Ethnicity estimates between Ancestry and My Heritage

[VeeBeeFamilyTree]

I have a bit of a query regarding ethnicity estimates when you upload your raw data from Ancestry to My Heritage.
My Heritage has come up with a really wacky ethnicity estimate for me that is quite different from Ancestry. My Ancestry estimate made a lot of sense based on what I know of my family tree.

With My Heritage it almost feels like it’s someone else’s dna, except for the fact that the dna matches themselves do check out!
I know they’re only a bit of fun and the science behind it is questionable but it’s almost like they shut their eyes and stuck some pins in a map of the world for my estimate. 

Has anyone else found this?

[Sinann]

Seems to be fairly common.
Mentioned a few times in this thread
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=806662.0

[melba_schmelba]

There was an interview with the MyHeritage expert genealogist on the Family History Fanatics youtube, and even he admitted their ethnicity estimates need some improvement  . They made their own Founder's Population Project, taking 5000 people with 4 generations back in the same country from around the world. But given Ancestry, now has, I think about 20,000 samples and counting, they probably need some more to get more accurate.

https://youtu.be/2pYWL2mY8uc?t=3820

[davidft]

There was an interview with the MyHeritage expert genealogist on the Family History Fanatics youtube, and even he admitted their ethnicity estimates need some improvement  . They made their own Founder's Population Project, taking 5000 people with 4 generations back in the same country from around the world. But given Ancestry, now has, I think about 20,000 samples and counting, they probably need some more to get more accurate.

https://youtu.be/2pYWL2mY8uc?t=3820

BIB. I disagree. Its not the size of the sample that matters it is its representative nature.

This is why you get widely differing results from different DNA testers. None of the big companies have truly representative samples of the entire world population, if they did ethnicity results would be meaningful but at moment they are simply coincidence estimates i.e. they only show what you have in common with people in their sample. That is neither scientific or accurate.

That said there are those who swear blind by the accuracy of DNA ethnicity estimates. Each to their own!

[VeeBeeFamilyTree]

Thanks for the replies. I think I would certainly take the My Heritage estimate with a big pinch of salt. I had a flick through my dna matches and many of them have some weird and wonderful results. Ancestry is a little more accurate, in that it does match with my family tree research.

Like you all say, it is reliant on having a sample population that has very well researched ancestry to match up with dna markers.

It’s a shame that given the majority of my matches on these sites have no family tree that so many people are falling for it! £89 + is a lot to spend on something so inaccurate! 

[melba_schmelba]

There was an interview with the MyHeritage expert genealogist on the Family History Fanatics youtube, and even he admitted their ethnicity estimates need some improvement  . They made their own Founder's Population Project, taking 5000 people with 4 generations back in the same country from around the world. But given Ancestry, now has, I think about 20,000 samples and counting, they probably need some more to get more accurate.

https://youtu.be/2pYWL2mY8uc?t=3820

BIB. I disagree. Its not the size of the sample that matters it is its representative nature.

This is why you get widely differing results from different DNA testers. None of the big companies have truly representative samples of the entire world population, if they did ethnicity results would be meaningful but at moment they are simply coincidence estimates i.e. they only show what you have in common with people in their sample. That is neither scientific or accurate.

That said there are those who swear blind by the accuracy of DNA ethnicity estimates. Each to their own!

I wouldn't say you do get widely different results, not on a greater scale. Yes MyHeritage gives me larger percentages of Irish/Scottish/Welsh than Ancestry, but on the other hand they are in the right country, and no doubt if I had southern or east European, African, Asian, Amerindian, Jewish or Russian it would pick those up. For England and Wales, Living DNA probably gives the most specific results currently.

[davidft]

I wouldn't say you do get widely different results, not on a greater scale. Yes MyHeritage gives me larger percentages of Irish/Scottish/Welsh than Ancestry, but on the other hand they are in the right country, and no doubt if I had southern or east European, African, Asian, Amerindian, Jewish or Russian it would pick those up. For England and Wales, Living DNA probably gives the most specific results currently.

BIB - I think you are swimming against the tide there.

I'll just leave this here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=802458.msg6603725#msg6603725

At the end of the day as long as people are happy with what they have got i guess it does not matter that it is not accurate.

[melba_schmelba]

I wouldn't say you do get widely different results, not on a greater scale. Yes MyHeritage gives me larger percentages of Irish/Scottish/Welsh than Ancestry, but on the other hand they are in the right country, and no doubt if I had southern or east European, African, Asian, Amerindian, Jewish or Russian it would pick those up. For England and Wales, Living DNA probably gives the most specific results currently.

BIB - I think you are swimming against the tide there.

I'll just leave this here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=802458.msg6603725#msg6603725

At the end of the day as long as people are happy with what they have got i guess it does not matter that it is not accurate.

It is interesting that you get a high Scandinavian in both FTDNA and MyHeritage. Ancestry also regularly gives Brits Scandinavian ancestry - probably linking back to Viking ancestry, obviously highest in the areas of highest Viking settlement such as Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and elsewhere. It may well be LivingDNA disregards this more ancient link, preferring merely to separate English ancestry on a county by county level - their samples originally came from the Oxford University Peoples of the British Isles study.

[VeeBeeFamilyTree]

My results were quite different.
Ancestry was 58% England and northwest Europe.
My Heritage says I had no English or Northwest Europe dna!
My research shows roots on my dads side his roots are steadily in the Midlands - at least until 15th and 16th centuries on some lines. His Ancestry test also picked this out.

I am 25% Scandinavian on my heritage but only 2% Norway on Ancestry!  I have no Scandinavian relatives in the past 200 years as I have researched most lines so 25% is way too much.

It did get the Irish side ok - 65% On My Heritage and 40% on Ancestry. As my mother is Irish I would say this is closer to being accurate.
I also have West Asian and Baltic ancestry according to My Heritage but none of this on Ancestry. Again neither of these two areas have come up in recent genealogy research. It could be there from further back I suppose.

I know it’s just a bit of fun but so glad I did the Ancestry one first otherwise I might have been worried about my parentage!!