My Ancestry results - I can't recommend it!

[mariusz99]

I changend 1 word to "origins" and saw my results earlier.
According to Ancerty I'm 99% Eastern European and 1% Jewish
What a shit, totally inaccurate.

Maybe I can be the only person who hate own results but I'm convinced that my results are highly inaccurate.

Don't recommend this company!

[Leto]

Aren't you purely Polish from the last few generations? And the 1 percent is just noize, bro ;)

[Jana]

what are you talking about? Ancestry has best raw data on the market, you should be happy you will get top notch raw data file now.
Their EE is based on modern people like Poles so I don't know what you expected there - genetic communites are much more interesting. What do you get there?

As for 1% Jewish, it's likely real. Ancestry is very reliable about AJ ancestry and there is noise level AJ signal widely present among ethnic Poles.

[Jana]

And the 1 percent is just noize, bro ;)

No, it is not. Ancestry isn't myheritage, if you score 1% AJ there it means you highly likely have it. Nothing strange for a Pole to score, tons of them have it.

[mariusz99]

No, it is not. Ancestry isn't myheritage, if you score 1% AJ there it means you highly likely have it. Nothing strange for a Pole to score, tons of them have it.

Of course, Eastern Europe should be majority, I agree. But I have confirmed German ancestry 4 generations ago + very possible admixture from Caucasus. Based on K13 and other calcs I thought I can have also some French ancestry. 99 % Eastern Europe is for me weird, it's too much.
I can believe that if they give European Jew they are sure. But 1% can be 6 generations ago and I'm 100% sure I don't have Jewish Ancestry because I know my family tree very well. It was a big surprise.
I know they have very good raw dna data. I'm wondering what should I do with that file. Maybe I should have merged file from Ancestry and MyHeritage and try Gedmatch and Advanced Analysis from Yourdnaportal.

[Scandal]

Of course, Eastern Europe should be majority, I agree. But I have confirmed German ancestry 4 generations ago + very possible admixture from Caucasus. Based on K13 and other calcs I thought I can have also some French ancestry. 99 % Eastern Europe is for me weird, it's too much.
I can believe that if they give European Jew they are sure. But 1% can be 6 generations ago and I'm 100% sure I don't have Jewish Ancestry because I know my family tree very well. It was a big surprise.
I know they have very good raw dna data. I'm wondering what should I do with that file. Maybe I should have merged file from Ancestry and MyHeritage and try Gedmatch and Advanced Analysis from Yourdnaportal.
1 ancestor 4 generations ago means you are 6.25% German, but that doesn't necessarily mean you inherited 6.25% German dna. Inheritance is a bit random you could've inherited 8% from him or 3%.
And 6.25% German ancestry will mean you're still comfortably within the Polish cluster. Some ethnic Poles have more German ancestry than you, and these German admixed Poles could've been used to create the Polish/Eastern Europe reference population.
But anyway ancestry breakdown of commercial tests are a joke unless you are ashkenazi jewish or mixed race. I don't understand why people bother with them especially on a forum like this. Gedmatch/Vahaduo>commercial dna test ancestry breakdown.

But 1% can be 6 generations ago and I'm 100% sure I don't have Jewish Ancestry because I know my family tree very well. It was a big surprise.
Not necessarily 6, 1% can also mean a 100% ashkenazi jewish ancestor 7 generations ago, but that needn't to be the case. Your ancestors could have been multigenerational mixes of Jews and Poles. You could have had 5 ancestors with 1/8 Jewish ancesty out of your 128 ancestors (7 generations ago).

[Jana]

Of course, Eastern Europe should be majority, I agree. But I have confirmed German ancestry 4 generations ago + very possible admixture from Caucasus. Based on K13 and other calcs I thought I can have also some French ancestry. 99 % Eastern Europe is for me weird, it's too much.
I can believe that if they give European Jew they are sure. But 1% can be 6 generations ago and I'm 100% sure I don't have Jewish Ancestry because I know my family tree very well. It was a big surprise.
I know they have very good raw dna data. I'm wondering what should I do with that file. Maybe I should have merged file from Ancestry and MyHeritage and try Gedmatch and Advanced Analysis from Yourdnaportal.

I am 1/8 German and I score only 4% Germanic Europe on ancestry (on 23andme too). Lot of it depends on random inheritance. Polish samples used for EE reference could already have some Germanic, we don't know that.

You can have many Polish ancestors with extremely minor AJ score (and this is very widespread among Poles), so it does not need to show in family tree at all, especially not in case of converts for eg. What I am saying is that Ancestry does not assign Jewish randomly like myheritage does. They are reliable when it comes to that.

I don't know how tiny is your Caucasus admixture but I have very distant Greek ancestry and score zero of it everywhere. Such small admixtures can easily be lost in recombinations.

Yes, you should create merged raw data kit. I did too. But already stand alone Ancestry raw data file will be lot more precise than that of myheritage.

And you shoud check your genetic communities.

[JosephK]

Ancestry is the worst unless you're purely NW Euro. But then it doesn't even seem to be able to differentiate German from English. Crap. Like any calculator, it's success is completely dependent upon the customer's likelihood of falling into whatever category its algorithm is determining.

[Jana]

Ancestry is the worst unless you're purely NW Euro

lol

Ancestry is miles ahead of companies like Myheritage or FTDNA, not to mention it has largest database of all companies.
Only 23andme is better than them in ancestry composition, but their raw data quality is incomparably worse and they offer smaller database.

[Jana]

1 ancestor 4 generations ago means you are 6.25% German, but that doesn't necessarily mean you inherited 6.25% German dna. Inheritance is a bit random you could've inherited 8% from him or 3%.

Yup. Especially if his German is Polish/eastern German. Germans like rothaer score like 40% eastern european on commercial tests.

[Scandal]

Yup. Especially if his Germani is Polish/eastern German. Germans like rothaer score like 40% eastern european on commercial tests.

What is rothaer's paper trail ancestry?

[Luke35]

I can understand your disappointment, but I'd like to add that this result in no way invalidates your German ancestry. Eastern Germans can score notable Eastern European on AncestryDNA - so perhaps the dna you have inherited from your ancestor is just not distinguishable from your other heritage, especially with such distance (4 gen), recombination, and so on and so forth.

[Jana]

What is rothaer's paper trail ancestry?

He is around half central German (ex DDR) half German from Poland, something close to that. He can explain more in detail ofc but something along these lines.

[mariusz99]

My German ancestors were from Hannover but lived in East Prussia.
Ok, I merged my 2 kits. I thought it's difficult but no, I did it simply first time.

When I compare my results and my family and friends results I can say that Gedmatch and YDP is more accurate. But I wonder why, because huge companies like MyHeritage and Ancestry have laboratories, describe on sites how accurate they can be but after that I check Gedmatch for me or another person and results are better.
What should I do if I have merged kit ?

[rothaer]

What is rothaer's paper trail ancestry?

Here are the birth or residence places (white dots) from all 64 ancestors from 6 generations ago (only these). It's about 1800 AD. From these in Central Poland all are Germans, but four, which are Poles. With white arrows I indicated where the respective individuals hailed from earlier. So you can imagine them to belong there. Hope it makes sense. It's more complicated than this, but it maybe gives a sufficientl overview.

https://i.imgur.com/ny8fsMx.jpg

[rothaer]

My German ancestors were from Hannover but lived in East Prussia. (...)

Well, what does a German at all look like in terms of AncestryDNA?

Here you have 3 results that are fully from former provinz Hannover = Niedersachsen = Lower Saxony:

https://i.imgur.com/E2err5R.jpg

***

https://i.imgur.com/q0o8k7v.jpg

***

https://i.imgur.com/XSpoZ3m.jpg

But if you have a German that is 2/4 from East Pruissia, 1/4 from Silesia and 1/4 from (Upper) Saxony, the result looks like this (note that the first one has just 13% "Germanic Europe"!):

https://i.imgur.com/dvz5Ucv.jpg

[Russki]

https://i.imgur.com/dvz5Ucv.jpg

AncestryDNA is weird.

On your pic it says "Baltic States" and then lists Lithuania under "Eastern Europe and Russia".

And here it occupies Russia and Belarus as "Baltic States", but not Estonia.

https://sun9-45.userapi.com/impg/Amn4wa3Ya8_7lUTJIdfJKIigftWpnOeFThlzZg/J8NyeawUqqw.jpg?size=701x623&quality=95&sign=70c3608ff4359f1fd93db68ca2765e4d&type=album

https://sun9-64.userapi.com/impg/PnJdImyMNSQUXOiJmX8vYWUEQzCEwCszfmzICg/_kk5tYRIND0.jpg?size=800x446&quality=95&sign=d6c0b73c20c2e0771c833df77e6d8f83&type=album

https://sun9-3.userapi.com/impg/Tqql90WMaxSsvM-SOzYUMSjhqD8GpbCnYWHKtw/QR1h8Mwwpzg.jpg?size=640x783&quality=95&sign=b7eccaf15089fe53ed857bb026621024&type=album

[mariusz99]

Rothaer, with updated K13 my grandma scores more than 20% Lower Saxony North, so I think especially for my grandma is K13 better than her MyHeritage.... according to MH 100% East European.

[mariusz99]

Ok, my dear forum friends,

What should I do? I'm aware that my German ancetors who lived in East Prussia could be found by Ancestry as Eastern Slavic, or maybe not...
From my experience (based on my knowledge of ancestry of my grandma and friends) K13 and Advanced Analysis made by Yourdnaportal is great and very accurate.

I have already my merged file from MH and Ancestry files.

Should I try YDP or some K13 calculators to get more accurate results? My purpose was always to know in which % am I Slavic, Germanic, Baltic, probably Celtic and 1% from Caucasus.

What can you advise me?

I will be very thankful for every advice.

[rothaer]

Ok, my dear forum friends,
What should I do? I'm aware that my German ancetors who lived in East Prussia could be found by Ancestry as Eastern Slavic, or maybe not...
From my experience (based on my knowledge of ancestry of my grandma and friends) K13 and Advanced Analysis made by Yourdnaportal is great and very accurate.
I have already my merged file from MH and Ancestry files.
Should I try YDP or some K13 calculators to get more accurate results? My purpose was always to know in which % am I Slavic, Germanic, Baltic, probably Celtic and 1% from Caucasus.
What can you advise me?
I will be very thankful for every advice.

If I got it right you have 1/16 German ancestry from Hannover area, but you are not sure about that they were fully from Hannover area. And what exactly are your other 15/16 of ancestry? It could be relevant for what to do.

[mariusz99]

I will send you PM if it's not problem.

[Katarzyna]

Hi, I got my raw data from MyHeritage and I have a kinda the reversed case. It feels like us Poles asking about how much Germanic we are is kinda our favorite topic xD Jokes aside

In the MyHeritage ethnicity estimate I had 49% Eastern European 25% Baltic, 25% Scandinavian and 1% Inuit (I guess that one is a glitch). Once I transferred my raw data into GedMatch almost all my Scandinavian (which is supposed to be Germanic) disappeared and also my Baltic part was heavily reduced. Making me around 90% Slav suddenly. So either one of those things happened:

1. The Scandinavian and Baltic part in the MyHeritage estimate stands for Slavs living in those areas.
2. the MyHeritage estimate is imprecise
3. the simulated cords are faulty and MyHeritage prediction was right. So I should try to get some davidsky cords and see if it will change
4. the Myheritage raw data is not precise enough (would need to try another company for comparison I am thinking about ancestry)

[Abriekman]

The truth is that AncestryDNA after 2022 update (so called smoothing update ) became a shit for minor ancestries (1/8 and lower) unless your minor heritage is from the other continent or is easily identifiable like Ashkenazi.

By the way, 23andme also got worse in 2022, but not as much as Ancestry

[Polak]

The truth is that AncestryDNA after 2022 update (so called smoothing update ) became a shit for minor ancestries (1/8 and lower) unless your minor heritage is from the other continent or is easily identifiable like Ashkenazi.

By the way, 23andme also got worse in 2022, but not as much as Ancestry

This.

My 23andme is awful. When I first did it I had about 4% German (including specific regions) and with the smoothing update last year it just vanished. I know for a fact I am about 1/8 German across multiple ancestors. Now I'm 98% EE and 2% AJ on 23andme :picard1:

I'm considering doing an AncestryDNA test now just to see what it says.

[Laredo]

What a cry baby! as If 1% affected your phenotype:rolleyes:

[Abriekman]

This.

My 23andme is awful. When I first did it I had about 4% German (including specific regions) and with the smoothing update last year it just vanished. I know for a fact I am about 1/8 German across multiple ancestors. Now I'm 98% EE and 2% AJ on 23andme :picard1:

I'm considering doing an AncestryDNA test now just to see what it says.

Completely agree. Well, if you don't know where to spend your 70 USD$ you can try it, but be ready to see EE results with minor Jewish, lol. I am 96% EE on AncestryDNA now, in reality I am 7/8 EE.

For me 23andme got less precise and my results became absurd ironically after I phased with my parent :D. On 23andme I am 90% EE, 5% Greek & Balkan, 2% Western Asian and <1% Ashkenazi, the rest is Broadly European, while my parent is 73,5% EE, 25% Greek& Balkan, 1,5% Ashkenazi. I could see the other parent by this phasing option and he's 99% EE, so you can see that results do not add up.

I do not know why these new updates of commercial tests are only getting worse now... My results on Ancestry were perfect before, 87% EE 12% Balkans 1% Cyprus, now what is left from my Bulgarian is nothing, I have 4% The Balkans but Ancestry writes that it is 2% from both parents so it's not even my minor ancestry, likely just noise from my Polish side hahaha.

The good thing is that if you test on Ancestry you'll get a high quality raw data but even with 23andme raw data you can convert it and get 3 times more SNPs, so think about it. Probably you will be dissapointed, but who knows, maybe in the future they will release a new update which will make it better.

[Polak]

Completely agree. Well, if you don't know where to spend your 70 USD$ you can try it, but be ready to see EE results with minor Jewish, lol. I am 96% EE on AncestryDNA now, in reality I am 7/8 EE.

For me 23andme got less precise and my results became absurd ironically after I phased with my parent :D. On 23andme I am 90% EE, 5% Greek & Balkan, 2% Western Asian and <1% Ashkenazi, the rest is Broadly European, while my parent is 73,5% EE, 25% Greek& Balkan, 1,5% Ashkenazi. I could see the other parent by this phasing option and he's 99% EE, so you can see that results do not add up.

I do not know why these new updates of commercial tests are only getting worse now... My results on Ancestry were perfect before, 87% EE 12% Balkans 1% Cyprus, now what is left from my Bulgarian is nothing, I have 4% The Balkans but Ancestry writes that it is 2% from both parents so it's not even my minor ancestry, likely just noise from my Polish side hahaha.

The good thing is that if you test on Ancestry you'll get a high quality raw data but even with 23andme raw data you can convert it and get 3 times more SNPs, so think about it. Probably you will be dissapointed, but who knows, maybe in the future they will release a new update which will make it better.

It seems that all of these DNA tests sleep on Eastern Europeans. :confused:
So disappointing about your results. I suppose every single test/report/etc is inaccurate in one way or another so take everything with a grain of salt. I know what ancestry I have and so do you. That's all that really matters.

If I ever have that amount of lying around I might give it a shot. For now it is what it is.:p

Do you think they will update 23andme, Ancestry, etc. in the recent future or do you think it won't ever get much better?

[mariusz99]

I recommend ancient calculators made by Rothaer or Feiichy. These calculators seems to be high accurate for Slavic People

[Laredo]

I recommend ancient calculators made by Rothaer or Feiichy. These calculators seems to be high accurate for Slavic People

She's a very smart girl, her Intelligence surprises me.

[Voskos]

Mariusz is always crying about his result no matter the test.

[Abriekman]

Do you think they will update 23andme, Ancestry, etc. in the recent future or do you think it won't ever get much better?

That's a hard question to be honest. The reason this happens is that many fully ethnic members of a some populations show small percentages of other ancestries in their results. In order to make the results seem "more realistic" at a population level, the testing companies may release those smoothing updates. For example if you're 7/8 Polish and 1/8 German you would probably by the ancient admixture be very close to Slovaks because they carry that 15-20% Ostsiedlung Germans genes or ancient Celto-Germanic admixture. In order for Slovaks to get realistic results those companies have references for them that they consider to be 100% EE, so when the person with distant 1/8 Central European heritage tests he gets 100% EE because he is the closest to that Slovak reference. While this improves the aggregate results for people with primarily one ethnicity, it makes the results less precise for those who genuinely have distant minor ancestries. Their small percentages may get smoothed away in the process. I think it works like that but I thought that 23andme and AncestryDNA used a different method for calculating Ancestry Composition results.

[mariusz99]

Mariusz is always crying about his result no matter the test.

What ??😅

[calxpal]

I don't believe Ancestry's results should invalidate your German ancestry, I've seen this type of thing happen a lot with AncestryDNA results. Based on my results and other results I've seen, they do seem to have a tendency to strongly overestimate or favor certain European components and not too uncommonly completely smooth over even slightly more distant European ancestry.

I wonder if this could maybe also be caused by admixed samples sometimes.

[Figaro]

23andme has had smoothing updates as well...I get possible hints if Lipka Tatar ancestry on G25, and close relatives who have scored trace E and SE Asian points...it’s all “buried” in Eastern Europe now due to membership. That’s what people are saying about your German ancestry- it’s probably real, it’s just that there are probably many Poles in the database with small German admixture, so again, gets buried.

[Rædwald]

Don't get too assblasted about it, it will update and change again probably :coffee:

[HannibaltheGreat]

You're mad because you scored 1 percent jewish and 99 percent eastern european?



https://youtu.be/WxkajfpCi4s

[Polak]

That's a hard question to be honest. The reason this happens is that many fully ethnic members of a some populations show small percentages of other ancestries in their results. In order to make the results seem "more realistic" at a population level, the testing companies may release those smoothing updates. For example if you're 7/8 Polish and 1/8 German you would probably by the ancient admixture be very close to Slovaks because they carry that 15-20% Ostsiedlung Germans genes or ancient Celto-Germanic admixture. In order for Slovaks to get realistic results those companies have references for them that they consider to be 100% EE, so when the person with distant 1/8 Central European heritage tests he gets 100% EE because he is the closest to that Slovak reference. While this improves the aggregate results for people with primarily one ethnicity, it makes the results less precise for those who genuinely have distant minor ancestries. Their small percentages may get smoothed away in the process. I think it works like that but I thought that 23andme and AncestryDNA used a different method for calculating Ancestry Composition results.

I agree with you. That makes the most sense to me. However I don't believe Slovaks have a noticeable Germanic admixture, rather a Pannonian/Celtic one. I personally think my German was smoothed over because most Poles have small amounts of German ancestry, and the Polish reference samples have somewhere between 10-20% Germanic admixture as it is, so the algorithm didn't detect any abnormalities. :thumb001:

[Polak]

23andme has had smoothing updates as well...I get possible hints if Lipka Tatar ancestry on G25, and close relatives who have scored trace E and SE Asian points...it’s all “buried” in Eastern Europe now due to membership. That’s what people are saying about your German ancestry- it’s probably real, it’s just that there are probably many Poles in the database with small German admixture, so again, gets buried.

This.

Gedmatch, G25, non-commerical tests (e.g. Illustrative), etc. all picked up on my Tatar ancestry but 23andme did not. Despite this, they gave me Bashkortostan as a region for EE :D

[HelloGuys]

No, it is not. Ancestry isn't myheritage, if you score 1% AJ there it means you highly likely have it. Nothing strange for a Pole to score, tons of them have it.

My maternal grandparents scored 1% Jewish but neither levantine or South Italian in the rounded percentage, just my grandpa scored 1% Balkans, and about their "hacked" results, He got 1.32% Jewish, 0.77% Balkans and 0.44% Levant

My paternal grandma instead didn't score Jewish, South Italian, Levantine or Balkans in the rounded percentage, but in her "hacked" one got 0.5% Aegean Islands, 0.28% Jewish, 0.17% Levant and 0.11% Egypt

So do they have real Jewish ancestry?

[Abriekman]

So do they have real Jewish ancestry?

Yes, Sephardic Jewish