How accurate are FTDNA My Origins?

[Wheal]

What you have to consider is that the tests are based on specific combinations of "reported" ancestry. So if you happen to have a certain combination of snps, you will be a ssigned to a certain group. Since I come from a large family, I am beginning to see greatly varied results. My parents who have no Sephardi results have produced a son with 9% Sephardic results. Father-in-law, with all 4 grandparents from northern Europe, has 4% Amerindian. Results just don't follow through the family.

 

[davef]

So suppose your sibling tested, you can't use his/her results as a rough guide as to how you would score?

 

[mwauthy]

What you have to consider is that the tests are based on specific combinations of "reported" ancestry. So if you happen to have a certain combination of snps, you will be a ssigned to a certain group. Since I come from a large family, I am beginning to see greatly varied results. My parents who have no Sephardi results have produced a son with 9% Sephardic results. Father-in-law, with all 4 grandparents from northern Europe, has 4% Amerindian. Results just don't follow through the family.

It goes to show you that many snps can be found in many regions. Instead of arbitrarily assigning it to one region it might make more sense like 23andMe does to assign it to a Broadly category. It makes even less sense to me to assign it to a particular religion.

In my opinion the high amounts of “Iberian” central to northern Italians are receiving is probably due to some shared Neolithic farming component. The “Sephardic Jew” that many southern Italians are receiving is probably due to some shared North African/ Levant influence. The influence could just as easily be Phoenician or Islamic so I don’t understand why they assign it to Sephardic Jews.

 

[Angela]

It goes to show you that many snps can be found in many regions. Instead of arbitrarily assigning it to one region it might make more sense like 23andMe does to assign it to a Broadly category. It makes even less sense to me to assign it to a particular religion.

In my opinion the high amounts of “Iberian” central to northern Italians are receiving is probably due to some shared Neolithic farming component. The “Sephardic Jew” that many southern Italians are receiving is probably due to some shared North African/ Levant influence. The influence could just as easily be Phoenician or Islamic so I don’t understand why they assign it to Sephardic Jews.

This has always been a terrible test. I don't know if it is still the case, but they used to put Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews as reference samples for the Middle East. You can't do that when these people could be as much as 60% and more "European". Any similarity could be picking up the common alleles.

 

[mwauthy]

This has always been a terrible test. I don't know if it is still the case, but they used to put Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews as reference samples for the Middle East. You can't do that when these people could be as much as 60% and more "European". Any similarity could be picking up the common alleles.

Now that Ancestry and 23andMe are competing against each other for having the “most regions,” I wonder what FTDNA’s marketing response will be if any? In my opinion My Origins 2.0 is not competitive enough even if the update occurred less than a year ago.

 

[Jangozo]

You know, at first when I saw the 20% Sephardic I was ok. Like, my family has a "Morisco" surname, so I thought I would be a typical "Marrano" from Spain with other mixtures.

Than, it changed to 5% Ashkenazi at My Heritage. So well, I went back to Morisco (who returned to Morocco) since I've 16% Iberian/5% North African/5% West African. But dunno if it's 16% after all, maybe it's less since it can be just "Italian".

 

[Wheal]

@davef I have had my brother and 2 sisters tested and we all have very different percentages. I could understand if the results were a recombination of my parents percentages, but we each have percentages that neither of my parents show as even trace amounts in their results.

 

[Wheal]

I really believe that because so few snps have been tested, that eventually there might someday be a way to pinpoint more closely the origins of early civilizations

 

[PabijanBrzeski]

Ftdna is not accurate at all, at least in my case. I am half Polish half Italian, with some distant Balkan ancestry. On ancestry DNA, I come up 60% eastern europe, 32% Italian, 5% Greek/Balkan, 2% Baltic, and 1% French. These seem to be very accurate results, even though I do not trust exact percentages. They make sense according to my family history.

Ftdna gave me 70% South Eastern Europe, 12% Eastern Europe, 10% Scandinavian, 5% West and Central Europe, including a few trace regions. First off, my South East European (which includes my Greco Italian and Balkan DNA, seems to be wayyyy over represented, with my Slavic coming at only 12 percent. How do I jump from 60% to 12%? In addition, none of my Polish/Slavic ancestry is from the Balkans, we are as far as we know North Slavs.
Then there is the 10% Scandinavian! My ancestry results show no Germanic influences. So how do I jump to Scandinavian of all things? And West Euro. The only thing I can think off is that their calculators overestimated the South Euro, and then messed up on the eastern European, instead labeling it as a conglomerate of North European and Balkan ancestry, which included the Slavic, Scnadinavian and Balkan. Maybe because I am a Slavic/Med. mix, my dna seemed to match Balkan populations like Croats or Serbs. If that is the case, they are only matching you to what you look most similar to in their data bases, and not what you really are.

If you want accurate autosomal results, ancestry is the way to go. They have more regions and are getting very specific. Their dna regions are getting more and more narrowed down. I still identify with Ancestry results, and not ftdna.

 

[Viberg]

I think you can take all of the ethnicity estimates from Ancestry.com, FTDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage with a grain of salt. I think that Ancestry.com is especially misleading with their TV commercials. They hook you in by suggesting that you will learn your heritage with their test. As with any of the ethinicity estimates you may get a vague representation at best. I would put Ancestry.com last when it comes to autosomal DNA testing. To begin with you get no chromosome browser. Also, they made the decision carve out sections of your DNA because they don't find them relevant when doing match comparisons. Ancestry.com has told me I match my mother on 43 segments when in reality that is impossible. We all know that we match 22 full autosomal segments and one full X chromosome with our mother. FTDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage are all much better DNA testing sites than Ancestry.com. My opinion only.

 

[Viberg]

Ancestry.com's autosomal DNA testing site is the worst of the bunch. FTDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage are all much better testing sites. If anyone is testing their DNA for their ethnicity estimates from any of the DNA testing sites they are wasting their money.

 

[Ghani]

As a Kurd it's odd that I score SE Asian. They are confusing Mongolian which I score on calculators and makes sense with SE Asian

 

[Ghani]

As a Kurd it's odd that I score SE Asian. They are confusing Mongolian which I score on calculators and makes sense with SE Asian

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[SamZane]

I got a 3% Asia Minor that I can't explain in any way. I consider the FTDNA autosomal ethnicity model less accurate than others, like the one of MyHeritage (in my case).

 

[Boreas]

I got a 3% Asia Minor that I can't explain in any way. I consider the FTDNA autosomal ethnicity model less accurate than others, like the one of MyHeritage (in my case).

And in my case,

My heritage: 2,7% Japanese & 1,9% Inuit
FTDNA: Not Japanese/Inuit, shows Siberian

My Heritage: 2,1% West Asian / Anatolian
FTDNA: 35% West Asian / Anatolian

Do I need to add anything else to show you, how good is My Heritage modelling?

 

[SamZane]

That seems quite impossible for an ethnic turk. Maybe they don't have a large enough pool in the region?

For me MyHeritage was relatively accurate:

My family comes totally from Southern (italian speaking) Switzerland and German Switzerland. Then I have some spanish ancestors (4-5 generations ago) and a branch of my family that comes from Istria, in modern day Croatia. As a result i got:

43.7% Italian
28.9% Iberian (a bit overestimated because they probably inglobe some italian dna too in this category)
20.5% Northern / Western Europe
6.7% Balkans

A part the high iberian value the rest is quite accurate.

The result from FTDNA gave really large and overlapping regions and there is this 3% from Asia Minor that I can't recall to at least 8 generations in the past.

 

[Boreas]

I can't recall to at least 8 generations in the past.

8 generation is nothing for small percent. We can find Neanderthal DNA in our Structure. Probably, it is just something left in you from early European Farmer

Bad accuration seems like those :grin:;

Sample 2:
My Mom: My Heritage 5,9% Chinese / My brother and me don't have any.

Sample 3:
My Brother: My Heritage 7,9% Central Asian / My dad has 1,9% and My mom has none.