Ethnicity Percentages – Second Generation Report Card

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Recently, Family Tree DNA introduced their new ethnicity tool, myOrigins as part of their autosomal Family Finder product. This means that all of the major players in this arena using chip based technology (except for the Genographic project) have now updated their tools. Both 23andMe and Ancestry introduced updated versions of their tools in the fall of 2013. In essence, this is the second generation of these biogeographical or ethnicity products. So lets take a look and see how the vendors are doing.

In a recent article, I discussed the process for determining ethnicity percentages using biogeographical ancestry, or BGA, tools. The process is pretty much the same, regardless of which vendor’s results you are looking at. The variant is, of course, the underlying population data base, it’s quality and quantity, and the way the vendors choose to construct and name their regions.

I’ve been comparing my own known and proven genealogy pedigree breakdown to the vendors results for some time now. Let’s see how the new versions stack up to a known pedigree.

The paper, Revealing American Indian and Minority Heritage Using Y-line, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X Chromosomal Testing Data Combined with Pedigree Analysis was published in the Fall 2010 issue of JoGG, Vol. 6 issue 1.

The pedigree analysis portion of this document begins about page 8. My ancestral breakdown is as follows:

Geography	Pedigree Percent
Germany	23.8041
British Isles	22.6104
Holland	14.5511
European by DNA	6.8362
France	6.6113
Switzerland	0.7813
Native American	0.2933
Turkish	0.0031

This leaves about 25% unknown.

Let’s look at each vendor’s results one by one.

23andMe

My results using the speculative comparison mode at 23andMe are shown in a chart, below.

23andMe Category	23andMe Percentage
British and Irish	39.2
French/German	15.6
Scandinavian	7.9
Nonspecific North European	27.9
Italian	0.5
Nonspecific South European	1.6
Eastern European	1.8
Nonspecific European	4.9
Native American	0.3
Nonspecific East Asian/Native American	0.1
Middle East/North Africa	0.1

At 23andMe, if you have questions about what exact population makes up each category, just click on the arrow beside the category when you hover over it.

For example, I wasn’t sure exactly what comprises Eastern European, so I clicked.

The first thing I see is sample size and where the samples come from, public data bases or the 23andMe data base. Their samples, across all categories, are most prevalently from their own data base. A rough add shows about 14,000 samples in total.

Clicking on “show details” provides me with the following information about the specific locations of included populations.

Using this information, and reorganizing my results a bit, the chart below shows the comparison between my pedigree chart and the 23andMe results. In cases where the vendor’s categories spanned several of mine, I have added mine together to match the vendor category. A perfect example is shown in row 1, below, where I added France, Holland, Germany and Switzerland together to equal the 23andMe French and German category. Checking their reference populations shows that all 4 of these countries are included in their French and German group.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	23andMe %
Germany, Holland, Switzerland & France	45.7451	15.6
France	6.6113 (above)	Combined
Germany	23.8014 (above)	Combined
Holland	14.5511 (above)	Combined
Switzerland	0.7813 (above)	Combined
British Isles	22.6104	39.2
Native American	0.2933	0.4 (Native/East Asian)
Turkish	0.0031	0.1 (Middle East/North Africa)
Scandinavian		7.9
Italian		0.5
South European		1.6
East European		1.8
European by DNA	6.8362	4.9 (nonspecific European)
Unknown	25	27.9 (North European)

I can also change to the Chromosome view to see the results mapped onto my chromosomes.

The 23andMe Reference Population

According to the 23andMe customer care pages, “Ancestry Composition uses 31 reference populations, based on public reference datasets as well as a significant number of 23andMe members with known ancestry. The public reference datasets we’ve drawn from include the Human Genome Diversity Project, HapMap, and the 1000 Genomes project. For these datasets as well as the data from 23andMe, we perform filtering to ensure accuracy.

Populations are selected for Ancestry Composition by studying the cluster plots of the reference individuals, choosing candidate populations that appear to cluster together, and then evaluating whether we can distinguish the groups in practice. The population labels refer to genetically similar groups, rather than nationalities.”

Additional detailed information about Ancestry Composition is available here.

Ancestry.com

Ancestry is a bit more difficult to categorize, because their map regions are vastly overlapping. For example, the west Europe category is shown above, and the Scandinavian is shown below.

Both categories cover the Netherlands, Germany and part of the UK.

My Ancestry percentages are:

Ancestry Category	Ancestry Percentage
North Africa	1
America	<1
East Asia	<1
West Europe	79
Scandinavia	10
Great Britain	4
Ireland	2
Italy/Greece	2

Below, my pedigree percentages as compared to Ancestry’s categories, with category adjustments.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Ancestry %
West European	52.584 (combined from below)	79
Germany	23.8041	Combined
Holland	14.5511	Combined
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined
France	6.6113	Combined
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined
British Isles	22.6104	6
Native American	0.2933	~1 incl East Asian
Turkish	0.0031	1 (North Africa)
Unknown	25
Italy/Greece		2
Scandinavian		10

Ancestry’s European populations and regions are so broadly overlapping that almost any interpretation is possible. For example, the Netherlands could be included in several categories – and based up on the history of the country, that’s probably legitimate.

At Ancestry, clicking on a region, then scrolling down will provide additional information about that region of the world, both their population and history.

The Ancestry Reference Population

Just below your ethnicity map is a section titled “Get the Most Out of Your Ethnicity Estimate.” It’s worth clicking, reading and watching the video. Ancestry states that they utilized about 3000 reference samples, pared from 4245 samples taken from people whose ethnicity seems to be entirely from that specific location in the world.

You can read more in their white paper about ethnicity prediction.

Family Tree DNA’s myOrigins

I wrote about the release of my Origins recently, so I won’t repeat the information about reference populations and such found in that article.

Family Tree DNA shows matches by region. Clicking on the major regions, European and Middle Eastern, shown above, display the clusters within regions. In addition, your Family Finder matches that match your ethnicity are shown in highest match order in the bottom left corner of your match page.

Clicking on a particular cluster, such as Trans-Ural Peneplain, highlights that cluster on the map and then shows a description in the lower left hand corner of the page.

Family Tree DNA shows my ethnicity results as follows.

Family Tree DNA Category	Family Tree DNA Percentage
European Coastal Plain	68
European Northlands	12
Trans-Ural Peneplain	11
European Coastal Islands	7
Anatolia and Caucus	3

Below, my pedigree results reorganized a bit and compared to Family Tree DNA’s categories.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Family Tree DNA %
European Coastal Plain	45.7478	68
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	7 (Coastal Islands)
Turkish	0.0031	3 (Anatolia and Caucus)
European by DNA	6.8362
Native American	0.2933
Unknown	25
Trans-Ural Peneplain		11
European Northlands		12

Third Party Admixture Tools

www.GedMatch.com is kind enough to include 4 different admixture utilities, contributed by different developers, in their toolbox. Remember, GedMatch is a free, meaning a contribution site – so if you utilize and enjoy their tools – please contribute.

On their main page, after signing in and transferring your raw data files from either 23andMe, Family Tree DNA or Ancestry, you will see your list of options. Among them is “admixture.” Click there.

Of the 4 tools shown, MDLP is not recommended for populations outside of Europe, such as Asian, African or Native American, so I’ve skipped that one entirely.

I selected Admixture Proportions for the part of this exercise that includes the pie chart.

The next option is Eurogenes K13 Admixture Proportions. My results are shown below.

Eurogenes K13

Of course, there is no guide in terms of label definition, so we’re guessing a bit.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Eurogenes K13%
North Atlantic	75.19	44.16
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	2.74 combined East Asian, Siberian, Amerindian and South Asian
Turkish	0.0031	1.78 Red Sea
Unknown	25
Baltic		24.36
West Med		14.78
West Asian		6.85
Oceanian		0.86

Dodecad K12b

Next is Dodecad K12b

According to John at GedMatch, there is a more current version of Dodecad, but the developer has opted not to contribute the current or future versions.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, Gedrosia is an area along the Indian Ocean – I had to look it up!

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Dodecad K12b
North European	75.19	43.50
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	3.02 Siberian, South Asia, SW Asia, East Asia
Turkish	0.0031	10.93 Caucus
Gedrosia		7.75
Northwest African		1.22
Atlantic Med		33.56
Unknown	25

Third is Harappaworld.

Harappaworld

Baloch is an area in the Iranian plateau.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Harappaworld %
Northeast Euro	75.19	46.58
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	2.81 SE Asia, Siberia, NE Asian, American, Beringian
Turkish	0.0031	10.27
Unknown	25
S Indian		0.21
Baloch		9.05
Papuan		0.38
Mediterranean		28.71

The wide variety found in these results makes me curious about how my European results would be categorized using the MDLP tool, understanding that it will not pick up Native, Asian or African.

MDLP K12

The Celto-Germanic category is very close to my mainland European total – but of course, many Germanic people settled in the British Isles.

Second Generation Report Card

Many of these tools picked up my Native American heritage, along with the African. Yes, these are very small amounts, but I do have several proven lines. By proven, I mean both by paper trail (Acadian church and other records) and genetics, meaning Yline and mtDNA. There is no arguing with that combination. I also have other Native lines that are less well proven. So I’m very glad to see the improvements in that area.

Recent developments in historical research and my mitochondrial DNA matches show that my most distant maternal ancestral line in Germany have some type of a Scandinavian connection. How did this happen, and when? I just don’t know yet – but looking at the map below, which are my mtDNA full sequence matches, the pattern is clear.

Could the gene flow have potentially gone the other direction – from Germany to Scandinavia? Yes, it’s possible. But my relatively consistent Scandinavian ethnicity at around 10% seems unlikely if that were the case.

Actually, there is a second possibility for additional Scandinavian heritage and that’s my heavy Frisian heritage. In fact, most of my Dutch ancestors in Frisia were either on or very near the coast on the northernmost part of Holland and many were merchants.

I also have additional autosomal matches with people from Scandinavia – not huge matches – but matches just the same – all unexplained. The most notable of which, and the first I might add, is with my friend, Marja.

It’s extremely difficult to determine how distant the ancestry is that these tests are picking up. It could be anyplace from a generation ago to hundreds of generations ago. It all depends on how the DNA was passed, how isolated the population was, who tested today and which data bases are being utilized for comparison purposes along with their size and accuracy. In most cases, even though the vendors are being quite transparent, we still don’t know exactly who the population is that we match, or how representative it is of the entire population of that region. In some cases, when contributed data is being used, like testers at 23andMe, we don’t know if they understood or answered the questions about their ancestry correctly – and 23andMe is basing ethnicity results on their cumulative answers. In other words, we can’t see beneath the blanket – and even if we could – I don’t know that we’d understand how to interpret the components.

So Where Am I With This?

I knew already, through confirmed paper sources that most of my ancestry is in the European heartland – Germany, Holland, France as well as in the British Isles. Most of the companies and tools confirm this one way or another. That’s not a surprise. My 35 years of genealogical research has given me an extremely strong pedigree baseline that is invaluable for comparing vendor ethnicity results.

The Scandinavian results were somewhat of a surprise – especially at the level in which they are found. If this is accurate, and I tend to believe it is present at some level, then it must be a combined effect of many ancestors, because I have no missing or unknown ancestors in the first 5 generations and only 11 of 64 missing or without a surname in generation 6. Those missing ancestors in generation 6 only contribute about 1.5% of my DNA each, assuming they contribute an average of 50% of their DNA to offspring in each subsequent generation.

Clearly, to reach 10%, nearly all of my missing ancestors, in the US and Germany, England and the Netherlands would have to be 100% Scandinavian – or, alternately, I have quite a bit scattered around in many ancestors, which is a more likely scenario. Still, I’m having a difficult time with that 10% number in any scenario, but I will accept that there is some Scandinavian heritage one way or another. Finding it, however, genealogically is quite another matter.

However, I’m at a total loss as to the genesis of the South European and Mediterranean. This must be quite ancient. There are only two known possible ancestors from these regions and they are many generations back in time – and both are only inferred with clearly enough room to be disproven. One is a possible Jewish family who went to France from Spain in 1492 and the other is possibly a Roman soldier whose descendants are found within a few miles of a Roman fort site today in Lancashire. Neither of these ancestors could have contributed enough DNA to influence the outcome to the levels shown, so the South European/Mediterranean is either incorrect, or very deep ancestry.

The Eastern European makes more sense, given my amount of German heritage. The Germans are well known to be admixed with the Magyars and Huns, so while I can’t track it or prove it, it also doesn’t surprise me one bit given the history of the people and regions where my ancestors are found.

What’s the Net-Net of This?

This is interesting, very interesting. There are tips and clues buried here, especially when all of the various tools, including autosomal matching, Y and mtDNA, are utilized together for a larger picture. Alone, none of these tools are as powerful as they are combined.

I look forward to the day when the reference populations are in the tens of thousands, not hundreds. All of the tools will be far more accurate as the data base is built, refined and utilized.

Until then, I’ll continue to follow each release and watch for more tips and clues – and will compare the various tools. For example, I’m very pleased to see Family Tree DNA’s new ethnicity matching tool incorporated into myOrigins.

I’ve taken the basic approach that my proven pedigree chart is the most accurate, by far, followed by the general consensus of the combined results of all of the vendors. It’s particularly relevant when vendors who don’t use the same reference populations arrive at the same or similar results. For example, 23andMe uses primarily their own clients and Nat Geo of course, although I did not include them above because they haven’t released a new tool recently, uses their own population sample results.

National Geographic’s Geno2

Nat Geo took a bit of a different approach and it’s more difficult to compare to the others. They showed my ethnicity as 43% North European, 36% Mediterranean and 18% Southwest Asian.

While this initially looks very skewed, they then compared me to my two closest populations, genetically, which were the British and the Germans, which is absolutely correct, according to my pedigree chart. Both of these populations are within a few percent of my exact same ethnicity profile, shown below.

The description makes a lot of sense too. “The dominant 49% European component likely reflects the earliest settlers in Europe, hunter-gatherers who arrived there more than 35,000 years ago. The 44% Mediterranean and the 17% Southwest Asian percentages arrived later, with the spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent in the middle East, over the past 10,000 years. As these early farmers moved into Europe, they spread their genetic patterns as well.”

So while individually, and compared to my pedigree chart, these results appear questionable, especially the Mediterranean and Southwest Asian portions, in the context of the populations I know I descend from and most resemble, the results make perfect sense when compared to my closest matching populations. Those populations themselves include a significant amount of both Mediterranean and Southwest Asian. Looking at this, I feel a lot better about the accuracy of my results. Sometimes, perspective makes a world of difference.

It’s A Wrap

Just because we can’t exactly map the ethnicity results to our pedigree charts today doesn’t mean the results are entirely incorrect. It doesn’t mean they are entirely correct, either. The results may, in some cases, be showing where population groups descend from, not where our specific ancestors are found more recently. The more ancestors we have from a particular region, the more that region’s profile will show up in our own personal results. This explains why Mediterranean shows up, for example, from long ago but our one Native ancestor from 7 or 8 generations ago doesn’t. In my case, it would be because I have many British/German/Dutch lines that combine to show the ancient Mediterranean ancestry of these groups – where I have many fewer Native ancestors.

Vendors may be picking up deep ancestry that we can’t possible know about today – population migration. It’s not like our ancestors left a guidebook of their travels for us – at least – not outside of our DNA – and we, as a community, are still learning exactly how to read that! We are, after all, participants on the pioneering, leading edge of science.

Having said that, I’ll personally feel a lot better about these kinds of results when the underlying technology, data bases and different vendors’ tools mature to the point where there the differences between their results are minor.

For today, these are extremely interesting tools, just don’t try to overanalyze the results, especially if you’re looking for minority admixture. And if you don’t like your results, try a different vendor or tool, you’ll get an entirely new set to ponder!

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Family Tree DNA Releases myOrigins

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Roberta Estes

On May 6th, Family Tree DNA released myOrigins as a free feature of their Family Finder autosomal DNA test. This autosomal biogeographic feature was previously called Population Finder. It has not just been renamed, but entirely reworked.

Currently, 22 population clusters in 7 major geographic groups are utilized to evaluate your biogeographic ethnicity or ancestry as compared to these groups, many of which are quite ancient.

Primary Population Clusters

Anatolia & Caucasus
Asian Northeast
Bering Expansion
East Africa Pastoralist
East Asian Coastal Islands
Eastern Afroasiatic
Eurasian Heartland
European Coastal Islands
European Coastal Plain
European Northlands
Indian Tectonic
Jewish Diaspora
Kalahari Basin
Niger-Congo Genesis
North African Coastlands
North Circumpolar
North Mediterranean
Trans-Ural Peneplain

Blended Population Clusters

Coastal Islands & Central Plain
Northlands & Coastal Plain
North Mediterranean & Coastal Plain
Trans-Euro Peneplain & Coastal Plain

Each of these groups has an explanation which can be found here.

Matching

Prior to release, Family Tree DNA sent out a notification about new matching options. One of the new features is that you will be able to see the matching regions of the people you match – meaning your populations in common. This powerful feature lets you see matches who are similar which can be extremely useful when searching for minority admixture, for example. However, some participants don’t want their matches to be able to see their ethnicity, so everyone was given an ‘opt out’ option. Fortunately, few people have opted out, less than 1%.

Be aware that only your primary matches are shown. This means that your 4-5^th cousins or more distant are not shown as ethnicity matches.

Here’s what the FTDNA notification said:

With myOrigins, you’ll be able compare your ethnicity with your Family Finder matches. If you want to share your ethnic origins with your matches, you don’t need to take any action. You’ll automatically be able to compare your ethnicity with your matches when myOrigins becomes available. This is the recommended option. However, we do understand that sharing your ethnicity with your matches is your choice so we’re sending you this reminder in case you want to not take part (opt-out). To opt-out, please follow the instructions below. *

Click this link.
If you are not logged in, do so.
Select the “Do not share my ethnic breakdown with my matches. This will not let me compare my ethnicity with my matches.” radio button.
Click the Save button.

You can get more details about what will be shared here. You may also join our forums for discussion. * You can change your privacy settings at any time. Thus, you may opt-out of or opt back into ethnic sharing at a later date if you change your mind.

What’s New?

Let’s take a look at the My Origins results. You can see your results by clicking on “My Origins” on the Family Finder tab on your personal page at Family Tree DNA.

Ethnicity and Matches

Your population ethnicity is shown on the main page, as well as up to three shared regions that you share with your matches. This means that if you share more than 3 regions with these people, the 4^th one (or 5^th or 6^th, etc.) won’t show. This also means that if your match has an ethnicity you don’t have, that won’t show either.

Above, you see my main results page. Please note that this map is what is known as a heat map. This means that the darkest, or hottest, areas are where my highest percentages are found.

Each region has a breakdown that can be seen by clicking on the region bar. My European region bar population cluster breakdown is shown below along with my ethnicity match to my mother.

And my Middle Eastern breakdown is shown below.

Ethnicity Mapping

A great new feature is the mapping of the maternal and paternal ethnicity of your Family Finder matches, when known. How does Family Tree DNA know? The location data entered in the “Matches Map” location field. Can’t remember if you completed these fields? It’s easy to take a look and see. On either the Y DNA or the mtDNA tabs, click on Matches Map and you’ll see your white balloon. If the white balloon is in the location of your most distant ancestor in your paternal line (for Y) or your matrilineal line for mtDNA (your mother’s mother’s mother’s line on up the tree until you run out of mothers), then you’ve entered the location data and you’re good to go. If your white balloon is on the equator, click on the tab at the bottom of the map that says “update ancestor’s location” and step through the questions.

If you haven’t completed this information, please do. It makes the experience much more robust for everyone.

How Does This Tool Work?

The buttons to the far right of the page show the mapped locations of the oldest paternal lines and the oldest matrilineal (mtDNA) lines of your matches. Direct paternal matches would of course be surname matches, but only to their direct paternal lines. This does not take into account all of their “most distant ancestors,” just the direct paternal ones. This is the yellow button.

The green button provides the direct maternal matches.

Do not confuse this with your Matches Map for your own paternal (if you’re a male) or mitochondrial matches. Just to illustrate the difference, here is my own direct maternal full sequence matches map, available on my mtDNA tab. As you can see, they are very different and convey very different information for you.

Comparisons

By way of comparison, here are my mother’s myOrigins results.

Let’s say I want to see who else matches her from Germany where our most distant mitochondrial DNA ancestor is located.

I can expand the map by scrolling or using the + and – keys, and click on any of the balloons.

Indeed, here is my balloon, right where it should be, and the 97% European match to my mother pops up right beside my balloon. The matches are not broken down beyond region.

This is full screen, so just hit the back button or the link in the upper right hand corner that says “back to FTDNA” to return to your personal page.

Walk Through

Family Tree DNA has provided a walk-through of the new features.

Methodology

How did Family Tree DNA come up with these new regional and population cluster matches?

As we know, all of humanity came originally from Africa, and all of humanity that settled outside of Africa came through the Middle East. People left the Middle East in groups, it would appear, and lived as isolated populations for some time in different parts of the world. As they did, they developed mutations that are found only in that region, or are found much more frequently in that region as opposed to elsewhere. Patterns of mutations like this are established, and when one of us matches those patterns, it’s determined that we have ancestry, either recent or perhaps ancient, from that region of the world.

The key to this puzzle is to find enough differentiation to be able to isolate or identify one group from another. Of course, the groups eventually interbred, at least most of them did, which makes this even more challenging.

Family Tree DNA says in their paper describing the population clusters:

MyOrigins attempts to reduce the wild complexity of your genealogy to the major historical-genetic themes which arc through the life of our species since its emergence 100,000 years ago on the plains of Africa. Each of our 22 clusters describe a vivid and critical color on the palette from which history has drawn the brushstrokes which form the complexity that is your own genome. Though we are all different and distinct, we are also drawn from the same fundamental elements.

The explanatory narratives in myOrigins attempt to shed some detailed light upon each of the threads which we have highlighted in your genetic code. Though the discrete elements are common to all humans, the weight you give to each element is unique to you. Each individual therefore receives a narrative fabric tailored to their own personal history, a story stitched together from bits of DNA.

They have also provided a white paper about their methodology that provides more information.

After reading both of these documents, I much prefer the explanations provided for each cluster in the white paper over the shorter population cluster paper. The longer version breaks the history down into relevant pieces and describes the earliest history and migrations of the various groups.

I was pleased to see the methodology that they used and that four different reference data bases were utilized.

GeneByGene DNA customer database
Human Genome Diversity Project
International HapMap Project
Estonian Biocentre

Given this wealth of resources, I was very surprised to see how few members of some references populations were utilized.

Population	N	Population	N
Armenian	46	Lithuanian	6
Ashkenazi	60	Masai	140
British	39	Mbuti	15
Burmese	8	Moroccan	7
Cambodian	26	Mozabite	24
Danish	13	Norwegian	17
Filipino	20	Pashtun	33
Finnish	49	Polish	35
French	17	Portuguese	25
German	17	Russian	41
Gujarati	31	Saudi	19
Iraqi	12	Scottish	43
Irish	45	Slovakian	12
Italian	30	Spanish	124
Japanese	147	Surui	21
Karitiana	23	Swedish	33
Korean	15	Ukrainian	10
Kuwaiti	14	Yoruba	136

In particular, the areas of France, Germany, Norway, Slovakia, Denmark and the Ukraine appear to be very under-represented, especially given Family Tree DNA’s very heavy European-origin customer base . I would hope that one of the priorities would be to expand this reference data base substantially. Furthermore, I don’t see any New World references included here which calls into question Native American ancestry.

Webinar

Family Tree DNA typically provides a webinar for new products as well as general education. The myOrigins webinar can be found in the archives at this link. It can be viewed any time. https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/ftdna/webinars/

Accuracy

How did they do? Certainly, Family Tree DNA has a great new interface with wonderful new maps and comparison features. Let’s take a look at accuracy and see if everything makes sense.

I am fortunate to have the DNA of one of my parents, my mother. In the chart below, I’m comparing that result and inferring my father’s results by subtracting mine from my mother’s. This may not be entirely accurate, because this presumes I received the full amount of that ethnicity from my mother, and that is probably not accurate – but – it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. It’s safe to say that my father has a minimum of this amount of that particular population category and may have more.

Region	Me	Mom	Dad Inferred Minimum
European Coastal Plain	68	17	51
European Northlands	12	7	5
Trans Ural Peneplain	11	10	1
European Coastal Islands	7	34	0
Anatolia and Caucus	3	0	3
North Mediterranean	0	34	0
Circumpolar	0	1	0
Undetermined*	0	0	40

*The Undetermined category is not from Family Tree DNA, but is the percentage of my father not accounted for by inference. This 40% is DNA that I did not inherit if it falls into a different category.

Based on these results alone, I have the following observations.

1. I find it odd that my mother has 34% North Mediterranean and I have none. We have no known ancestry from this region.
2. My mother does have one distant line of Turkish DNA via France. I have presumed that my Middle Eastern (now Anatolia and Caucus) was through that line, but these results suggest otherwise.
3. My mother’s Circumpolar may be Native American. She does have proven Native lines (Micmac) through the Acadian families.
4. These results have missed both my Native lines (through both parents) and my African admixture although both are small percentages.
5. The European Coastal Plain is one of the groups that covers nearly all of Europe. Given that my mother is 3/4^th Dutch/German, with the balance being Acadian, Native and English, one would expect her to have significantly more, especially given my high percentage.
6. The European Coastal Island percentages are very different for me and my mother, with me carrying much less than my mother. This is curious, because she is 3/4th German/Dutch with between 1/8th and 3/16th English while my father’s lines are heavily UK. My father’s ancestry may well be reflected in European Coastal Plain which covers a great deal of territory.

What We Need to Remember

All of the biogeographic tools, from Family Tree DNA, 23andMe and Ancestry, are “estimates” and each of the tools from the three major vendors rend different results. Each one is using different combinations of reference populations, so this really isn’t surprising. Hopefully, as the various companies increase their population references and the size of their reference data bases, the results will increasingly mesh from company to company. These results are only as good as the back end tools and the DNA that you randomly inherited from your ancestors.

Furthermore, we all carry far more similar DNA than different DNA, so it’s extremely difficult to make judgment calls based on ranges. Europe, for example, is extremely admixed and the US is moreso. The British Isles were a destination location for many groups over thousands of years. Some of the DNA being picked up by these tests may indeed be very ancient and may cause us to wonder where it came from. In future test versions, this may be more perfectly refined.

There is no way to gauge “ancient” DNA, like from the Middle East Diaspora, from more contemporary DNA, only a thousand years or so old, once it’s in very small segments. In other words, it’s all very individual and personal and pretty much cast in warm jello. We’ve come a long way, but we aren’t “there” yet. However, without these tools and the vendors working to make them better, we’ll never get “there,” so keep that in mind.

While this makes great conversation today, and there is no question about accuracy in terms of majority ancestry/ethnicity, no one should make any sweeping conclusions based on this information. This is not “cast in concrete” in the same way as Y DNA and mitochondrial haplogroups and STR markers. Those are irrefutable – while biogeographical ethnicity remains a bit ethereal.

In summary, I would simply say that this tool can provide great hints and tips, especially the matching, which is unique, but it can’t disprove anything. The absence of minority admixture, which is what so many people are hunting for, may be the result of the various data bases and the infancy of the science itself, and not the absence of admixture.

My recommendation would be to utilize all three biogeographic admixture products as well as the free tools in the Admixture category at GedMatch. Look for consistency in results between the tools. I discussed this methodology in “The Autosomal Me” series.

What Next?

I asked Dr. David Mittelman, Chief Scientific Officer, at Family Tree DNA about the reference populations. He indicated that he agreed that some of their reference populations are small and they are actively working to increase them. He also stated that it is important to note that Family Tree DNA prioritized accuracy over false positives so they definitely took a conservative approach.

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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

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