Imminent Ancestry DNA Update?

[Mitch_in_Notts]

Mine:

Scotland 33% (2020 was 31%)
England & N W Europe 32% (2020 was 51%)
Denmark & Sweden 16% - new addition
Ireland 13% (2020 was 6%)
Wales 6% (2020 same)
I have lost my 6% Norway from 2020.

2019 was 76% England, Wales & N W Europe. 20% Ireland & Scotland and 4% Norway.
So in two years I have lost Norway altogether, gone from 20% Irish/Scottish to 46% and now have a chunk of Denmark & Sweden.

I don't have a single birth in my tree north of Lancashire & Yorkshire. I do have a tenuous link to Ireland. Everything is basically England which the 2019 result agreed with!

 

[Helen7]

According to Ancestry's new ethnicity estimates, I have 23% Scottish ancestry (up from 21% in 2020), but I don't have any Scottish ancestors I'm aware of. I assume this is breakthrough from my North West of England ancestry? My husband does have Scottish ancestry but his latest Ancestry estimate shows only 3% Scotland, down from 17%.

 

[peter]

According to Ancestry's new ethnicity estimates, I have 23% Scottish ancestry (up from 21% in 2020), but I don't have any Scottish ancestors I'm aware of. I assume this is breakthrough from my North West of England ancestry?

If you look at the map the area Ancestry call Scotland seems to include a chunk of north-west England.

 

[Helen7]

If you look at the map the area Ancestry call Scotland seems to include a chunk of north-west England.

Yes, I'd noticed that, but it doesn't include the area where my ancestors came from, i.e. South Lancashire: Manchester/Bolton/Bury areas

 

[PhilGee]

Perhaps this from the FAQ for the new ethnicity estimates is significant (my bold)

"What is a reference panel?

To estimate your genetic ethnicity, we compare your DNA to the DNA of people with long family histories from specific parts of the world. This group of individuals is called our reference panel. The unique AncestryDNA reference panel is a collection of over 55,000 DNA samples from around the globe that we use to identify 77 different populations.

It’s unique because most samples come from our database, and their heritage is verified through Ancestry family trees."

 

[peter]

their heritage is verified through Ancestry family trees

Would you rather they were accepted without verification - surely not?

 

[PhilGee]

Rhetorical, I assume. "long family histories" implies at least beyond 1700's to me and I have doubts about the accuracy of my "cannot disprove" (ie the known facts all fit the profile) 1700's ancestors. Many Ancestry trees have easily disproven links well after 1800 - such as showing my 2gt-GF's death as 1914 because they didn't look for a burial that year (there are 3 registrations around 1921 that are "promising", but I'm waiting for the census before spending money! ). I have parish register images or certificate copies - where available - for most direct ancestor events and parish register images and a few certificates for others, including said 2gt-GF's chapel marriage (everyone has the same GRO reference) which shows his father and father-in-law are not correct on all the other trees and that he was a widower at 22 (I have yet to find a first marriage).

 

[peter]

Rhetorical, I assume.

Absolutely not. I was pointing out that they verified the information using Ancestry trees; in other words, they didn't say that Ancestry trees were the source of the information, merely that they corroborated it.

"long family histories" implies at least beyond 1700's to me

That's your interpretation. But consider that Peoples of the British Isles project was based on where the subject's grandparents were born.

 

[Pauline]

A significant weakness of ethnicity estimates is that they depend on which ancestors we have inherited our DNA from, and so at best can only give us an incomplete picture. My sister and I have the same ancestors and consequently the same ethnicity, but our ethnicity estimates at Ancestry are noticeably different - because, inevitably, we have inherited our ancestors’ DNA in different amounts.

Comparing our two ethnicity estimates helps to build a fuller picture, but there will likely be some relatively near ancestors from whom neither of us has inherited any DNA. So these estimates are never going to give us the whole story of our ethnicity - even when we take into account the very broadly defined areas and the margin of error in the percentages.

 

[PhilGee]

Absolutely not. I was pointing out that they verified the information using Ancestry trees; in other words, they didn't say that Ancestry trees were the source of the information, merely that they corroborated it.

So, if the trees corroborating the information are not correct ... ?

 

[peter]

So, if the trees corroborating the information are not correct ... ?

If they have the same wrong information then you're no worse off than if you didn't carry out any verification at all.

But perhaps you have a better strategy that you are going to share with us?

 

[peter]

there will likely be some relatively near ancestors from whom neither of us has inherited any DNA

I don't know what you mean by relatively near, but the chances are that each of you have inherited some DNA from every ancestor going back 6 generations. See Graham Coop's 2013 article.

Since few people have researched back 6 generations on every line it's possible that ethnicity estimates could, one day, provide some useful pointers.

 

[PhilGee]

I have just been looking at the "featured matches" for my various DNA communities and trying to work out their significance. It seems to me that it has nothing to do with the shared DNA but just that both parties have some random DNA from that community.

As an example, within "Devon & Cornwall" (D&C) and "Wales" I have the same person and we share 72cM over 5 segments. The latter community is our birth location ("West Glamorgan, Gower RDC" on my birth Cert and "Swansea" as the registration district for the match) - we both have Welsh Ancestors but no identifiable link. However, our common ancestors (my father's maternal grandparents) are in "Central Southern England - Glos,Wilts,West Oxon"; specifically Southwick/Trowbridge - and their ancestors are (almost exclusively) from there (to within 3 miles) - but I only go back to the late 1700s!

My link to D&C is through my mother and her paternal ancestors from the Wellington registration district; however, my match has a small tree and there is no sign of anyone from that area.The section of her tree above the common ancestors has been copied from my tree (it has some notations which others are exceeding unlikely to use let alone be identical!).

As an aside: I have only just noticed that common ancestors are shown in green "boxes", with a leaf if not on the initial page, when looking at the trees of matches!

 

[Winksetter]

Does anyone know what it is that Ancestry mean when they say that 'AncestryDNA® results will be updated with even more precision this September.' ?

Is this an upgrade to the information given about DNA matches or just another refinement of the ethnicity estimates?

This is just another meaningless tinkering update that Ancestry seems to favour nowadays. All I can see is different screens and a more unstable Ancestry website as the effects of this update. They should remember the old adage “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear”. I think it is accepted that the ethnicity estimates are more or less useless in the first place.

Please Ancestry give us real research tools and data and not this marketing rubbish.

 

[At home in NZ]

I don't do DNA and this is all putting me off even more.
currently have this message at the top of my screen:
Note: The Ancestry website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Some portions of the site may be temporarily unavailable. Thank you for your patience.

I wish I could remove the DNA banner which is telling me to go and look at my DNA story.

 

[peter]

This is just another meaningless tinkering update that Ancestry seems to favour nowadays. All I can see is different screens and a more unstable Ancestry website as the effects of this update. They should remember the old adage “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear”. I think it is accepted that the ethnicity estimates are more or less useless in the first place.

Please Ancestry give us real research tools and data and not this marketing rubbish.

If you read the Ancestry announcement you'll see that the main change is to add new populations to the mix - this is important, especially for those whose ancestors came from those populations.

Whilst for experienced family historians ethnicity estimates are rarely going to be of any value, for those who know little about their origins - including some of your cousins and some of mine - it's a first step in finding out more. In some cases it will encourage them to carry out further research, which is good news all round.

Remember, Ancestry have only around 4 million subscribers, which is a minuscule fraction of the global population. Family history research is a healthy pastime that should be encouraged.

 

[peter]

currently have this message at the top of my screen:
Note: The Ancestry website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Some portions of the site may be temporarily unavailable. Thank you for your patience.

Would you rather they didn't do scheduled maintenance and just waited for things to go wrong?

 

[PhilGee]

Yes!

At the moment, all the tinkering included in the maintenance is <insert suitable expletives> and the changes really are worse than the original.

The main stupidity, in my opinion, is that the "drop-down" banner menus no longer exist, they go to what Ancestry consider the relevant page - for example, select what was the "trees" drop-down and you get what was the last entry "manage trees" and "Search" goes to the global/do everything search page .... and the new page to modify a search is .....

 

[peter]

Yes!

At the moment, all the tinkering included in the maintenance is <insert suitable expletives> and the changes really are worse than the original.

The main stupidity, in my opinion, is that the "drop-down" banner menus no longer exist, they go to what Ancestry consider the relevant page - for example, select what was the "trees" drop-down and you get what was the last entry "manage trees" and "Search" goes to the global/do everything search page .... and the new page to modify a search is .....

Works fine for me using Windows 10 and Chrome.

 

[PhilGee]

Define "works fine" in this context.

Edit: Just tried Chromium and the interface there is the "old" version