New DNA Ethnicity Estimates

AncestryDNA has a limited preview of their "new" ethnicity estimates.  The new Ethnicity Estimate appears to be more accurate and able to detect smaller percentages of genetic ethnicity than the previous estimate showed.

Ethnicity results are not about recent ancestry, but instead shows where all your ancestors on both sides of your family came from far back in time - 500 years or maybe a thousand or more years ago.  My Danish husband was shocked and surprised to see that he was almost all British Isles.  Therefore, his ancestors must have immigrated to Denmark hundreds of years ago.  Or, it could be the result of those darn Vikings who were always sailing around plundering and kidnapping people to take back to Denmark with them.

Below is my previous Ancestry.com ethnicity estimate.  When I first saw the results almost a year ago, I remember thinking that the Central European and British Isles had been reversed.  Since most of my lines are early Colonial lines, I always assumed I was mainly British Isles.  And, I remember being disappointed that I did not show any Native American in my ethnicity estimate to confirm the family legends.

AncestryDNA Ethnicity Estimate Nov 2012

The new results shown below are much closer to what my research and paper trail seem to indicate.  And, maybe some of the family legends are true -- a small amount (trace) of Native American shows up!  Yea!! This new ethnicity estimate more closely resembles my sister's old ethnicity --  she had Scandinavia and Finnish/Northern Russia, whereas I previously did not have those areas show up in my estimates.  It will be interesting to see what my sister's new AncestryDNA estimates look like when they become available to her in the coming months.

AncestryDNA Ethnicity Estimate Sep 2013

 As a comparison to AncestryDNA, I will also show below my ethnicity results from FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.  The first one shown below is from FamilyTreeDNA, which they call "Family Finder - Population Finder".  I'm about 94% Western European and 6% Middle Eastern.  It looks as if Western European includes the British Isles.

FamilyTreeDNA Population Finder 2013

This next one is from 23andMe.com and is called "Ancestry Composition" on their site.  I like 23andMe because they give you several options to view your results.  Since both of my parents have tested with 23andMe, I have chosen the split view which shows both sides of my ancestry and where they came from.  I would have expected to see more German on my Dad's side, since his dad was German (with Parish records going back hundreds of years). 

23andMe Ancestry Composition Split View 2013

As more and more people and populations get tested, I am sure all of these "estimates" will improve.