Generations

[pharris90]

Ok, so I am a newbie to the whole ancestry DNA testing community. A couple of years ago, I got interested in finding out more about my family once I started hearing stories about people hooking up with people who turned out to be family members. Last month I had my test performed by the company 23andme and my results were 78.9 sub saharan african (with 72 percent of that coming from West Africa) 19.8 European, 0.7 East Asian and Native American, 0.1 South Asian and 0.4 undecided.

My question is for the European ancestry, how likely is it that my ancestor from Europe is more close or distant to my generation? I would guess that almost 20 percent European descent would be more close right?

[Smitty]

I'm far from a genetics expert, but I would say not necessarily. Your 20% European could be just the total of many small (and distant) European admixtures.