The fallacy of DNA when used to identify someone's ethnicity

[Lemminkäinen]

Some months ago, I've decided to do an ancestry.com DNA test to see what I'm made of. As far as I know, half of my ancestors were German speakers, while the other half were Romanian speakers. However, among my German speaking forebears some had Slovak surnames, while among Romanian forebears some had Hungarian or Greek surnames and one looked Gypsy admixed.

So in January I've finally ordered an Ancestry DNA test and now results have arrived.

AncestryDNA results:

Europe East: 41% (they pinpoint Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland & Lithuania)
Great Britain: 22% (WTF!!!)
Europe South: 15%
Caucasus: 5%
European Jewish: 5%
Iberian Peninsula: 5%
Europe West: 4%
Finland/Northwest Russia: < 1%
Middle East: < 1%
Asia South: < 1%

Finding results pretty absurd, I've decided to download my DNA and upload it to other sites for a second guess.

MyHeritage results:

Eastern European: 69,0%
- Balkans: 57,9%
- Broadly Eastern European: 11,1%
Southern European: 12,4%
- Iberian: 12,4% (!!!)
Northern and Western Europe: 7,3%
- Scandinavian: 7,3%
British Isles: 0%
Ashkenazi Jewish: 2,1%
West Asian: 8,2%
East Asian: 1,0%

Then continued to GEDMATCH and got similar wildly different or plain absurd results. To me all of this sure looks like reading the horoscope (pretentious pseudo science in its purity). Therefore, I'll stick to racial anthropology which provides FAR more reliable results and proved itself to be a science (only not an exact one). Based on racial anthropology:

- my father (3/4 German, 1/4 Romanian) looks typical German: Nordo-Faelid mixed with some Alpine-Med
- my mother (1/4 German, 3/4 Romanian) looks typical Romanian: Nordo-Baltid mixed with strong Alpine-Med

If you look at them, or at their parents, their looks reflect their ethnicity. This is science!

It happens because these analyses oveweight genetic homogeneity over complexity. German inheritance is more complex than "Balto-Slavic" and English and is more difficult to define. In other words, companies making these tests select what they use from your data and simplify results. In case of Gedmatch and oracles the mismatch is due to the high LD pruning. For me Gedmatch usually gives Karelian 50%+German 50% or Estonian 50% + North Swedish 50%, rarely Finnish. Dna.land is a different case, they give me Finnish 90% and Greek+ Italian 10%, which is wrong as well. They miss the Finnish match, because I don't match with their too simplified Finnish model and the formula tries to correct it using South Europeans.

[aherne]

Post your Eurogenes K13 Admixture.

It was posted already:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...ng-to-GedMatch

[Leto]

It was posted already:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...ng-to-GedMatch

You forgot Dodecad K12b, please post it there.

[Universe]

I'm seeing their argument repeated. You guys really believe in the accuracy of these oracles then look sideways when they are shown to be blatantly conflicting. It's your religion, spending worthless hours trying to interpret them and see nonexistent patterns...

Some calculators are accurate, others are not. For europeans Eurogenes k13 and Dodecad k12b are considered the most accurate.

I'm knowingly of mixed ancestry (half were romanian speakers, half were german speakers but neither were pure Romanian or German)

Your dna shows you're mostly balkan with some western ancestry. You seem 1/3 Western and 2/3 Balkan-Romanian.

but regardless of how mixed they were my Romanian ancestors looked Romanian and my German ancestors looked German. All up to farthest generation I can trace racial anthropology proves relatively accurate...

Okay, but Klaus Johannis looks German too and this is how a pure translyvanian saxon scores: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...=1#post6734610
Not too different to your result. They have significant Romanian admix - the ones I've seen were more Romanian than German genetically because they mixed with Romanians in the past..

So I think you dna test result is in line with your actual ancestry.

[Universe]

His vahaduo k13:

Target: Aherne(Romanian)
Distance: 1.8107% / 1.81067202 | ADC: 0.25x
36.4 Swiss_French
26.6 Bosniak_Krajina
21.6 Turk_Sliven-Alevi
10.8 Romania_Crisana
3.2 Vlach_North-Macedonia
1.0 Sardinian
0.4 Dai

A combination of western and southeastern european, like his stated ancestry.

[Universe]

All in all, I am:
7/16 Romanian
6/16 German
2/16 Czech
1/16 Greek

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/anth...p=78975#p78975

[Norb]

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/anth...p=78975#p78975

Balkan R1a

[aherne]

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/anth...p=78975#p78975

This was a long time ago. Based on surnames:

7/16 Romanian
1/16 Greek
6/16 German
1/16 Slovak
1/16 Croat

My paternal haplogroup is West Slavic (definitely coming from Slovak ancestors). I could only trace ancestors up to 1870s, but not more... Funny how I've changed in ten years... Picture of me 1 year ago: