Tag Archive | Ancestry Compostion

Ancestry Breaks Down Your Ethnicity by Parent

Jul27

Recently Ancestry came up with a tool to show your bio-ancestry by parent without even having a parent tested! Now they have taken it a step further and added a chromosome painting which shows you which segments of your chromosomes have what origins. Not everyone has this yet and for those whose parents are primarily one ethnicity, it is not very useful. However the more mixed your heritage, the more interesting it is.

The Sideview circles for an Australian woman with a half chinese Dad  (click here for that blog post)

This feature is part of your DNA story so go there from your DNA menu at Ancestry. Once on that page, scroll down until you see a box on the right side titled Ethnicity Inheritance like the one in the image on the left here. Click anywhere in that box to get to the page that breaks it down by parent.

The Sideview technology, previously released and shown above, has two circles next to each other, where the left one shows the expected ancestry of each parent and the right circle shows your own.

For those of us whose parents are from different parts of the world, it is easy to tell which parent is Parent1 and which is Parent2. Plus Ancestry gives you the option to label them Maternal or Paternal. To do that, scroll down past the circles to the section titled Detailed Comparison, then click on the pencil next to the words Edit Parents as shown below (red arrow added by me). Next you get a little window which shows you half your inheritance and lets you designate which parent it is from. As my Dad is 100% Norwegian-American and my mother a Bavarian and Jewish mix, this was easy for me to do.

 

Since my father is tested at 23andme, I decided to compare that result to the prediction from Ancestry. Both Ancestry and 23andme predict a little bit of Finnish in addition to the 98% Norwegian. Only Ancestry finds a bit of Irish which is likely backwards; those Irish matches more likely have some Norwegian. No sliver of Irish is found in my brothers’ results. Remember, as improved as these results are at Ancestry, unlike close relationship predictions, they are still not accurate science.

My circles of Ancestry Composition, note that I have designated which parent is which

If you have elected to Beta test new features (under Extras > Ancestry Lab), then you will also have the chromosome browser painting of the ethnicity. Although this feature looks to be slowly rolled out to everyone.

There is a tab at the top of the Ethnicities Inheritance page that lets you click over to the Chromosome Painter or you can click on those words from the initial box on the DNA story page.
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Interesting New DNA Features at Ancestry

Jul6

Do you know that Christa Cowan, Ancestry’s Barefoot Genealogist, posts Youtube videos every month describing new features? The changes that a number of readers have asked about were described in her June video. First of all there are some new DNA communities so go have a look at your ethnicity breakdown. These are based on some of the other 20 million DNA testers and their trees on the Ancestry site.

The other new item of interest is a change to the match list page. You are now asked if you know who your matches are. Some long-time users find this annoying, but it gives you a nice way to separate paternal and maternal matches when your parents are not both tested. It also lets you specify a specific relationship which is then listed for that person. Christa describes that feature about ten minutes into her June “What’s New at Ancestry” video below.

Those of us with German ancestry are excited by the new breakdown of those communities. Click here for Ancestry’s blog post about German DNA. My maternal grandmother was born in Munich to Bavarian Catholic parents. Apparently my brother got more of her DNA than I did, since I have much more from our Jewish maternal grandad: 34% as compared to Shipley’s 27% plus I get a Jewish community and he does not. By the way his Ashkenazi used to be only 22% and that is close to what both 23andme and MyHeritage find. To further investigate this, we convinced a Catholic half second cousin in Germany to do a DNA test. This was additional confirmation of our uneven maternal DNA inheritance, click here for that post.

This is the image of my brother’s latest ethnicity results which now include “Central and Southwest Germany” so perhaps Bavaria – red arrows are my addition. By the way, clicking on a community will not only tell you more about that history but will show you those matches who share it.

New ethnicities for my brother

Our father was 100% Norwegian in descent so my brother’s extra 10% Norwegian must be German. My Norwegian has now risen to 49% which pleases me. That plus the 1% Finnish are presumably from my dad.

Many users are starting to see the question “Do you recognize them? “ next to matches on their DNA relatives list with a Yes button and a Learn More button underneath.
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Comparing Ethnicity Estimates Across Companies

Oct12

Both Ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA have recently updated their ethnicity results. As much fun as it is to look at your ancestry composition, those estimates do not really reflect the populations of today’s countries, but rather human migrations hundreds of years in the past. Therefore the big picture is more accurate than the smaller areas. Examples that I have found to be realistic are North versus South Europe or East versus West versus South Asia.

To the left is a simple pie chart showing the known ancestry for my brother and myself for the last 300 years or so. Our father was Norwegian American, documented back to the 1600s, and our mother was born in Munich to a Jewish father and German (Bavarian) mother. In 2016 I wrote a blog post showing how my brother’s ethnicity appeared at a number of DNA companies and third party sites (click here for that post). This post will look again at the ethnicity predictions for each of us from the main testing companies.

One thing I always find interesting is that they all show my brother Shipley with less DNA from our Jewish grandfather than I have. The variations between full siblings can be quite large.

Let’s look at the new Family Tree DNA results first:

My Origins at Family Tree DNA for my brother and myself

Nice and simple but not very accurate. We have no British ancestors in the last 500 years that we know of. However there is no such thing as German DNA because that area was a crossroads. It usually shows up as French, Scandinavian, British, or even Eastern European. Jewish DNA is quite distinct due to centuries of endogamy. Interestingly, our Jewish never comes out at the expected 25%. All the companies show me with more than that and my brother with less. Although you inherit half of your DNA from each parent, they do not have to pass you an equal amount from each of their parents.

Here are our results at MyHeritage:

Our ethnicity predictions at MyHeritage

MyHeritage is an excellent site for working with your DNA since it includes a chromosome browser that shows triangulations and it also looks through user trees to try and figure out your relationships to your DNA cousins. However, although their ethnicity estimates have improved over time, like Family Tree DNA, they incorrecty find lots of British Isles DNA for us. They call it Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. The Jewish component is only few percentage points different from Family Tree DNA.

Frankly I find the estimates at 23andme and Ancestry more accurate.

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New Ethnicities at Ancestry

Sep17

Ancestry just did a major update to its ancestry composition estimates based on DNA tests. I was sad to see that my brother and I lost all our German. That seems strange and incorrect, as our grandmother was Bavarian. Now her ethnicity appears to be some combination of Swedish, English, Norwegian, and Eastern European. Germany was a crossroads between Eastern, Western, and Northern Europe so one expects to be very mixed, still I was sorry to see her German and Italian go away. On the other hand, I am pleased to now be 49% Norwegian since my father was the son of Norwegian immigrants in Brooklyn and I am also happy to be even more Jewish.

Kitty Cooper's ethnicity at Ancestry.com

Kitty Cooper’s ethnicity at Ancestry.com

The ethnicity comparison with my first cousin who shares my German grandparents (one Jewish, the other Bavarian) seems to show the new view of my grandmother’s ethnicity

Today was the day that I finally got the email from Ancestry announcing the update to my ethnicity estimates. Vivs, an administrator of one of the many DNA FaceBook groups I follow, pointed out that this is an ideal time to send messages to DNA relatives you have not heard from as they may well log in and see your message because of that email. In fact, just now, I got a reply from a cousin I had messaged over a year ago!

Clicking on the button that says Learn more in Ancestry‘s email took me to a page that explained the update and included a nice map. Here is a quote from there with the essence of the changes:

“In our latest update we have been able to break larger regions—like England, Wales & Northwestern Europe; Ireland & Scotland;  Italy; China; Japan; the Philippines; Cameroon, Congo & Southern Bantu Peoples; and Eastern Europe & Russia—into smaller, more precise ones.”

Of course, I had to go look at some of the people I have helped who have interesting ethnic mixes.
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Finally, Ancestry’s New Ethnicity Estimates

Sep12

Today we all got an email from Ancestry announcing new ethnicity reports for everyone. Adding five times the reference populations plus a better algorithm that can often indicate the modern countries. This time I really do have the new ancestry composition estimates!
Updates Available box
Naturally I immediately went and looked. Then I messaged and emailed all my tested cousins to accept the new update. When you log in to Ancestry and click on DNA in the top menu you get a page with three panels. Click on the panel to the left called “DNA story” to go to a page with a world map and the Updates Available box on the upper right.

Click the green button that says View your Updated Estimate in that box. Next you have to answer a few questions about your expectations and your thoughts on the previous ethnicity. I am afraid I did not understand that below each was a slider which I could move to indicate the level of accuracy, so until the last one that I answered, I left it alone. I wonder how many others will make that error.

The first time on your new ethnicity page, you will see a panel on the right showing how your estimates have changed. Here is mine. I was sad to say goodbye to that unlikely 1% Polynesian!

My father was Norwegian American with one fourth grandad (2% of his DNA?) who was German. My mother was born in Munich to a Jewish father and Bavarian Catholic mother. So how does that play out in these new estimates? Could the Swedish be a remnant from the 30 years war where Swedish soldiers rampaged through Bavaria? Actually I think my Norwegian dad had a fifth grandparent who was Swedish but that would hardly show either.

Here is my brother’s  page showing the new estimates with the changes:

I am still 29% Jewish but my brother is down to 20% from 22%. Our maternal grandad was Jewish and I randomly got more of his DNA than my grandmother’s. When a 2nd cousin on our maternal grandmother’s side tested, my brother did indeed share a third again as much DNA with her as I did (Click here for that post)

By the way you can get back to the page showing the changes together with the new estimates by clicking on the small blue Updates at the top of your ethnicity estimate then the View Previous Estimate at the bottom of the Ethnicity box followed by Compare these results to your most recent AncestryDNA estimate on the next page.

Now to look at some more interesting ethnic makeups from my cousins and people I have helped.
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