Over the years, I have been tracking my autosomal DNA ethnicity estimates on each provider's site. AncestryDNA just updated their ethnicity estimates, so I was curious if mine had changed significantly from one year ago.
1) For reference purposes, my perceived genealogical ancestry, based on where my ancestors in each line resided in about 1500 CE (this had to be an educated guess!) are:
* 68% British Isles
* 24% Germany/Switzerland
* 1% Holland/Belgium
* 1% France
* 6% Unknown (perhaps some are French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Belgian, English, Native American, or other places)
2) I reported my AncestryDNA ethnicity estimate last year in I Received My New AncestryDNA Ethnicity Estimate (11 September 2020). It was:
* 46% England and Northwestern Europe* 19% Scotland
* 16% Germanic Europe
* 7% Sweden
* 7% Norway
* 5% Ireland
3) My latest ethnicity estimate is:
* 65% England & Northwestern Europe
* 10% Sweden and Denmark
* 6% Germanic Europe
* 6% Ireland
* 5% Norway
* 5% Wales
* 3% Scotland
So my England and Northwestern Europe gained 19%, Scandinavia gained 1% (combining Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Ireland gained 1%, Germanic Europe lost 10%, and Scotland lost 16%, and Wales was added to the list. Interesting, but how accurate is it?
My DNA Communities (where the migrants migrated to) are:
This seems to totally ignore my significant German and Dutch immigration in the 1600-1750 time frame to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, some of whom migrated to Ontario in the 1780-1800 time frame.
As we all know, these are ESTIMATES based on reference populations. My DNA hasn't changed, but the ethnicity estimates of each company changes and the ethnicity from five different companies are all different because they use different reference groups.
2 comments:
The Germanic ancestors seemed to be way under-represented in estimates. My husband showed zero percent Germanic Europe even though his paternal branch is heavily German with many DNA cousin matches to support the paper trail.
I noticed similar under-representation of my Dutch heritage even though I have a paper trail and Ancestry tree that goes back several hundred years to the Netherlands. Would it likely be because Ancestry has a smaller pool of participants from this region, therefore is unable to draw more precise inferences?
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