LivingDNA Upgrades its results

[jorghes]

I had a couple of emails today to say that LivingDNA has upgraded it’s results.

So far it looks more accurate, my mother’s result upgrade removed a suggestion that she was 4.9% from the Iberian Peninsula, and instead made her 100% from Great Britain and Ireland, which tallies with all known research so far.

I’m wondering if my own upgrade will remove a small reference to “Kurdish” - and perhaps they may now be able to register my Jewish ancestry?

 

[Pauline]

I had an email from them overnight about my results but am still waiting for the upgrade to be ready.

Have you see your own upgrade yet?

 

[Katie Bee]

Mine are upgrading at the moment.
I am already 100% Great Britain and Ireland, so we will see if the areas within change much.

 

[Pauline]

My upgrade is complete and the results seem quite significantly different - less Great Britain & Ireland and more European.

 

[jorghes]

I did get my updated results, it now has my British Ancestry at 90.1%, but the other 9.9% is “Aegean”.

I presume this is in place of my Ashkenazi Jewish heritage which is the only thing other than British (Scottish, Welsh and English) that I can claim to.

 

[Katie Bee]

My upgrade is complete and the results seem quite significantly different - less Great Britain & Ireland and more European.

I have the same thing.
I have gone from 100% GB and Ireland to 90.2%, I now have Scandinavia 5.5% and Tuscany 4.3%
The Scandinavian doesn't surprise me as I have a lot of Northern English and possibly Scottish ancestors.
The Tuscan was a surprise, but maybe that is where my mother's darker colouring comes from.
Ancestry has me 7% Norway and 5% Germanic.
FTDNA has me 11% Scndinavian and 60% West and Central Europe which seems to go all the way down to Tuscany.

Some of the LivingDNA changes within the UK also surprised me.
Most of my recent ancestors are from North of England and Northern Ireland.
These areas both reduced, but Lincolnshire increased ny 10% and Ireland by 5%

I actually felt happier with the original results.

 

[jorghes]

LivingDNA can't be said to do European DNA well, considering my Jewish heritage should be present.

Mine is difficult to measure, as my ancestry comes from too many different counties due to the immigration and internal movement. My mother's ancestry is mainly Welsh and English - South Wales and the Borders, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire and our random winner, Durham (which LivingDNA puts with Northumbria).

So her totals went from 95.1% GB & I to 100% GB & I. Her South Wales Border total went from 40% to 51.5%; South Central England (including Gloucestershire) from 9.4% to 12.6%; North Wales went from 6.6% to 9.6%; South Wales from 9.4% to 7.2%; Cumbria (2.5%) and Northumbria (1.9%) both went to 3%. I'm not sure about the edition of East Anglia, South Yorkshire, North Yorkshire (although vaguely explainable), Central England and Northwest England. Her original results also included Lincolnshire, Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula (which have all since been removed). - In comparison, Ancestry gives 87% England, Wales & Northwestern England with foci on Mid Wales and the Midlands, and 13% Ireland and Scotland.

My possible home counties from my father's side (beyond the European Jewish) includes Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Sussex (plus more) and the Scottish side has Ulster Scottish and probably Lanarkshire.
My original results included: North Italy, Aegean, Scandinavia, France, Finland and Western Russia and Kurdish... (all of them, other than the "Aegean" have vanished and my Great Britain and Ireland results went from 79.3% to 90.1%.
My results have completely changed - they now are: South Wales Border 20% (originally 5.1%); Cumbria 12.2% (originally 3.6%); Northumbria 9.2% (originally 9.8%); South Central England 7.9% (originally 12.3%); Devon 7% (16.7%); East Anglia 6.9% (3.6%); South Wales 6.5% (5.6%); Aberdeenshire 6.2% (2%); Lincolnshire 5.2% (not present); South England 3.1% (3.2%); North Yorkshire 2.2% (10%); North Wales 2.1% (3.6%); Northwest England 1.5% (not present).
Counties that were present in the first reading and not the second included: Orkney & The Shetland Islands and Northwest Scotland.

*My AncestryDNA is 82% England, Wales & Northwestern Europe, with a focus on the Midlands; 10% Ireland & Scotland with a focus on Northern Ireland and Southwest Scotland; and 8% European Jewish.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Sadly it's just an ethnicity update change - meaningless numbers change to other meaningless numbers and remain meaningless. Why do people give these random percentages, that are way way outside the realms of statistical accuracy to have any meaning, anything more than a brief glance.

Their main purpose it seems is to confuse people into thinking they are their results - which sadly leads them to ignore the real results, their raw data and the matches derived from the raw data. We'd all be a lot better off if the ethnicity estimates nonsense was sidelined and the focus was on the raw data and matches.

 

[Kane133]

LivingDNA can't be said to do European DNA well, considering my Jewish heritage should be present.

Maybe you do not have any Jewish DNA as such yourself as by random chance the Jewish bit of DNA your father may have had could have been cut-out completely during meiosis at conception? Having a Jewish heritage is no guarantee that you carry Jewish DNA especially with such a diverse ethnicity in the first place.

The fact that the ethnicity 'upgrades' by any DNA provider are so variable just indicates how hard it is to actually pin ethnicity down with any certainty or confidence at all.

The only time ethnicity has helped in a genealogical sense was when a family who thought they had an Irish heritage actually had a grandmother with German parents who had been adopted and no-one knew until I was looking at their DNA trying to find our Irish connection! On Ancestry their ethnicity was 3% Irish with no DNA matches at all for County Sligo where there genealogical heritage came from but were 30% German with no genealogical links to Germany at all. Although very surprised and at first disbelieving, they were grateful that I was able to work-out who their grandmother's biological parents were and why they had been receiving 'strange' messages from DNA matches on Ancestry.

 

[jorghes]

Maybe you do not have any Jewish DNA as such yourself as by random chance the Jewish bit of DNA your father may have had could have been cut-out completely during meiosis at conception? Having a Jewish heritage is no guarantee that you carry Jewish DNA especially with such a diverse ethnicity in the first place.

The fact that the ethnicity 'upgrades' by any DNA provider are so variable just indicates how hard it is to actually pin ethnicity down with any certainty or confidence at all.

My paternal grandmother is one quarter Jewish - one of her grandparents was born Jewish to Jewish parents- (her DNA results come in at 25% Jewish), and I have the documented information about my Jewish ancestors and that they are Ashkenazi and lived in the Netherlands for quite a long time. I also have DNA matches on Ancestry with people will almost complete Jewish ancestry (unlike me, whose ancestry is mixed).
My father's Jewish ethnicity comes in at approx 13%, his sisters is similar, and each of my siblings also has a sub-10% Jewish ethnicity on an Ancestry DNA test (which seems slightly more accurate in ethnicity suggestions).

 

[peter]

My wife's revised estimates show a remarkable improvement - they match precisely what we know about her ancestry, whereas the previous estimates were way out.