LivingDNA Livingdna results?

J

jgg

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Location
Toronto
Ethnic group
Spaniard/Cuban
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b L151
mtDNA haplogroup
V17
Has anyone outside Great Britain used this company?
 
Yes, I recently received my results. I might make my own thread to discuss the test because it has been generating interest recently and there is a lot to critique. What would you like to know?

I'll start by saying that the company has a lot of work to do. I noticed Maciamo thoroughly praised LivingDna as one of the " most detailed and interesting autosomal reports... indisputably", but LivingDna is not offering a finished product as of yet and I did not find their assessment of my ancestry accurate at all.

As for how long it takes, they estimated to have my results 4 months after I sent the kit in and it took them 3.

The autosomal report was way off. I have in depth knowledge of where most of my ancestors came from and I've also taken 23andMe and AncestryDna tests, none of it adds up to the LivingDna reports. LivingDna claimed that 95 percent of my ancestry came from Britain or Ireland(5 percent of that being irish and 10 percent being scottish), compare that to AncestryDna which claimed that >1 percent of my ancestry comes Britain and 16 percent from Ireland and 23andMe which claims that around 42 percent of my ancestry comes from Britain and Ireland. As far as I know I have zero ancestors from England and a few from Scotland/Ireland but most of my ancestry comes from outside the British Isles.

LivingDna has Global, regional and sub regions to analyze your dna. Global is basically which continent, regional is the country/region and sub regional seems to just be regions of the British isles. They also have cautious, standard and complete, which I guess is equivalent to 23andme's scale of speculative to conservative. The feature is not complete though so you can only view standard as of now.


As for Y-dna they were more specific than 23andMe and offered my subclade of R1b-u106, which turned out to be R-L1. I think this is the greatest attraction of LivingDna, that they offer your Autosomal Ancestry and your deeper Y-dna subclade. They don't offer general health information like 23andme but it doesnt matter since you can just upload your raw genetic data to promethese. The description for how R1b-u106 got to England was not accurate at all though...here is what they had to say

"Our analysis shows us your Haplogroup is R1b-u106. It is a descendant of the peoples of the Rhineland and the Low Countries" Alright all of that is true but then they say...

"They reached Britain with the arrival of the greatest revolution in our Human history- the coming of farming"
I'm sure everyone else here will find this explanation as mind wracking as I did. Perhaps I haven't been keeping up with things lately but since when was R1b-u106 responsible for the transmission of farming to Britain?

They offer a more realistic scenario in the history section. I'm not sure if it was specific to R-L1 or to R1b-u106 in general

"Your ancestors and genetic cousins also kept moving,but to the west, eventually crossing the North Sea to Britain and Ireland. It is likely that many of them came as military auxiliaries with the Roman legions and were used to man Hadrian’s Wall."

"One of the largest of the Germanic states which your ancestors likely formed was the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. By the year 603AD it reached as far north as the Firth of Forth. It would have been extended even further if a huge Anglian army had not been destroyed by the Picts at Dunnichen in Angus in 685AD and their warrior king Ecgfrith killed. The battle at Dunnichen (also known by the Anglian name of Nechtansmere) was one of the decisive encounters of British history. The Angles of Northumbria rarely ventured north of the Firth of Forth again and were eventually harried out of Scotland altogether in 1018AD."


The Mtdna analysis was less specific than 23andMe. LivingDna simply said I had H1 while 23andMe said I had H1e. They give a little history and said H was correlated with the Magdalenian culture and H1 with the Funnelbeaker culture. They have a coverage map of autosomal frequency per country, phylogenetic tree and migration animation for both the Mtdna and Y-dna.

I would wait for improvements before buying this test, it seems they have a lot of plans to update everything. They did say I was one of the first customers and you could tell the site was very amateur in design, hopefully things improve.
 
Thanks for your feedback, Promenade.

Note that my recommendation for DNA tests is mostly based on the number of SNPs tested. I know that testing companies can't be trusted for the interpretation of data.

Promenade said:
As for Y-dna they were more specific than 23andMe and offered my subclade of R1b-u106, which turned out to be R-L1. I think this is the greatest attraction of LivingDna, that they offer your Autosomal Ancestry and your deeper Y-dna subclade. They don't offer general health information like 23andme but it doesnt matter since you can just upload your raw genetic data to promethese. The description for how R1b-u106 got to England was not accurate at all though...here is what they had to say

"Our analysis shows us your Haplogroup is R1b-u106. It is a descendant of the peoples of the Rhineland and the Low Countries" Alright all of that is true but then they say...

"They reached Britain with the arrival of the greatest revolution in our Human history- the coming of farming"
I'm sure everyone else here will find this explanation as mind wracking as I did. Perhaps I haven't been keeping up with things lately but since when was R1b-u106 responsible for the transmission of farming to Britain?

They offer a more realistic scenario in the history section. I'm not sure if it was specific to R-L1 or to R1b-u106 in general

"Your ancestors and genetic cousins also kept moving,but to the west, eventually crossing the North Sea to Britain and Ireland. It is likely that many of them came as military auxiliaries with the Roman legions and were used to man Hadrian’s Wall."

"One of the largest of the Germanic states which your ancestors likely formed was the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. By the year 603AD it reached as far north as the Firth of Forth. It would have been extended even further if a huge Anglian army had not been destroyed by the Picts at Dunnichen in Angus in 685AD and their warrior king Ecgfrith killed. The battle at Dunnichen (also known by the Anglian name of Nechtansmere) was one of the decisive encounters of British history. The Angles of Northumbria rarely ventured north of the Firth of Forth again and were eventually harried out of Scotland altogether in 1018AD."


The Mtdna analysis was less specific than 23andMe. LivingDna simply said I had H1 while 23andMe said I had H1e. They give a little history and said H was correlated with the Magdalenian culture and H1 with the Funnelbeaker culture. They have a coverage map of autosomal frequency per country, phylogenetic tree and migration animation for both the Mtdna and Y-dna.
Click to expand...

The report I saw didn't contain such nonsense. I am shocked that they'd write absolute BS like R1b-U106 coming to Britain with Neolithic farmers. Not only is it a complete denial of the Steppe Indo-European origin of R1b-L23 and its descendants, but even a geneticist with no knowledge of ancient DNA, archaeology, history and linguistics should know better, as the U106 mutation arose only 5,000 years ago, while Neolithic farmers reached Britain 6,000 years ago!

As for mtDNA H being associated with the Magdalenian, I wonder where they got that from? All samples from that culture belonged to haplogroups R, U, U5 or U8. H hasn't been found in any Palaeolithic West European sample to date. The Funnelbeaker link is correct, but far too restrictive as H1 was found in almost all Neolithic cultures in Europe, from the Atlantic coast to the Pontic Steppe.

I would wait for improvements before buying this test, it seems they have a lot of plans to update everything. They did say I was one of the first customers and you could tell the site was very amateur in design, hopefully things improve.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. The job of testing companies is just to genotype or sequence your DNA. The interpretation of the results, especially the history of haplogroups and evolution of subclades, should be left to Eupedia, as obviously no testing company has the expertise in that field.
 
Thank you, Macimo and Promanade, for you feedback. It would be interesting to see some sample test results from people outside GB.
 
I contacted Living DNA and they told me that the raw data will be downloadable at the end of April. It should be compatible with GEDMatch and other third-party services, including for health reports.

I also recommended that they corrected the haplogroup descriptions.

They will also provide regional Irish Ancestry, like for Britain, from the end of April.

People who have tested with other companies will soon be able to upload their results on Living DNA and join regional projects like those of FTDNA. They are also planning to provide regional ancestry for other European countries later on.
 
Many users have informed me that it is actually the best DNA tool for both haplogroups and ancestry composition. I wanna buy it.
 
Hopefully I will get my autosomal analysis and "ancestry report" within 10 weeks (and for free)!
 
I will also hopefully take this test soon. I don't want to wait four months for my result though...I'll be an old man by then...
 
Today, my test has ended. My results are 98.7% Iberian and 1.3% unassigned European. As fully Spanish the results are not very useful.

By the other way, the ydna and mtDNA tests are excelent. It is included the frecuency by region. It makes LivingDna worthier than for example Genographic.
 
My father qualified for the project and I ordered the test for myself as well. The kit should get here anytime soon, not look forward to ten weeks of waiting though

Sent from my KIW-L21 using Tapatalk
 
Maciamo said:
I contacted Living DNA and they told me that the raw data will be downloadable at the end of April. It should be compatible with GEDMatch and other third-party services, including for health reports.

I also recommended that they corrected the haplogroup descriptions.

They will also provide regional Irish Ancestry, like for Britain, from the end of April.

People who have tested with other companies will soon be able to upload their results on Living DNA and join regional projects like those of FTDNA. They are also planning to provide regional ancestry for other European countries later on.
Click to expand...

Maciamo, they revised their description for R1b-u106... and they are now using you as a reference
"The Germanic branch of the R1b fatherline.

Your fatherline signature belongs to the R-U106 group.

R-U106 is sometimes referred to as the Germanic branch of the R1b fatherline, and this haplogroup is found in large concentrations in both Northwest Germany and the Netherlands (Hay 2017). It is important to note that R-U106 is not the only haplogroup associated with Germanic people. Nevertheless, charting the expansion and migration patterns of R-U106 is largely an exercise in charting the expansion and migration patterns of Germanic people over the last few millennia (Hay 2017). R-U106 would have been carried into Germany at the dawn of the Bronze Age, when massive Indo-European migrations were sweeping across much of Eurasia (Myres et al. 2011). Central Europe represents where two different branches of this expansion would have met again and mingled, with R-U106 (as a branch of R1b) being more common in the west of Germany, whilst R1a lineages are more common further east (Hay 2017).
Today, most R-U106 results found outside of Germany are a result of the Germanic migrations that have shaped much of Europe for the past two millennia (Hay 2017). The Völkerwanderung period helped lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire as many Germanic peoples migrated across former Imperial territories in the initial centuries of the first millennium, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain (Myres et al. 2011)."
 
Ugh I waited even longer( and still waiting). Both my samples(to my dismay) failed. I recollected the sample for them(hopefully sufficient), and they are testing now(2 month wait). The first time before recollection was 4 months. So you could imagine my dissatisfaction with waiting times. Understandable I guess.
 
Ricimer said:
Today, my test has ended. My results are 98.7% Iberian and 1.3% unassigned European. As fully Spanish the results are not very useful.

By the other way, the ydna and mtDNA tests are excelent. It is included the frecuency by region. It makes LivingDna worthier than for example Genographic.
Click to expand...

At least it means that the autosomal analysis is accurate. Living DNA is planning to refine the autosomal report to the regional level for big countries like Spain, France, Italy and Germany later this year, in the way they have already done it for Britain (20 sub-regions). Even smaller countries should get a regional breakdown too. The first to be released will be Ireland, if all goes well, some time this month.
 
Promenade said:
Maciamo, they revised their description for R1b-u106... and they are now using you as a reference
"The Germanic branch of the R1b fatherline.

Your fatherline signature belongs to the R-U106 group.

R-U106 is sometimes referred to as the Germanic branch of the R1b fatherline, and this haplogroup is found in large concentrations in both Northwest Germany and the Netherlands (Hay 2017). It is important to note that R-U106 is not the only haplogroup associated with Germanic people. Nevertheless, charting the expansion and migration patterns of R-U106 is largely an exercise in charting the expansion and migration patterns of Germanic people over the last few millennia (Hay 2017). R-U106 would have been carried into Germany at the dawn of the Bronze Age, when massive Indo-European migrations were sweeping across much of Eurasia (Myres et al. 2011). Central Europe represents where two different branches of this expansion would have met again and mingled, with R-U106 (as a branch of R1b) being more common in the west of Germany, whilst R1a lineages are more common further east (Hay 2017).
Today, most R-U106 results found outside of Germany are a result of the Germanic migrations that have shaped much of Europe for the past two millennia (Hay 2017). The Völkerwanderung period helped lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire as many Germanic peoples migrated across former Imperial territories in the initial centuries of the first millennium, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain (Myres et al. 2011)."
Click to expand...

I did contact them after you posted the description of R1b-U106 in March. However I didn't write that R1a was more common is East Germanic tribes, apart from the Goths who assimilated Proto-Slavic R1a lineages in Poland and Ukraine before invading the Roman Empire. The truly Germanic R1a lineages are L664 and Z284. L664 is found at similar frequencies in all Germanic groups, while Z284 is more common in Scandinavia and especially central-west Norway for Z284. I have been discussing with David Nicholson, the managing director of Living DNA, and I proposed to work with them on the haplogroup descriptions, so that everything is accurate.
 
Dibran said:
Ugh I waited even longer( and still waiting). Both my samples(to my dismay) failed. I recollected the sample for them(hopefully sufficient), and they are testing now(2 month wait). The first time before recollection was 4 months. So you could imagine my dissatisfaction with waiting times. Understandable I guess.
Click to expand...

They told me that the testing time is going to be improved considerably later this year. They are aiming at delivering results in just 6 to 8 weeks.
 
I wanted to say thanks to you great contributors. I ordered the LivingDNA test and am mostly old immigrant (mostly British) American, for those of you curious about non-native British results. I'll contrast it with the Ancestry.com Sorenson lab chip results. I'm expecting a regional British breakdown all over the place due to the number and variety of British immigrants in my tree. The Ancestry.com ethnicity estimate is very close to current British residents with a bit higher Norwegian due to a GGM immigrant.
 
I've had my LivingDNA results back and am happy to share them so you can see the style of what you get back.

If you look on the V10 in UK... thread in this forum, Maciamo has kindly included a link to my results in his post that can be found here.

We got our results back about 3 months after dispatching the kits, but a month earlier than LivingDNA originally estimated.
 
A general question about the actual DNA results provided and their associated interpretations...

...from the experience and knowledge of those 'who know' about such things, can it be summarised that the LivingDNA results themselves are accurate but the interpretations may be a little off? Having seen reports of where Genetics and Genealogy have not matched, I just wonder.

But why the differences between results for the same person from different suppliers? I presume this is due to the different sampling chips used? It's the same DNA after all.
 
The testing companies can get the data and they should all get the same data if they test the same things.

The differences result from interpretations of the data. They might say "Italian" but what does that mean? Italy has a diverse historical background with Greek colonies, Etruscans, Italo-Celts, etc.

The companies will also develop "reference" populations that are different. They determine a broad percentage of "British" ancestry based on their reference populations. Well, British people are usually a mix of North/West europeans of all types, including different Celts. Being "British" genetically means you match the "British" melting pot based on recent history.

Ancient DNA is limited so they all make their best guesses and different companies use different methods.
 
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