I understand that so-called Ethnicity Estimates are partly based on reference panels and that they comprise people who can trace their lineage to a very specific part of the world for several generations i.e. that they are representative in theory of the type of DNA that people from that area carry. But is the creation of the reference panel entirely down to the DNA company or do the people included get asked or at least advised that they form part of it?
They could use the number of recognised Common Ancestors as a measure of the accuracy of a tree. Having the Common Ancestors spread evenly throughout the tree would be better than having them concentrated in a few places. They could also use the number of DNA matches that you have connected (the icon with a blue circle with three connected boxes and a tick in a green circle) although that would be vulnerable to people being deliberately awkward.
I suspect that my tree has made it onto the panel. I haven't seen anybody else's ethnicities change as much as mine (50%->98% English, 95 Common Ancestors) and my mother's (86%->99% English, 140 Common Ancestors). Presumably somebody present on the panel will show up as nearly 100% as they will be an exact match for themselves. The main counter-argument is that it wouldn't make sense for us to both be on the panel.
