they all intermarried with British, and should be well diluted. Eastern Europe was consistent, which is impressive.
Eurogenes calculates my genetic distance as closest to South Dutch, North German, North Dutch, Southeast England, West German, Southwest England, and Denmark.
FTDNA and Eurogenes seem to agree, but Ancestry is closer (with the exception of the Irish addition) to my documentation.
I'm inclined to believe, and this is hardly new, that these estimates are (1) not all that useful except for conversation, and (2) genetic differences between certain populations might be so slight as to cause a lot of noise.
I'm testing my Dad and Mom to see what comes up. Dad is all British per documentation. Mom has the Eastern Europe, the German, and the Dutch, but yet is mostly British. That might give a clue as to what the various calculators are doing.
I have not taken 23andMe, but I also received some curious results from FTDNA.
I took the AncestryDNA autosomal and they estimated:
67% British Isles
14% Irish
7% Eastern Europe
4% Iberian
3% Scandinavian
2% Western Europe
This matches pretty well with my paper trail, which is overwhelmingly British. No Irish ancestors that I know of, and I can go back on all lines at least to the 18th century. However, Eastern Europe was a good hit, as I have a Polish g-grandmother.
FTDNA gave me:
82% West/Central Europe
11% British
7% Eastern Europe
I do have some German and Dutch lines, but they all intermarried with British, and should be well diluted. Eastern Europe was consistent, which is impressive.
Eurogenes calculates my genetic distance as closest to South Dutch, North German, North Dutch, Southeast England, West German, Southwest England, and Denmark.
FTDNA and Eurogenes seem to agree, but Ancestry is closer (with the exception of the Irish addition) to my documentation.
I'm inclined to believe, and this is hardly new, that these estimates are (1) not all that useful except for conversation, and (2) genetic differences between certain populations might be so slight as to cause a lot of noise.
I'm testing my Dad and Mom to see what comes up. Dad is all British per documentation. Mom has the Eastern Europe, the German, and the Dutch, but yet is mostly British. That might give a clue as to what the various calculators are doing.
So Oracle on gedmatch tends to guess Americans as Dutch due to the similar genetic makeup.
Ethnicity estimates are of limited use, especially due to the random nature of inheritance, so it will never be an equal representation of your ancestry... mostly just a hodgepodge. Mostly DNA cousin matches are the big value of doing a test.
I have not taken 23andMe, but I also received some curious results from FTDNA.
I took the AncestryDNA autosomal and they estimated:
67% British Isles
14% Irish
7% Eastern Europe
4% Iberian
3% Scandinavian
2% Western Europe
This matches pretty well with my paper trail, which is overwhelmingly British. No Irish ancestors that I know of, and I can go back on all lines at least to the 18th century. However, Eastern Europe was a good hit, as I have a Polish g-grandmother.
FTDNA gave me:
82% West/Central Europe
11% British
7% Eastern Europe
I do have some German and Dutch lines, but they all intermarried with British, and should be well diluted. Eastern Europe was consistent, which is impressive.
This is very common - I have similar results between AncestryDNA and FTDNA. In fact, AncestryDNA say I'm 55% British, while FTDNA say 0% British, even though I have several branches from both Germany and Britain. It's because British and German/West Europe DNA is often too similar to tell apart so it can be impossible to break it down further than Northern European. In my experience, AncestryDNA heavy weights British in these cases, while FTDNA leans towards West/Central Europe.
I imagine if you took 23andMe, they would tell you a portion of your DNA is "Broadly Northern European" which means "we can't break this down any further" - for me, they gave me something like 24% Broadly Northern European. That's why I like 23andMe, because they are honest about certain portions of your DNA not being unique enough to break it down further. AncestryDNA is sort of honest about the fact that the percentages are merely estimates - if you expand the details in your results by clicking on the category, it will actually give you a percentage range, not just a hard number. FTDNA don't take either approach, which is why I'm not fond of their ethnicity results.
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I'm testing my Dad and Mom to see what comes up. Dad is all British per documentation. Mom has the Eastern Europe, the German, and the Dutch, but yet is mostly British. That might give a clue as to what the various calculators are doing.
Sounds like my parents. I'd be glad to learn the results.
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