How accurate are FTDNA My Origins?

B

Ben

Regular Member
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b
mtDNA haplogroup
HV0
Of my 8 great grandparents, 3 were British Isles, 2 were Scandinavian, 1 Italian and 1 German, and 1 English/German mix. This is all for certain.

My Origins breakdown on FTDNA is:

British Isles 64%
Scandinavia 11%
Western/Central Europe 9%
Eastern Europe 6%
Eastern Middle East 5%
Asia minor 5%

This breakdown just doesn't seem to match what I know about my family's immediate origins. With two great grandparents actually from Scandinavian countries, how do I only end up with 11%? What happened to my Italian ancestry? Why is my German ancestry also getting overlooked?

My grandmother (who's the daughter of the Italian great-grandparent and one of the Scandinavians) did the FTDNA test and she came up 40% Southern European, 40% Scandinavian, 4% Eastern European, 16% Asia Minor.

It seems odd she'd have 40/40 Southern European and Scandinavian and yet I don't show up as any Southern European and very little Scandinavian (especially since there's another Scandinavian great-grandparent on my paternal line).

Why would these ancestries be underrepresented?

Also - if my grandmother is 16% Asia Minor and I'm coming up as 5%, is it safe to say there's a recent, middle eastern genetic input on her side? Or is this just the Italian ancestry?


THANKS!
 
Benjamin Birely said:
Of my 8 great grandparents, 3 were British Isles, 2 were Scandinavian, 1 Italian and 1 German, and 1 English/German mix. This is all for certain.

My Origins breakdown on FTDNA is:

British Isles 64%
Scandinavia 11%
Western/Central Europe 9%
Eastern Europe 6%
Eastern Middle East 5%
Asia minor 5%

This breakdown just doesn't seem to match what I know about my family's immediate origins. With two great grandparents actually from Scandinavian countries, how do I only end up with 11%? What happened to my Italian ancestry? Why is my German ancestry also getting overlooked?

My grandmother (who's the daughter of the Italian great-grandparent and one of the Scandinavians) did the FTDNA test and she came up 40% Southern European, 40% Scandinavian, 4% Eastern European, 16% Asia Minor.

It seems odd she'd have 40/40 Southern European and Scandinavian and yet I don't show up as any Southern European and very little Scandinavian (especially since there's another Scandinavian great-grandparent on my paternal line).

Why would these ancestries be underrepresented?

Also - if my grandmother is 16% Asia Minor and I'm coming up as 5%, is it safe to say there's a recent, middle eastern genetic input on her side? Or is this just the Italian ancestry?


THANKS!
Click to expand...

Ftdna MyOrigins has had some issues in the past with their DNA, considering Eupedia threads in the past have had qualms over the accuracy of the results. However the elevated Scandinavian ancestry can be explained with the English Danelaw and to a lower extent, the Norman Conquest.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans
 
My problem w/ the results is just the opposite. I have a decreased, not elevated, Scandinavian result. In other words, based on my recent ancestry, my Scandinavian result should be higher - among other things.
 
Benjamin Birely said:
My problem w/ the results is just the opposite. I have a decreased, not elevated, Scandinavian result. In other words, based on my recent ancestry, my Scandinavian result should be higher - among other things.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd try another DNA testing site. I see your point and missed the 2 great grandparents part.
 
autosomal_inheritance.gif
autosomalDNA.jpg


This is averange,

Your grandmother is 40% Med but 12,5% of you comes from her, which makes just 5%. Where your Italian ancestry form? From South?

This is just a simple maths as what you did for your Asia Minor result.

But I don't think it is that much easy,

According to mine and my brother result, he is 10% Western European and 2% North African, but I don't have any of those.

You can ignore the 2% North African, but 10%. I don't think. I guess this is answer of why we simple maths don't works all the time but this is my personel view, I am also new (y)
 
Benjamin Birely said:
My problem w/ the results is just the opposite. I have a decreased, not elevated, Scandinavian result. In other words, based on my recent ancestry, my Scandinavian result should be higher - among other things.
Click to expand...

Do not try 23andme , your numbers will change dramatically every time a family member joins .

dramatically is from 5 to 15%

So, this clearly means they "fabricate" partly your numbers and also they use the term "Broadly" ( this means , we do not know )


Best would be to use one of the tests/program from Gedmatch
 
Any recommendations what to use in Gedmatch? As in which test/program....
 
In my experience, FTDNA My Origins is not reliable at all. I have 100% Belgian ancestry in the last 200 years, and yet they did not mention any ancestry at all in that region! I ended up with something like 50% British ancestry and 50% of Central European/Alpine. I tested several family members and all got similarly biased results. It seems that my origins just looks at shared ancient ancestry. British people descend from Celts (including Belgic tribes) and Anglo-Saxons, who are a West Germanic tribe like the Franks in Belgium. So obviously Brits and Belgians share quite a bit of ancient ancestry. But the migration was always from the continent to Britain, not the other way round. So it is correct to say that British people have ancient German, Dutch and Belgian ancestry, but not that Belgians and Germans have British ancestry.

Based on these observations, the depth of ancestry of FTDNA My Origins appears to be about 2000 to 4000 years. But since they do not attempt to identify the source population of ancestry, but rather where that Bronze to Iron Age ancestry is common today, it can lead to very misleading interpretations indeed. I have long criticised FTDNA for their marketing practices. You can read more about it here.
 
I don't trust it.

As a person of full Southern European ancestry, I got 38% Western and Central Europe and 49% Southern Europe. I expected a lot more Southern European and way less Western and Central Europe on my results.

There are people of predominant iberian ancestry (and without central european ancestors) on the brazilian project scoring up to 49% of Western and Central Europe. On FTDNA map, the Western and Central European cluster spot barely touches Iberia.
 
HYGILI4K said:
I don't trust it.

As a person of full Southern European ancestry, I got 38% Western and Central Europe and 49% Southern Europe. I expected a lot more Southern European and way less Western and Central Europe on my results.

There are people of predominant iberian ancestry (and without central european ancestors) on the brazilian project scoring up to 49% of Western and Central Europe. On FTDNA map, the Western and Central European cluster spot barely touches Iberia.
Click to expand...

The highest MED rate is in Sardinia and it is just 60% in Harappa. 49% South European feather is a bit high even in other tests, so I don't see a problem.
 
According to Harappa, I am 37,57 mediterranean.
 
ftdna family finder pretty accurate
they don't know my grandmother was Bulgarian orthodox
yet they gave me few Bulgarian matches ..... :)
regards
adam
 
My distrust is towards MyOrigins only. I'm ok with familyfinder.
 
I have always wanted to know this I have never known if they are actually accurate or if they kind of just do it to make money.
 
I have no issues with MyOrigins. It is like all ancestry calculators whether using Admixture or a similar program with dna segments of a certain length of cM like 23andMe uses. None is anywhere near perfect. 23andMe I prefer best, Ancestry is okay, and FTDNA I really don't care what they show. I have to say that MyOrigins is better than the first thing they had which was Population Finder. Population Finder said I was 100% Jewish plus/minus 0.01%. What rubbish! I don't get Jewish anywhere else, not even in MyOrigins mark 2 or DNALand. I am not cynical like tahir0010 probably as I am a veteran, FTDNA 2008 and 23andMe 2008/2009, Dienekes' project, Polako's project. I have seen lots of ancestry results of my raw data. Nothing shocks or surprises. I do think that the companies believe they're doing good science and using the latest techniques, and I know from experience that most people don't really know their ancestry just what some papers say or what they are told. Lots of preconceptions. I was born in Malta, my paper trail show me to be of the Maltese ethnic group barring some aliens, an Italian Giulio Pirotta, descendants of Sultan Cem, an Ethiopian slave - but that was a long time ago. The Ethiopian woman died in 1568, my paternal line ancestor was from Calabria but he moved to Malta in 1505, their dna in me would be tiny and thoroughly broken up generation after generation. MyOrigins gives a trace of Black African ancestry which they explain could be just noise. All dna testing is in the long run, a waste of time and money. I treat it as a hobby, as fun. Since most of you have just complained and not posted your results, I won't post mine. I can tell you that the majority, 73%, is Southeast European, which is to be expected as that is what 23andMe, and Ancestry both say, DNALand uses Mediterranean Islander and Balkan. And yes I do get some Northwest African.
 
Last edited:
Giulio Pirrotta looks like a Sicilian or Calabrese name, nothing of extraordinary for a Maltese to have Sicilian or Southern Italian ancestors in their bloodline. The most interesting thing is the Ethiopian slave. Descendent of Sultan Cem?an half Anatolian Turk and half Balkanites.
 
Hauteville said:
Giulio Pirrotta looks like a Sicilian or Calabrese name, nothing of extraordinary for a Maltese to have Sicilian or Southern Italian ancestors in their bloodline. The most interesting thing is the Ethiopian slave. Descendent of Sultan Cem?an half Anatolian Turk and half Balkanites.
Click to expand...
The spelling of the surname is Pirotta, one r, and according to gens cognomi italiani the surname is from Piemonte. It doesn't matter to me, on Giulio's parish marriage certificate he is listed as a foreigner, Straniero. Generally Sicilians are listed as foreigners or where they come from in Sicily. Maltese certificates were written in Standard Italian until the rise of Il Duce. If you are interested in Sultan Cem or the Ethiopian you can look up maltagenealogy.com, there is lots on her and him after all she gave rise to the Maltese family of Sant, and Cem's descendants to the Said family. Cem was a "guest" of the Borgias, I am descended from that man too via his bastard Cesare and his bastard Constanza. Not that it shows on me. Cem's wife was Italian though his mother was supposed to be Helena Palaiologos, so it is said, those Sultan's had lots of wives and concubines. If you are interested in common Maltese surnames that come from Sicily, most surnames in Malta do come from Sicily, Vella belongs to I-M223, Portelli belongs to R-M417, Camilleri is J-M172 and Caruana, reminds of Inspector Montalbano's sergeant, is T-M70.
 
Last edited:
Ponto said:
The spelling of the surname is Pirotta, one r, and according to gens cognomi italiani the surname is from Piemonte. It doesn't matter to me, on Giulio's parish marriage certificate he is listed as a foreigner, Straniero. Generally Sicilians are listed as foreigners or where they come from in Sicily. Maltese certificates were written in Standard Italian until the rise of Il Duce. If you are interested in Sultan Cem or the Ethiopian you can look up maltagenealogy.com, there is lots on her and him after all she gave rise to the Maltese family of Sant, and Cem's descendants to the Said family. Cem was a "guest" of the Borgias, I am descended from that man too via his bastard Cesare and his bastard Constanza. Not that it shows on me. Cem's wife was Italian though his mother was supposed to be Helena Palaiologos, so it is said, those Sultan's had lots of wives and concubines. If you are interested in common Maltese surnames that come from Sicily, most surnames in Malta do come from Sicily, Vella belongs to I-M223, Portelli belongs to R-M417, Camilleri is J-M172 and Caruana, reminds of Inspector Montalbano's sergeant, is T-M70.
Click to expand...

Pirrotta is Sicilian, Pirotta seems from Lombardy, but it is possible that in the past there has been a bit of confusion between the two

https://www.tuttogenealogia.it/inde...ghlight=&sid=7d45398891ee0dc7c46cab4ed34605b5
 
23andMe is supposed to alter ancestry results when a parent or child tests. Your results on their own are unphased, so 23andMe cannot work out which of your results come from which parent except the Y chromosome for men, and haplogroups. Of course, if your parents are mixed as in one is Nigerian African and the other Korean Asian, then your results can be separated from each parent but with single type of ancestry like European, they cannot. My parents are dead so I cannot have my results phased, it would be nice if my results could be then I would know from whom I received the red hair SNP allele, and 23andMe's chromosome painting would be better. 23andMe has half of one or two chromosomes as North African, that is impossible, as my parents, grandparents, great grandparents...were Maltese not North African and every generation the dna I received was shuffled, broken up and reattached, there is no way that a parent could pass an unaltered chromosome segment to me. So, changing your ancestry results with the addition of close relatives is a good thing, and more accurate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

This thread has been viewed 27843 times.

Back
Top