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MyHeritage Introduces Ethnicity v2.5

Roberta Estes

MyHeritage is releasing the long-awaited ethnicity update, doubling the number of regions reported from 42 to 79.

MyHeritage, in their blog, states that:

Accessing Your New Results

You’ll need to sign in and opt-in to access your results. Click on your current Ethnicity Estimate and accept the prompt to update.

Your new results require time to calculate and MyHeritage will send you an email when they’re ready.

It didn’t take a day for mine to calculate, but how long depends, at least in part, on how many people request updates at the same time. Of course, everyone wants to see their new results.

Versions

New users receive the new v2.5 results, but existing customers will be able to view the original version (v0.95) or the new 2.5 version. These two versions aren’t the only ones that have existed.

There was a beta 2.0 that I was a part of, but MyHeritage continued to tweak the algorithm and it’s now 2.5 being rolled out to everyone.

There was also an intermediate release that was in effect in 2024 when I taught the DNA Academy, shown on the Academy slide, below.

In that intermediate version, I:

Let’s look at the new release.

New Ethnicities

Legacy customers can choose to view either version 0.95 or 2.5, or switch back and forth.

In addition to ethnicity, MyHeritage provides Genetic Groups, which are where the ancestors of groups of your matches are located. Genetic Groups are shown on the same map with black outlines, and sometimes, they overlap with ethnicities. Genetic Groups and Ethnicities are two different things, though, because ethnicity tends to stem from genetic populations further back in time, and Genetic Groups are tree-based and more recent.

Here’s the newly released 2.5 version. Please note that I “snipped” the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to narrow the image for better display.

The new version is shown above, and the 0.95 earlier version is shown below.

Of course, the whole purpose of updating ethnicity results is to obtain either more granular results, or more accurate results, or both. The idea being that if you had Scandinavian before, now it can be broken into smaller areas with more specificity.

Which Version is the Most Accurate?

Only you can determine which version is the most accurate for you. I’ve kept an ethnicity spreadsheet for my 64 4-times great grandparents, meaning 6 generations back in time if you begin counting with my mother.

Here’s an example of the first few rows of my spreadsheet.

Click to enlarge image

I know where each of those ancestors were from, or in the case of English, a few are inferred based on their spouse, community or their location and such. Each of those ancestors contributed approximately 1.56% (rounded) of my ethnicity. In a few cases, I know that their parents came from a different location, so I’ve subdivided where appropriate. As genealogists, we also know that autosomal DNA of our ancestors is not passed in exactly 50% increments, so I might not (and probably don’t) have exactly 1.56% of the DNA from one of those ancestors. Still, this is the best measure we can create of accuracy.

Summary Table

In the following table, I’ve divided the first column into regions. The bolded black names are the more expansive regions, generally used in v0.95 and the 2024 DNA Academy version, for which I don’t have a version number.

The regions beneath those bolded titles are the newer region names used by MyHeritage in v2.5 that would be included in the original group based on the maps.

For example, Dutch, Germanic and French used to fall in North and West Europe, but now they are their own regions.

Regions didn’t overlap exactly. For example, East European includes the easternmost portion of the older North and West Europe – including part of Germany, so that’s where I grouped it based on my ancestors.

Another thing to consider is that Breton could well include a significant amount of Scandinavian due to the Viking influence. It’s neighbor province is Normandy, literally named for the Normans, or “Northmen” who settled there in the 9th century.

I divided my English into two rows. I know where the ancestors that I categorized as English come from, meaning they are unquestionably English. The second row is classified as inferred. I wanted to be as accurate as possible since we’re trying to compare for ethnicity accuracy.

It’s also worth remembering that Vikings in the form of the Danes invaded England as well.

While these events happened a long time ago, pockets of remaining DNA from an entire population of these people could be and probably are identified yet today. It’s easy to see why ethnicity really is just an estimate, and changes as the vendors’ technology, databases, and available reference populations change as well.

One final note about this table is that I maintain my spreadsheet by maternal and paternal ancestors because it’s just easier that way.

The column “Parents Total” represents the total amount of DNA descended from that location based on both parents. For example, I have 11.77 paternal English and 6.24 maternal English, which totals 18.01.

If you add to it the 23.07 inferred on my father’s side, you have the 41.08 for the entire category total, shown in bold green at the bottom of each category. Therefore, the total of 44.77 at the bottom of “Parents Total” is the total of both parents and all regions that fall in the original category of North and West Europe.

I’ve bolded the red total number from the three MyHeritage ethnicity versions that’s the closest to my actual ancestry, assuming I inherited exactly 50% of the DNA of that ancestor, and their ancestors weren’t Vikings, perchance.

  v0.95 % 2024 % v2.5 % Parents Total Paternal Maternal
English 60.3 44.4 23.5 18.01 11.77 6.24
Inferred English 23.07
Total 60.3 44.4 23.5 41.08 34.84 6.24
North & West Europe 18.1 37.8
Dutch 33.3 14.04 1.56 12.48
Germanic 13.8 24.96 24.96
East European 1.5
French 9.8 5.47 5.47
Breton 2.0
North Italian 2.2
Total 18.1 37.8 62.6 44.77 1.56 42.91
Scandinavian 11.8 3.6 1.58 1.56
Norwegian 1.0
Danish 2.3
Finnish 1.1
Total 12.9 3.6 3.3 1.56 1.56 0
Irish, Scottish, Welsh 8.7 13.3
Scottish and Welsh 9.1
Scotland 4.68 4.68
Irish 1.5 7.05 7.05
Total 8.7 13.3 10.6 11.73 11.73 0
Native 1.0 1.14 0.29 0.85
Total 0 1.0 0 1.14 0.29 0.85

My Native American ethnicity, which was missing the first time, is present in the 2024 version but is gone again in v2.5.

Small amounts of DNA can be interpreted as “noise” in some models, and it’s up to the vendors to determine how to handle this situation. Every vendor has a minimum threshold, and models change as vendors attempt to improve their ethnicity estimates.

I have confirmed the accuracy of my Native ethnicity segments by:

Bonus Video

You can download a video of your ethnicity results

In the upper right hand corner of your ethnicity map, click the download button.

Here’s my video!

In Summary

Many times, significantly more granular information can be wrung out of early ethnicity information. While North and West Europe might have been exactly accurate, Dutch, Germanic, and French are much more specific, meaning we may be able to tie those more specific regions to our genealogy, especially if you’re lucky enough that your Genetic Communities overlap.

My mother’s paternal grandfather was fully Dutch from Friesland, but his wife had German roots.

Mother’s maternal grandmother was unquestionably German. I have their immigration and citizenship information.

My ethnicity reflects my genealogy.

So, take a look at your new ethnicity results at MyHeritage and then make your own personal ethnicity chart or spreadsheet to see how they correlate with your known genealogy.

Are there any surprises waiting? Have you checked genealogy records at MyHeritage recently for your end-of-line brick-wall ancestors?

If you don’t have a DNA test at MyHeritage already, you can upload a file from another vendor, here. Step-by-step upload/download instructions can be found here.

Have fun!

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