FTDNA My Origiins 2.0 failure....

[Northener]

FTDNA recently released a new version of my origins. For much people this meant significant changes in the image of their origins. Certainly for many people form the Low Lands and Northwestern Germany. Confusion everywhere. How is this possible?

What may well be the case for the Low Lands/ NW Germany/Denmark is that FTDNA his models ignores the "West Germanic" or "North Sea Germanic" autosomal DNA. They identify "British Isles" or "Scandinavia". But they don’t identify the “West-Germanic” factor.


In that respect is 23 andme closer to the fire. They have a category "Broadly Northwest European" this is autosomal DNA that is not attributable to a specific country in northwestern Europe, but to DNA that occurs in several places along the North Sea coast. And this DNA peaks in the (Northern) Low Lands up to Denmark. But since FTDNA doen’t recognize this category, we see a very distorted picture ....


In this respect has Maciamo (Eupedia) a more spot on analysis!!!

"Broadly Northwest European admixture
This admixture peaks in the northern Dutch provinces of Frisia and Groningen (40%), as well as in East Anglia (35-40%), Denmark (34%), the central Netherlands (32%), Germany (31%) and the northern French département du Nord (31%) and the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy (33%). Its distribution correlates mostly with West Germanic ancestry, but could also include some broader Celto-Germanic elements in Germany, the Benelux and France. It appears to be linked to the Proto-Celto-Germanic Y-haplogroup R1b-U106, which almost reaches its maximum frequency in Frisia, East Anglia and Denmark."

 

[Maciamo]

Thanks. I do my best to sort out the mess that many testing companies think is good enough to provide to their customers. Sometimes I feel that they make no effort whatsoever to create a decent analysis of their own admixtures. That, or they do it on purpose so that people keep wondering about their origins and order more tests in the hope they will be better than the previous one. I may be cynical, but that's often how American companies function. Take customers for idiots and squeeze as much money out of them. FTDNA is the champion in that category.

 

[kingjohn]

dear maciamo ,
what do you think about the sefhardic cluster of ftdna my origins 2.0
my grandfather is sefhardic i should have got 27% sefhardic at the most dna that person could get from grandparent
yet i score 36% sefhardic ?????
with kind regards
adam

 

[Northener]

Thanks. I do my best to sort out the mess that many testing companies think is good enough to provide to their customers. Sometimes I feel that they make no effort whatsoever to create a decent analysis of their own admixtures. That, or they do it on purpose so that people keep wondering about their origins and order more tests in the hope they will be better than the previous one. I may be cynical, but that's often how American companies function. Take customers for idiots and squeeze as much money out of them. FTDNA is the champion in that category.

mmm ok.... And may be also a kind of lack of knowledge about the demographic transitions in Europe's past? Can't be to difficult.
In the end this can be a miscalculation because, as I've read on different fora, people got confused and it leads to distrust.....

Anyway thanks for the 'Ingevaeonic' analysis, it made me clear why I got often "Danish-results" in the different admixture analysis on Gedmatch.

 

[Maciamo]

dear maciamo ,
what do you think about the sefhardic cluster of ftdna my origins 2.0
my grandfather is sefhardic i should have got 27% sefhardic at the most dna that person could get from grandparent
yet i score 36% sefhardic ?????
with kind regards
adam

27% is not the most one can inherit from a grandparent. It can sometimes exceed 30%. 36% is doubtful though, especially if your previous results were much lower. Anyway I wouldn't give any credence to FTDNA's MyOrigins. I think that if you have read my review and my comments on this forum you should know that by now.

 

[Sile]

The new 23andme percentages are far far better than Ftdna myOrigins

Myorigins have gone backwards ..............I assume they must be mixing with myHeritage results ( which are also done at ftdna labs in Utah USA)

Ancestry percentages are far worse than MyOrigins from what I have seen from my cousins results ( I was given access )

 

[mwauthy]

I think most DNA companies do an okay job of differentiating the difference between Northern European genes and Southern European genes (except for Ancestry who overly assign Scandinavian and Iberian). The mess occurs when they try breaking down these two categories into specific countries of origin. 23andMe admits they only assign French and German 8% of the time when the genes are present, and only have an accuracy of 78% for this category. As a result, British Isles are overly assigned and nonspecific broadly categories are overly assigned. The same applies to Southern European genes. Most companies can't seem to differentiate properly between Iberian, Italian, Greek, and Asia Minor.

If you look at my test results for 23andMe and FTDNA 2.0 they are very similar for the two major categories of northwestern and southern but I feel FTDNA 2.0 were more accurate with the specific breakdown. On paper I am 50% French Canadian to 1650 and 50% Wallonia Belgium to 1650.

23andMe:
European 100%

Northwestern European 86.1%
French and German 31.4%
British and Irish 23.4%
Broadly Northwestern 31.3%

Southern European 10.8%
Iberian 0.8%
Sardinian 0.7%
Italian 0.3%
Broadly Southern 9%

Broadly European 3.1%

FTDNA 2.0
European 100%
West and Central Europe 90%
Southeast Europe 10%

Both tests are similar in that they both assert I am mostly a Celtic/Germanic mixture with a smaller influence of Roman which makes sense based on my paper trail. However, FTDNA 2.0 in my case at least appears more reliable.

 

[Northener]

I think most DNA companies do an okay job of differentiating the difference between Northern European genes and Southern European genes (except for Ancestry who overly assign Scandinavian and Iberian). The mess occurs when they try breaking down these two categories into specific countries of origin. 23andMe admits they only assign French and German 8% of the time when the genes are present, and only have an accuracy of 78% for this category. As a result, British Isles are overly assigned and nonspecific broadly categories are overly assigned. The same applies to Southern European genes. Most companies can't seem to differentiate properly between Iberian, Italian, Greek, and Asia Minor.

If you look at my test results for 23andMe and FTDNA 2.0 they are very similar for the two major categories of northwestern and southern but I feel FTDNA 2.0 were more accurate with the specific breakdown. On paper I am 50% French Canadian to 1650 and 50% Wallonia Belgium to 1650.

23andMe:
European 100%

Northwestern European 86.1%
French and German 31.4%
British and Irish 23.4%
Broadly Northwestern 31.3%

Southern European 10.8%
Iberian 0.8%
Sardinian 0.7%
Italian 0.3%
Broadly Southern 9%

Broadly European 3.1%

FTDNA 2.0
European 100%
West and Central Europe 90%
Southeast Europe 10%

Both tests are similar in that they both assert I am mostly a Celtic/Germanic mixture with a smaller influence of Roman which makes sense based on my paper trail. However, FTDNA 2.0 in my case at least appears more reliable.

I guess your 'case' illustrates that West and Central Europe stands for the La Tene or Hallstatt influence, my West and Central Europe is 0%.

 

[mwauthy]

That's an interesting and plausible theory. Just not sure how the Germanic Frank influence from Wallonia fits in that scenario though?

 

[Maciamo]

I guess your 'case' illustrates that West and Central Europe stands for the La Tene or Hallstatt influence, my West and Central Europe is 0%.

It's impossible that a Walloon would have anywhere near 90% of La Tène/Hallstatt Celtic ancestry. Please check my analysis of Belgian Y-DNA and autosomal DNA by region and province. Walloons have almost exactly the same percentage of Germanic Y-DNA as Flemings (41% vs 42% for the total of R1b-U106, R1a-L664, R1a-Z282, I1 and I2-L801). Using 23andme's Broadly Northwest European and Scandinavian components as proxies for Germanic ancestry, we get 33% for Flemings and 28.5%, not identical, but less than 5% apart (Frisians get over 60%, so about twice as much as either the Flemings or Walloons).

All it shows is that the FTDNA 'West & Central European' component is relatively useless to determine ancestry.

 

[Northener]

It's impossible that a Walloon would have anywhere near 90% of La Tène/Hallstatt Celtic ancestry. Please check my analysis of Belgian Y-DNA and autosomal DNA by region and province. Walloons have almost exactly the same percentage of Germanic Y-DNA as Flemings (41% vs 42% for the total of R1b-U106, R1a-L664, R1a-Z282, I1 and I2-L801). Using 23andme's Broadly Northwest European and Scandinavian components as proxies for Germanic ancestry, we get 33% for Flemings and 28.5%, not identical, but less than 5% apart (Frisians get over 60%, so about twice as much as either the Flemings or Walloons).

Ok, but what contains West and Central Europe (besides some La Tene/Hallstatt)??? My wife and I are in this respect extremes: I've 0% West and Central European, my wife, mother side Holland (province Zuid-Holland) and father side Northern France border Flandres has 95% West and Central Europe!

 

[Northener]

It's impossible that a Walloon would have anywhere near 90% of La Tène/Hallstatt Celtic ancestry. Please check my analysis of Belgian Y-DNA and autosomal DNA by region and province. Walloons have almost exactly the same percentage of Germanic Y-DNA as Flemings (41% vs 42% for the total of R1b-U106, R1a-L664, R1a-Z282, I1 and I2-L801). Using 23andme's Broadly Northwest European and Scandinavian components as proxies for Germanic ancestry, we get 33% for Flemings and 28.5%, not identical, but less than 5% apart (Frisians get over 60%, so about twice as much as either the Flemings or Walloons).
All it shows is that the FTDNA 'West & Central European' component is relatively useless to determine ancestry.

I guess you are right.

We simply don't know what's the basis of the split (in my Origins) between West and Cental Europe, British Isles and Scandinavia. But it doesn't look accurat, that's clear.


I think it would be plausible (in line of your autosomal analysis of Europe) to make this split:
- Insular Celtic (Britonic, Picts)
- Alpine Celtic (Central/Western Europe, La Tene/Hallstatt)
- North Sea Germanic, West Germanic (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians)
- North Germanic/ Scandinavia


Better alternatives??????????