People who took a DNA test, is there anyone whose DNA results are very different from his/her ethnicity? (skin, free)

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by rv199

However, Pakistan has never been a part of Ottoman Empire and genetic difference between Pakistanis and Turks is quite big.

That doesn't mean that a Pakistani community can never have existed in Turkey. Just because his recent ancestors lived in Turkey, that doesn't mean that they couldn't have come from Pakistan further back in his pedigree. The two countries aren't all that far apart and there was a lot of trading along that route.

[Veritas Vincit]

Originally Posted by PA2UK

Then I'm guessing you are either Scandinavian or Germanic, as those groups have the biggest genetic overlap with the British Isles. MyHeritage doesn't have the best ethnicity report, but even other companies can have difficulty telling British Isles, Scandinavia, and Germanica apart.

Ancestry has gotten better at it lately for this particular issue. It all comes down to sampling. You need large numbers of samples from the origin countries themselves in order to get it right.



MyHeritage just has issues, and can't be trusted on ethnicity estimates..they see Finns everywhere for instance. It's telling that Ancestry has had two major updates on the ethnicity estimate in a couple of years while MyHeritage has done nothing in spite of the problems they obviously have.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

Ancestry has gotten better at it lately for this particular issue. It all comes down to sampling. You need large numbers of samples from the origin countries themselves in order to get it right.



MyHeritage just has issues, and can't be trusted on ethnicity estimates..they see Finns everywhere for instance. It's telling that Ancestry has had two major updates on the ethnicity estimate in a couple of years while MyHeritage has done nothing in spite of the problems they obviously have.

They're supposed to do an update at some point this year

[otowi]

Originally Posted by rv199

I have seen on Reddit. One of the members told that his ethnicity is Turkish, he lives in Germany, he took a DNA test and the test estimates his ethnicity as Pakistani, although genetic difference between Turks and Pakistanis is quite big. Is there anyone who took DNA test and his/her ethnicity estimate is very different than his/her real ethnicity?

He could also think he is Turkish ethnically while not really being Turkish ethnically. The DNA could be right and there may be something me may not know about how his family came to be in Turkey and when, etc.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

Ancestry has gotten better at it lately for this particular issue.

I think it still depends on the individual. I had one Norwegian great grandfather, so on paper I should be 12.5% Norwegian. I get 0% Norway (or even Sweden) at AncestryDNA. It's probably lumped into Germanic, which is a little high for me.

AncestryDNA's PCA chart does seem to suggest they now have more division between Scandinavia and England, but both regions still have significant overlap with Germanic.

It all comes down to sampling. You need large numbers of samples from the origin countries themselves in order to get it right.

In some cases, I think there's just too much shared DNA among neighboring regions to tell them apart, even if you sampled everyone in them.

MyHeritage just has issues, and can't be trusted on ethnicity estimates..they see Finns everywhere for instance. It's telling that Ancestry has had two major updates on the ethnicity estimate in a couple of years while MyHeritage has done nothing in spite of the problems they obviously have.

MyHeritage are still fairly new to DNA (only since 2016) and therefore are still on their first ethnicity report. AncestryDNA may have done two updates in the last two years, but before that they went about 6 years without an update, which is longer than where MyHeritage are at now (4 years).

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by PA2UK

I think it still depends on the individual. I had one Norwegian great grandfather, so on paper I should be 12.5% Norwegian. I get 0% Norway (or even Sweden) at AncestryDNA. It's probably lumped into Germanic, which is a little high for me.

AncestryDNA's PCA chart does seem to suggest they now have more division between Scandinavia and England, but both regions still have significant overlap with Germanic.





In some cases, I think there's just too much shared DNA among neighboring regions to tell them apart, even if you sampled everyone in them.



MyHeritage are still fairly new to DNA (only since 2016) and therefore are still on their first ethnicity report. AncestryDNA may have done two updates in the last two years, but before that they went about 6 years without an update, which is longer than where MyHeritage are at now (4 years).

Thanks for the reminder. Hard to believe it's been 4 years. Every company has growing pains. When I 1st started looking into doing DNA about 2011, it was at 23 and me. Ancestry just didn't appeal to me but I don't recall why. I'm glad I waited until 5 years ago to actually do DNA because it's come a long way since it originally started.

I was part of their founders project as they saw I had parents that immigrated from Hungary in the late 50's. I wonder if they did my tree to see how far back they could get me or they just assumed my family had been there for hundreds of years. One line I've built back to the 1700's.

When I 1st got my matches, I didn't have many, but each time I logged in, I got more. It was very exciting to see all of the features as they were added, especially DNA matches from other countries. Their DNA tools alone are worth the free upload because at some point, their database will be a lot bigger and their ethnicity estimates will also get better. As I said, they're due to update at some point this year, so it is coming. Hopefully that will help some people who's DNA isn't accurate.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by Roselvr

For me being Hungarian with some Italian, they've been right. Out of the 9 profiles I run, most European, only my son's grandmother who's a mixture was off but I'd have to log into both ancestry and My Heritage to see how much they were off. They were right for my hub who's German, Italian with something else mix

Here is my son's grandmother's. Some how I posted it in the tips thread the other day lol

Ancestry
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 59%
Ireland & Scotland 39%
France 2%

My Heritage
English 95.6%
Greek and South Italian 1.4%
Middle Eastern 1.9%
West Asian 1.1%

[SunGrins]

This is my current ancestry origin results from the three companies. My results from MyHeritage are based on transferred raw 23andme data, not a new test.

On paper I am 25% Kerry Irish, 25% Pomeranian (German/Polish/Kashub/Baltic), 25% western German (Lower Saxony, Hesse), 12.5% Ukrainian (perhaps some Volga German and Ashkenazi), and 12.5% New England and New Netherlands mix (English-Dutch-Walloon). There was one Danish ancestor about 1630. This is pretty well confirmed on paper except for the mysterious Ukrainian Great-grandfather (I have a bunch of Russian & Ukrainian DNA cousins).

==============
23andme results

Northwestern European 81.4%
French & German 31.0%
Germany Highly Likely Match
Bavaria
Lower Saxony
North Rhine - Westphalia
Hamburg
Saxony
Hesse

British & Irish 28.8%
Ireland Highly Likely Match
Cork
Kerry
Limerick
Mayo
Dublin
Galway
Tipperary
Cavan
Clare
Kilkenny

United Kingdom Likely Match
Greater London
Greater Manchester
Glasgow City
Merseyside
Lancashire
West Yorkshire
Tyne and Wear
West Midlands
Cardiff

Scandinavian 2.6%
Denmark Likely Match
Finnish 0.0%

Broadly Northwestern European 19.0%

Eastern European 12.4%
"Although we've detected Eastern European DNA in your ancestral breakdown, we have not
identified more specific locations that your recent ancestors may have called home."

Southern European 0.8%
Broadly Southern European 0.8%

Ashkenazi Jewish 0.7%

Broadly European 4.6%

Unassigned 0.1%

==============
Ancestry results

Germanic Europe 41%

Ireland & Scotland 30%
Munster, Ireland
South West Munster
North Kerry & North Cork
North & East Cork
Dingle Peninsula

Baltics 11%

Norway 5%

Eastern Europe & Russia 5%

Sweden 4%

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 2%

European Jewish 2%

Additional Communities: New York Settlers
Southeastern New York Settlers

==================
MyHeritage

Europe 100.0%

North and West Europe 84.0%
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 55.4%
North and West European 27.0%
Finnish 1.6%

East Europe 10.4%
Baltic 10.4%

Ashkenazi Jewish 3.4%

South Europe 2.2%
Iberian 2.2%


(So I'm over half Irish, Scottish and Welsh according to MyHeritage)

[Alandros]

Originally Posted by PA2UK

I think it still depends on the individual. I had one Norwegian great grandfather, so on paper I should be 12.5% Norwegian. I get 0% Norway (or even Sweden) at AncestryDNA. It's probably lumped into Germanic, which is a little high for me.

AncestryDNA's PCA chart does seem to suggest they now have more division between Scandinavia and England, but both regions still have significant overlap with Germanic.





In some cases, I think there's just too much shared DNA among neighboring regions to tell them apart, even if you sampled everyone in them.



MyHeritage are still fairly new to DNA (only since 2016) and therefore are still on their first ethnicity report. AncestryDNA may have done two updates in the last two years, but before that they went about 6 years without an update, which is longer than where MyHeritage are at now (4 years).

"In some cases, I think there's just too much shared DNA among neighboring regions to tell them apart, even if you sampled everyone in them."

I think this is the crux of it. There's realistically only so much info from DNA to be had for many of these scenarios. On top of that ethnicity and DNA intermixing doesn't always match with peoples constructs of them. Lots of groups with very different ethnic groups might in fact have quite a bit of DNA intermixing despite all of that, making it even harder to distinguish. On top of that the names for Nations, ethnicity, and cultural groups are just whatever the times say they are and are mostly just mental constructions than anything objectively true, at least regarding DNA heritage.

Mostly DNA seems to be useful for ancient DNA studies (and correlating modern populations to them), and distinguishing the big regions... European + West/South Asian, East Asian, Sub-Saharan African. Anything beyond that is the label semantics IMHO (minus again ancient studies etc where the where and when matter a lot more).

[Lillie767]

I'm more interested in my cultural heritage than my DNA heritage. Cultural heritage is how I and my family live. I relate to other people with my cultural heritage. Their DNA is irrelevant to me.