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Like AncestryDNA, 23andMe concluded from the first DNA sample that my Ashkenaziness ranks somewhere in the low 90s, with a smidge of difference between each of the samples it received. Unlike AncestryDNA, it had a not-entirely-Old World interpretation of where my ancestors may have come from — suggesting that perhaps a fraction of 1 percent of my ancestors were Native American.
Given what I know of my family history, this is almost certainly not true. However, while I was reporting on this story, 23andMe updated its system for interpreting DNA samples and reassessed all the DNA already in its system. Now, when I log into 23andMe using the three different names I gave, the reports for two of those names say that I have percent Ashkenazi ancestry. A third sample sent to 23andMe has returned no results. Live Science assigned a woman's name to one of the samples that it sent to each company and marked its sex as female.
AncestryDNA processed its "female" sample just fine, with no indication of anything unexpected, but both 23andMe and Nat Geo required more personal information before proceeding, since it was from a person with unexpected chromosomes.
According to Nat Geo, I'm way less than percent Ashkenazi. The genetic service reported that my first sample's ancestry was 88 percent from the " Jewish Diaspora " in this context, a term that more or less refers to Ashkenazim and 10 percent from "Italy and Southern Europe. Nat Geo also reported the biggest difference between its two successful samples, reporting that the second sample it received was 3 percent less "Jewish Diaspora" than the first — just 85 percent.
The remainder, this time, was 13 percent "Italy and Southern Europe. Like, mostly. Or entirely. The rest of my ancestors in recent memory probably also lived in Europe — though who really knows where. And maybe somewhere in my family tree there was a Middle Easterner, or a Native American. But probably almost definitely not. As STAT news reports , people who used these tests just a few years ago are now finding their results have changed. Yet it also undercuts their marketing, which implies that their tests reveal something fundamental about you.
Another limitation: These reference groups are largely based on people who are self-reporting their ancestry. Prior to this past summer , 23andMe could only match people to just three broad regions in sub-Saharan Africa, which is an enormous area with a lot of geographic and ethnic diversity. This is where computer programs come in.
This also is imperfect, with a range of error. The computer programs are also sensitive to the small errors built into the genotyping process. But your dad may not pass on to you all the genes he inherited from, for example, the Sardinian side of his family. Of course not.
DNA is not the same as heritage. But not everything about our family histories is geographic. Human history is a messy, migratory affair, much too complicated to track simply using our DNA. And the exact percentages of where our DNA comes from may not matter either.
If your sibling inherits slightly more Scandinavian DNA than you, does that make them more Scandinavian? For these reasons, many are uncomfortable with the idea of heritage as something that needs to be corroborated with DNA evidence — or that people belong to a certain ethnic group based on a trivial amount of ancestry. DNA ancestry opens a small door into our past. We can learn things like the fact that many tens of thousands of years ago, humans and Neanderthals mated, though we can only speculate and in fascinating ways as to why.
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