Back in June, I wrote about jumping into the DNA pond and my surprise at Family Tree DNA estimating my Eastern European ethnicity at 96% and 4% British Isles. although my father’s side is 100% Slovak, my mother’s side is zero Slovak, but almost entirely colonial U.S. with one Danish/Swedish branch.
My husband’s ethnicity estimates came out as 35% British, 21% Iberian, 22% West and Central Europe, 18% Scandinavia, West Middle East <2, South America, <1 and West Africa <1.
Newcomer MyHeritage is offering free uploads of your DNA results on its site right now and GEDMATCH also offers ethnicity estimates.
I decided to try them both out. Dave’s mix is slightly different than Family Tree DNA results, but not by a lot. MyHeritage results:
These results show 93% European with a smattering of other locations:
Scandinavian = 47.5%
Irish, Scottish, Welsh = 42.1%
South Europe (Italian) = 2.4%
Ashkenazi Jewish = 1.1%
Middle Eastern = 5.7%
West Africa (Nigeria) = 1.1%
These results correlate well with what I already know about his family. His Steelman family is likely Scandinavian, plus all the German lines can easily have a Scandinavian mix in them. His Alberty line is said to be Italian. Many of his lines originated in the southern United States and one of them, the Riddles in Tennessee and Kentucky, have been included as part of the so called Melungeons, who likely were part black.
I have no idea at this point who is Ashkenazi Jewish, although 1% is a tiny amount, nor do I have any ideas bout 5.7% Middle Eastern.
My profile looks quite a bit different on MyHeritage:
English = 43.9%
North and Western European = 19.3%
Finnish = 9.0%
East European Balkan = 13.6%
East European Baltic = 9.6%
Ashkenazi Jewish = 3.2%
Middle Eastern = 1.4%
As with Dave’s Jewish and Middle Eastern lines, I have no idea who those ancestors were, if the percentages are accurate, but I think, overall, these percentages are probably a more accurate estimate of my ancestral mix.
GEDMATCH was the other site that I checked for ethnicity and I chose Eurogenes as the pool, mainly because it was the only one that was called something I could recognize!
Dave’s results:
| Population | |
| North_Atlantic | 45.34 |
| Baltic | 22.18 |
| West_Med | 15.41 |
| West_Asian | 2.80 |
| East_Med | 5.94 |
| Red_Sea | 3.49 |
| South_Asian | 0.90 |
| East_Asian | 0.75 |
| Siberian | – |
| Amerindian | 1.23 |
| Oceanian | – |
| Northeast_African | 1.02 |
| Sub-Saharan | 0.94 |
My results:
| Population | |
| North_Atlantic | 41.26 |
| Baltic | 30.24 |
| West_Med | 12.64 |
| West_Asian | 5.89 |
| East_Med | 6.71 |
| Red_Sea | 1.21 |
| South_Asian | – |
| East_Asian | – |
| Siberian | 1.25 |
| Amerindian | – |
| Oceanian | 0.79 |
| Northeast_African | – |
| Sub-Saharan |
I don’t think the GEDMATCH results look a whole lot different than the MyHeritage summary. I think both of these are closer to the mark than the ftDNA results, if only because of the added detail.
Maybe Santa will bring a YDNA and mtDNA test for Christmas and we’ll have a new set of data to analyze.