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I logged in today and saw the update. Could have sworn it said ethnicity was updated too. It correctly threw me into the Hungarian genetic group, also one that moved to Missouri which is true of my grandfathers brothers. You have to read the whole blog to see what it is, seems different then Ancestry's groups. It gave me areas of Hungary plus possible last names which happen to be in my tree.
Apparently there was an update to Theory of Family Relativity back in September
We’re excited to announce the release of Genetic Groups, a long-awaited enhancement of ethnicity results on MyHeritage DNA. With this very exciting addition, the resolution of MyHeritage’s ethnicity breakdown increases dramatically to 2,114 geographic regions, providing more depth and resolution than any other DNA test available today, and complementing the current 42 top-level ethnicities. This is a huge milestone for MyHeritage and a great step for millions of people fascinated by family history and curious to learn more about their origins.
This post describes the new release and is full of interesting real examples of Genetic Groups that our users have received.
Genetic Groups have been added for free to the ethnicity results for anyone who has already purchased a MyHeritage DNA test, and will be added to the results going forward for any newly purchased test. They are also available to anyone who has uploaded DNA data from another service, or will upload it now.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve just refreshed the data for the Theory of Family Relativity™ for the third time since releasing this game-changing feature in February 2019. This revolutionary technology may offer astounding new information on your family connections.
The total number of theories has increased from 20,330,031 to 33,373,070— a 64% increase.
The number of DNA Matches that include a theory increased by 59% from 14,201,731 to 22,618,962.
Sometimes we arrive at a theory through multiple paths, indicating a strong theory and providing additional supporting evidence. After the previous update, there were a total of 161,762,761 paths. This update increased the number of paths by 61% to 261,960,015.
The number of MyHeritage users who now have at least one Theory of Family Relativityâ„¢ for their DNA Matches has increased by 28%.
My percentages didn't change so I think they are just calling it an ethnicity update because the Genetic Groups are within the ethnicity estimate.
My Genetic Groups on mid-confidence level
Norway (Vestfold Og Telemark and Viken)
Pennsylvania and Ohio
Southeastern Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
Northeastern and Midwestern USA
On low I also have one in Southern USA.
They are all accurate, I have ancestry in all those areas. But it's interesting that I am more Italian than Norwegian, yet they identified a group in Norway and not Italy. Also, I have more ancestry/more recent ancestry from Vest-Adger county than Telemark. My mom at least gets groups in both Norway (Agder) and Norway (Vestfold Og Telemark), and that's on high confidence.
My dad is half Italian and even he only gets a group for "Italians in Pennsylvania" on low confidence, and nothing from actual Italy. You'd think it would at least have a higher confidence, being half Italian.
My grandfather gets a really specific one in Western North Carolina on high confidence, yet he has no known ancestry there. His entire biological tree goes back to colonial PA or NJ. I suppose it's possible some of those branches actually were in NC before going to PA/NJ, but I doubt it (that's not a super typical migration path as far as I know). And I suppose there could be another NPE somewhere but I haven't seen any indication of it yet.
My husband's is the most accurate - he's basically half Irish, half English - on high confidence he gets Eastern Ireland and England, which is more specific than it sounds because it's Eastern Irish, some who went to England, which is exactly what his Irish ancestors did. On mid and low confidence he also gets groups "UK and Ireland" and "England".
So it's kind of hit and miss, sometimes it's super accurate, sometimes it misses the mark. Hopefully it improves as their database grows.
I got mine, and am not impressed. My regions were OK, a central Europe Jewish one, and a USA Settler of MD, OH, IN, etc. Nearly all the surnames in the last group are in my family tree.
But.............my mom, grandmother, and great uncle (both sides of my mom's family) of the family that scores no Jewish on any calculator I have ever seen, nor have any paper trail, also get the same Jewish region as I do. I have to figure the software grouped them in that group because of their close relationship to me, and because my dad (the source of the Jewish ancestry) did not test with them.
I didn't get any "Genetic groups" in Europe, only the US. Various permutations of Southeastern states, very repetitive:
-Southeastern Georgia, Southern Florida and South Carolina
-Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama
-British settlers in Alabama, Georgia and in Florida
-Georgia, Florida and Alabama
-Southern Alabama, Northwestern Florida and Southwestern Georgia
-Southern USA
-Northeastern and Midwestern USA
What was the point of this? My incorrect percentages and ethnicities are still incorrect. Some of the groups are more or less correct.
The regions seem to be overkill, but in theory, if you didn't know anything, or much, about your paper trail it could be useful. All of my family received the "right region" for the US, the one along the Rt. 40 cooridor through the Appalachians.
The presence of so many seemingly false ones based on close DNA matches (I can't figure out how else BOTH sides of my mom's family getting the same Jewish region as me) is not good. Lots of wasted research and questions will result.
My ethnicities still don't seem to match reality or the new genetic groups. In spite of MyHeritage showing that I am 28% Scandinavian none of my 10 genetic groups include Scandinavian areas or even the areas of England and Scotland with known Viking settlement.
My cousin and I both get a high confidence level "Ashkenazi Jews and North Europeans in Netherlands, Germany and in England, and some of their descendants in Northeastern United States". This is confusing. It reads like it's two separate groups who historically haven't intermarried very often but I guess lived in the same areas. Our common Ashkenazi ancestor immigrated in 1837 from Bavaria. My Jewish ethnicity on MyHeritage is 15% while hers is only 7%. We both have more non-Jewish colonial New England and British Canadian lines that seem to be ignored in my case though not in her results.
Digging deeper into the new genetic groups I find some of the locations are intriguing. A number of rural locations are mentioned on both sides of the Austrian/Czech border where I have no known lines. I'm not certain if I should spend much time looking into this information without knowing how MyHeritage came about with their results.
My wife has only three groups two in the Southern US and one called "USA and Australia". This makes sense though it's very vague and MyHeritage ignores her West Prussian/Pomeranian grandmother in genetic groups.
On a positive note, I will say that the map of my ethnicity estimate including the additional genetic groups now looks accurate if you ignore the percentages and the big blue oval over Scandinavia.
My ethnicities still don't seem to match reality or the new genetic groups. In spite of MyHeritage showing that I am 28% Scandinavian none of my 10 genetic groups include Scandinavian areas or even the areas of England and Scotland with known Viking settlement.
My cousin and I both get a high confidence level "Ashkenazi Jews and North Europeans in Netherlands, Germany and in England, and some of their descendants in Northeastern United States". This is confusing. It reads like it's two separate groups who historically haven't intermarried very often but I guess lived in the same areas. Our common Ashkenazi ancestor immigrated in 1837 from Bavaria. My Jewish ethnicity on MyHeritage is 15% while hers is only 7%. We both have more non-Jewish colonial New England and British Canadian lines that seem to be ignored in my case though not in her results.
Digging deeper into the new genetic groups I find some of the locations are intriguing. A number of rural locations are mentioned on both sides of the Austrian/Czech border where I have no known lines. I'm not certain if I should spend much time looking into this information without knowing how MyHeritage came about with their results.
My wife has only three groups two in the Southern US and one called "USA and Australia". This makes sense though it's very vague and MyHeritage ignores her West Prussian/Pomeranian grandmother in genetic groups.
On a positive note, I will say that the map of my ethnicity estimate including the additional genetic groups now looks accurate if you ignore the percentages and the big blue oval over Scandinavia.
Check out the blog post I linked to. I had started reading it but haven't had time to get back to it. It said something to the effect of them having done tests of people that have lived for generations in these new genetic communities. Similar to using me for their DNA founders population. When I uploaded my uncle, cousin and MIL's, I added their countries of birth so they did have that in their database, if they were included in it. My mother's ancestry DNA was uploaded by my sibling, not sure what info is attached to hers and if it says born in Hungary. She's too new to have been included. If anything they used mine where both my parents are listed where they're born. It wouldn't surprise me if they did my tree off of my info to use it. I have my mothers father to the 1700's, my dad's mother to the 1800's.
While I looked at mine, I hadn't looked at anyone else's. I looked at my Hungarian cousin's, had to laugh, he has one in Missouri. My Hungarian uncle does not. His are all Europe. My MIL who came from Germany (was born there) had all German ones even though she's supposed to be Polish. Too bad she passed away a few months ago so I can't show her. I'll post them when I have time.
It seems like this is MyHeritage's version of what Ancestry calls a "genetic community". It's quite accurate for me.
Much more accurate than MyHeritage's ethnicity estimate actually which is what really needs to be updated along with this for it all to make sense together.
Check out the blog post I linked to. I had started reading it but haven't had time to get back to it. It said something to the effect of them having done tests of people that have lived for generations in these new genetic communities. Similar to using me for their DNA founders population. When I uploaded my uncle, cousin and MIL's, I added their countries of birth so they did have that in their database, if they were included in it. My mother's ancestry DNA was uploaded by my sibling, not sure what info is attached to hers and if it says born in Hungary. She's too new to have been included. If anything they used mine where both my parents are listed where they're born. It wouldn't surprise me if they did my tree off of my info to use it. I have my mothers father to the 1700's, my dad's mother to the 1800's.
While I looked at mine, I hadn't looked at anyone else's. I looked at my Hungarian cousin's, had to laugh, he has one in Missouri. My Hungarian uncle does not. His are all Europe. My MIL who came from Germany (was born there) had all German ones even though she's supposed to be Polish. Too bad she passed away a few months ago so I can't show her. I'll post them when I have time.
Thank you! I will check out your link. I need to review my tree on MyHeritage. It's not nearly as complete as the one on Ancestry. Possibly that will help my wife's lines.
Your mother-in-law and I must be related. My Polish relatives would never admit to any German or Jewish ancestry even with our obvious Germanic surname. If pressed they would say it's Austrian and even had some stories about Austrian roots. I'd really like to find documentation that proves their stories were total fiction.
German heritage can be difficult to trace if the family was uprooted after World War II. In parts of Poland ethnic Germans even started leaving after World War I. The Czech locations in my genetic groups are mainly in the former Sudetenland which was cleared of Germans after the war and of course I only noticed common German names like Schmidt in the surname area.
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