AncestryDNA

[DanielleO]

Sorry newbie here just curious why no one has spoke of AncestryDNA? I have not read through many post so i might be jumping the gun. I know its not yet released over seas . Will any one out of the US be taking this when it is ready if at this point that ever comes?

[JackBlack]

I just tested with Ancestry DNA recently. Here are some pros and cons.

Pros:
Ancestry DNA members more often than not have detailed family trees in which you can often find out how you are related to them. If you have a decent family tree, they will give you a list of people who share an exact ancestor. It will provide a detailed chart on how you are related to that person.



Cons:
Ancestry DNA has a match list that is hard to navigate in the way that it is very difficult to access the back pages of your list. A lotof your matches are anonymous.

[Sile]

I just tested with Ancestry DNA recently. Here are some pros and cons.

Pros:
Ancestry DNA members more often than not have detailed family trees in which you can often find out how you are related to them. If you have a decent family tree, they will give you a list of people who share an exact ancestor. It will provide a detailed chart on how you are related to that person.



Cons:
Ancestry DNA has a match list that is hard to navigate in the way that it is very difficult to access the back pages of your list. A lotof your matches are anonymous.

the big problem with ancestry and their trees

http://dna-explained.com/2015/09/24/...-now-you-dont/

[bobbyau]

Yeh ancestry trees are just a massive orgy of copying, and fly-by-nighters whom think it takes 1 week to make a tree and they are done.
Most trees their are full of rubbish - no sources, no verification, poor quality.

[I1a3_Young]

The reason the matches may change is that people are correcting trees or discovering adoptions and illegitimacy. I've learned only to trust good sourced info for copying trees, but many people don't. Many "speculative" or unsourced trees get copied and if those people are distantly related but in a different way, the "wrong" match is confirmed by DNA.

The DNA circles are helpful to me. When 37 different people are branched off of many lines from one ancestor I can tell it's almost certainly correct.

Another reason Ancestry may not be as popular is that it's American-centric due to being run by the "Mormons." I'm glad the Mormons take a great appreciation for their ancestry because without their early efforts of documentation, many things would be lost.

I would think a major selling point of Ancestry.com is that they upload so many original documents for you to search.

Documents, bolstering evidence through DNA or getting through "road blocks", and the DNA circles are what make it fun for me.

[Viberg]

I think Ancestry.com is a must have when it comes to Family Tree matching along with the use of their vital records, and other records. As long as you use other people's Family Tree's as a tool for the "potentiality" of a legitimate hit you'll be alright. If you find a hit that seems relevant, you must provide the proof to yourself. Ancestry.com is a very important sight for a genetic genealogist to create the multiple trees that are necessary to pin down one's unknown ancestors.

[bigsnake49]

Even if you look at the original documents you have to be careful. A lot of immigrants changed their first and last name to sound more American. Their names might have been mispelled by the ship's registrar or the townhall registrar.

[Angela]

Even if you look at the original documents you have to be careful. A lot of immigrants changed their first and last name to sound more American. Their names might have been mispelled by the ship's registrar or the townhall registrar.

I joined ancestry for a month years ago in order to track my husband's ancestral towns. None of them had a clue. It was still very time consuming because the people at Ellis Island wrote down an incorrect first name based on what they "thought" they heard.

In terms of genetics, I finally broke down and took the test. In my personal case, it was a waste of time. I am NOT 45% French, 55% Italian.

Imagine if I had been adopted and had no information as to my birth parents. If I took the Ancestry test I would be under the impression that I had one Italian and one French parent.

[torzio]

mine changed



Ireland went from 15% to 2

france went from 22% to 35%

[dominique_nuit]

My Ancestry.com results, which I received less than a month ago, are significantly different than what I received via Geno 2.0 two years ago ---->

Italy 49%
Ireland & Scotland 39% -----> specific area Munster, Ireland
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 9% ----> specifically North Yorkshire, East Riding & Lincolnshire
Greece & the Balkans 2%
Eastern Europe & Russia 1%

The Irish percentage is higher than I expected. Only one of my grandparents is Irish ----> the result suggests that I received a lot more DNA from my maternal grandmother (Irish) than from my maternal grandfather (Anglo-American, though with mid-19th century Yorkshire roots, correctly identified by the test, and more distant Quaker origins). I wonder if some of my Quaker ancestry was in fact Irish Quaker (the surname Terry appears in family tree). Alternatively, perhaps what the test identifies as Irish-Scottish ancestry is "Celtic," and the North of England is presumably more "Celtic" than the South.

I should add that my cousin discovered the daughter that he suspected he had (but never acknowledged by mother) via Ancestry.com, so I can vouch for its accuracy at least with respect to recent generations

By way of comparison, these are my Geno 2.0 results (from two years ago) =
38% Northwestern Europe
37% Italy & Southern Europe
9% Eastern Europe
6% West Mediterranean
4% Jewish Diaspora
3% Asia Minor
2% Eastern Africa
1.4% Neanderthal

I suspect that much of the discrepancy can be attributed to Ancestry.com testing for more recent ancestry, and Geno 2.0 testing for more distant ancestry. But neither company is transparent in stating how it arrives at its determinations or the relevant time-frames used.

I suppose I should also take the 23&me test, and then upload the raw data to My True Ancestry

[matty74]

Mine hasn't changed and I don't seem to get a lot of deviation with any updates on the various sites

[Angela]

My Ancestry.com results, which I received less than a month ago, are significantly different than what I received via Geno 2.0 two years ago ---->

Italy 49%
Ireland & Scotland 39% -----> specific area Munster, Ireland
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 9% ----> specifically North Yorkshire, East Riding & Lincolnshire
Greece & the Balkans 2%
Eastern Europe & Russia 1%

The Irish percentage is higher than I expected. Only one of my grandparents is Irish ----> the result suggests that I received a lot more DNA from my maternal grandmother (Irish) than from my maternal grandfather (Anglo-American, though with mid-19th century Yorkshire roots, correctly identified by the test, and more distant Quaker origins). I wonder if some of my Quaker ancestry was in fact Irish Quaker (the surname Terry appears in family tree). Alternatively, perhaps what the test identifies as Irish-Scottish ancestry is "Celtic," and the North of England is presumably more "Celtic" than the South.

I should add that my cousin discovered the daughter that he suspected he had (but never acknowledged by mother) via Ancestry.com, so I can vouch for its accuracy at least with respect to recent generations

By way of comparison, these are my Geno 2.0 results (from two years ago) =
38% Northwestern Europe
37% Italy & Southern Europe
9% Eastern Europe
6% West Mediterranean
4% Jewish Diaspora
3% Asia Minor
2% Eastern Africa
1.4% Neanderthal

I suspect that much of the discrepancy can be attributed to Ancestry.com testing for more recent ancestry, and Geno 2.0 testing for more distant ancestry. But neither company is transparent in stating how it arrives at its determinations or the relevant time-frames used.

I suppose I should also take the 23&me test, and then upload the raw data to My True Ancestry

A lot of the companies have a hard time distinguishing between countries with a lot of "Celtic" ancestry. Some of the Welsh and English may actually be Irish.

I would definitely suggest you do 23andme. I don't believe that stuff about it only covering 500 years and Ancestry covers more of the past. Things show up in Italian results on 23andme which probably date back at least 1500 years. They're just covering themselves, because they know that to track your "ancient" ancestry you really need to compare your dna to ancient peoples. The only big problem 23andme has is that it has a hard time distinguishing between northern French and southwestern German ancestry, because a lot of their reference samples are from Americans who have ancestry from those two areas, and there's a lot of overlap. If they had more Northern and Eastern Germans and more Southern French, for example, it would ameliorate the problem imo.

If you want to know your ancient ancestry, MTA is probably worth it unless you can run the programs yourself. However, since you are not one single ethnicity, the matches aren't going to be really close.

To go back to my own results for a minute, what Ancestry is probably picking up is the fact that because of where my ancestral areas are located, I have about half and probably more of my ancestry coming from what was called in the past "Cisalpine" Gaul (which was Northern Italy) which retained more of the original "Italic" ancestry than Italy from Tuscany south, and also was subject to Gallic/Celtic invasions. So, about half of my ancestry is pretty similar to the ancestry of the French, i.e. Anatolian farmer and steppe, heavier on the steppe than, say, more Greek admixed Central and Southern Italians. It doesn't mean I have any "French" ancestors anytime within the last 2500 years. So, I can't claim to be half "French".

If I didn't know this genetics and history, I would be totally confused.

[dominique_nuit]

My understanding is that Ancestry.com goes back roughly 8 generations, whereas Geno 2.0 determines your "deep ancestry" from 500 years ago to 10,000 years ago, which is an awfully long window of time.

I remain intrigued by the finding that I am 2% Eastern African. Unless there was a significant admixture event involving Saracen incursions along the coast of Calabria circa 1000 AD, affecting the entire countryside of the area (and this seems unlikely), I suspect that this might have something to do with the fundamental population structure of the Southeastern Mediterranean, dating back to the original Neolithic settlements. Perhaps there was a significant Natufian or Basal Eurasian component among the first farmers fanning across the sea?

See this article from 3 years ago, https://egyptsearchdetoxed.blogspot....s-heavily.html

[Angela]

My understanding is that Ancestry.com goes back roughly 8 generations, whereas Geno 2.0 determines your "deep ancestry" from 500 years ago to 10,000 years ago, which is an awfully long window of time.

I remain intrigued by the finding that I am 2% Eastern African. Unless there was a significant admixture event involving Saracen incursions along the coast of Calabria circa 1000 AD, affecting the entire countryside of the area (and this seems unlikely), I suspect that this might have something to do with the fundamental population structure of the Southeastern Mediterranean, dating back to the original Neolithic settlements. Perhaps there was a significant Natufian or Basal Eurasian component among the first farmers fanning across the sea?

See this article from 3 years ago, https://egyptsearchdetoxed.blogspot....s-heavily.html

I would strongly advise you not to believe the things said on that site. It's very biased and highly suspect.

The fact is that some Southern Europeans, particularly Iberians and Italians, but even in parts of southern France, will sometimes, in a good analysis, throw up a percent or two of SSA, most of which arrived during the periods of Saracen rule (although not all, as the discovery of an SSA admixed sample in Copper Age Iberia. People travel, trade, some genetic admixture occurs.), or, in the case of Iberia, which had colonies around the world where people admixed, some of those people might have returned and injected those alleles in the genetics of the population. There's some controversy about it, but some people believe that happened in some parts of Portugal. I don't have a strong position on that.

I can say that I've seen hundreds of Italian samples, and only very few throw up 1 or 2% SSA, and they are mostly Sicilians, which makes sense since they were ruled by the Saracens for 250 years or so. That's not the case for mainland southern Italy, so it would be difficult to explain, except perhaps through an unknown Sicilian ancestor? My husband's whole family has tested, practically (3/4 Calabrian and 1/4 Neapolitan), and he's the only one who gets any, .4% to be precise. So, it's hit and miss which little bits someone will get.

Bottom line, yes, there was obviously some movement even in the Copper Age from North Africa to Iberia, and probably some from the Middle East or North Africa might have landed near your ancestors in Italy. Or it might be Saracen in origin, which the consensus seems to be suggesting is when the majority of it arrived in both Iberia and Italy. We settled for exiling the ones unwilling to convert. We didn't exterminate anyone with "tainted" ancestry, at least not all of the time, although there were horrible incidents such as the ones by the Emperor Frederick against Saracen soldiers he sent to Bari.

So, by chance, some SSA might have been passed down, but except for one strange result where a Neapolitan got 1%, I've really only seen it in Sicilians, and not all Sicilians by a long shot.

I really do think some companies are better at doing this than others.

Ed. Just saw you were really talking about East African. Sorry for the misunderstanding. It's quite possible someone from the Middle East with "East African" in them might have landed near your ancestors, and it survived recombination because it was perhaps an isolated community. However, the thing to remember about East Africans is that they are half West Eurasian like. Some people think that West Eurasian signal comes from Levantines, or even from further back from early farmers from the Levant. Just lately someone is saying the alleles are from Sea Peoples, i.e. Greek like. That seems bizarre to me. The paper is on my list; when I've read it I'll post about it.

Anyway, point is, what are you matching? Are you matching the SSA or the Middle East/Sea Peoples portion or both? This isn't an exact science yet.

[Joey37]

AncestryDNAStory-Joseph-040519 (1).jpgIf Ancestry DNA is to be believed, the particular sperm that created my father had from his father much more of Grandmother Brady's Irish DNA than Grampa Fritz Senior's German DNA (all four of his grandparents, like the current President's paternal grandfather, were Lutheran German immigrants from the Palatinate). But then again their range for the "Irish and Scottish" is 12%-42% while that for English is a very narrow 34-37% range (FWIW, three of my eight great-grandparents were around 100% English, any other trace amounts were other British Isles groups save for the SSA trace in my maternal grandmother's father).

[dominique_nuit]

Angela -- The 2% Eastern Africa result is from Geno 2.0, not Ancestry.com -----> My view is that if this were a recent & singular admixture event, then it would have been caught by Ancestry (parents 50%, grandparent 25%, great-gp's 12.5%, gg-gp's 6.625, ggg-gp's 3.313, etc) -----> so if Ancestry.com captures 6 to 8 generations, a single admixture event beyond that time-frame would have disappeared into statistical nullity ----> therefore, the 2% Eastern Africa result, if valid (detected by Geno 2.0, but not by Ancestry.com), must be STRUCTURAL to the population of my particular area of Calabria, by which I mean a wave of settlers in the area carried Eastern African DNA ----> my intuition is that this DNA must have been a component of the original early farmers who settled the SE Mediterranean, stretching from Cyprus to Crete to Calabria

[Regio X]

My father (full North Italian in ancestry) used to get 0.2% of Eastern Africa in 23andMe, but the trace dissapeared in the last update of Ancestry Composition. Plus, it was not corroborated by third party calculators: DNA Land, MyHeritage, GedMatch's... I think the best thing to do is to use more than one reference to see if the influence in question is real or not more likely.
What my father does consistently get in some GedMatch calculators are these South Asian %s; very low, but they are there, which I think pretty interesting! I wondered if it has something to do with one 3rd great-grandmother of him, orphan (Del Pio Luogo), but I learned many, many people there, perhaps the most, have some ancestor Del Pio Luogo (or Del Pio Ospedale, Casagrande, Della Pietà...) after all, so...

[Wheal]

I've also found trees on ancestry to be questionable. Point, a great great uncle who I KNEW where and when he died because my great grandmother was living with us and one day when I came home from school she was crying and told me her brother had died in Texas. My uncle was deleted and replaced with another man and that tree followed to other sites, even though the death information said the new man was born in a different state.

ALWAYS keep a copy of your work on a good tree program on your computer and check any discoveries with the information that you know is correct.

[Angela]

Angela -- The 2% Eastern Africa result is from Geno 2.0, not Ancestry.com -----> My view is that if this were a recent & singular admixture event, then it would have been caught by Ancestry (parents 50%, grandparent 25%, great-gp's 12.5%, gg-gp's 6.625, ggg-gp's 3.313, etc) -----> so if Ancestry.com captures 6 to 8 generations, a single admixture event beyond that time-frame would have disappeared into statistical nullity ----> therefore, the 2% Eastern Africa result, if valid (detected by Geno 2.0, but not by Ancestry.com), must be STRUCTURAL to the population of my particular area of Calabria, by which I mean a wave of settlers in the area carried Eastern African DNA ----> my intuition is that this DNA must have been a component of the original early farmers who settled the SE Mediterranean, stretching from Cyprus to Crete to Calabria

If it's not even in Ancestry I would ignore it. Geno was terrible.

Also, if Ancestry only supposedly goes back 8 generations, then it's really terrible too. That's only 240 years, My family trees go back to the 1500s. I assure you there are no French people in it within the last 240 years capable of giving me 45% French ancestry. Even 23andme "claims" to go back further: 500 years. If there's a sale your friend should try it.

[torzio]

My father (full North Italian in ancestry) used to get 0.2% of Eastern Africa in 23andMe, but the trace dissapeared in the last update of Ancestry Composition. Plus, it was not corroborated by third party calculators: DNA Land, MyHeritage, GedMatch's... I think the best thing to do is to use more than one reference to see if the influence in question is real or not more likely.
What my father does consistently get in some GedMatch calculators are these South Asian %s; very low, but they are there, which I think pretty interesting! I wondered if it has something to do with one 3rd great-grandmother of him, orphan (Del Pio Luogo), but I learned many, many people there, perhaps the most, have some ancestor Del Pio Luogo (or Del Pio Ospedale, Casagrande, Della Pietà...) after all, so...

I first used Geno ( old version ) and it gave me my T1a2 SNP 2 years before any other company , every else would give me M184 or M70.............moving forward no company is really any good in ancestry composition.....I do find though that myheritage has the highest percentage to find exact matches

[Duarte]

I first used Geno ( old version ) and it gave me my T1a2 SNP 2 years before any other company , every else would give me M184 or M70.............moving forward no company is really any good in ancestry composition.....I do find though that myheritage has the highest percentage to find exact matches

You're right Torzio.
In the excel file "# MyHeritage DNA raw data" obtained from extracting data from the .zip file of the MyHeritage autosomic test there are 720,929 rows with markers of chromosomes 1 to 22, plus markers of the X and Y chromosomes. From the line 702,548 to the line 720,440 are the markers of X and from the line 720,441 to line 720,929 are the markers of Y.


In the excel file "Autosomal_o37_Results" obtained from extraction of the .zip file data from the standard Family Tree DNA - FTDNA autosomic test there are 702,511 rows with markers lines from chromosomes 1 to 22 only. There is no X and Y information.

Big Hug.

[bigsnake49]

I have no complaints with Ancestry.com at all. FTDNA on the other hand...When I first joined Ancestry they had much more coarse reference groups. For example they grouped together Greeks and Italians. Then they added about 12,000 or so people from all over to their reference groups. They still need to add more in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. FTDNA still lumps Italians, Greeks and some of the Balkan populations together. Don't get me started on LivingDNA.

[torzio]

All of ancestry new programs from 1st of july does not work....i activated my thru lines again and will check in 9 hours time

[torzio]

Reading
Www.trentinogenealogy.com/tag/23andme

I get the same problems from the new ancestry admixture split
37% italian
34% french
Next irish

[torzio]

Reading
Www.trentinogenealogy.com/tag/23andme

I get the same problems from the new ancestry admixture split
37% italian
34% french
Next irish

Still the same

• Ethnicity Estimate
  
  
  • Italy37%
    
  
  
  
• 
  
  • Northern Italy
    
    
  
  
• France35%
• Germanic Europe19%
• Greece & the Balkans5%
• Ireland & Scotland2%
• Spain2%