Ancestry's latest Ethnicity update to Ancestral Regions

[glamwales]

Mine has become utter nonsense

Today

19% English
4% Irish
77% Welsh

was

69 % Welsh
14% Scottish
7% Germanic
6% Irish
4% English

My tree is clear there are German roots on my fathers side. Over 300 years of English too which now seems to be captured.   I have always found it funny how the system doesn't recognise my parents tests.  so if I look at their 'ancestry' on my account its vastly different to their actual ancestry.

I have come to the conclusion that the database is corrupt now as I also match with cousins my parents don't match with.  How is that possible.

Disappointed.  I know its a bit of fun but how can you use dna to build trees when there are so many changes and errors.

[DianaCanada]

I would say Germanic is referring to the original Anglo-Saxon settlers who undoubtedly left DNA ties behind in what is now Germany - so that some Germans and many English share some DNA with each other.

[coombs]

My Portuguese pal says the UK is quite often a cold and grey country and he is right, especially when he comes originally from sunny Lisbon. We often have grey and dull and depressing days in the summer months and long dark nights in the winter. I think genetics play a part in this to a degree. Portuguese people are a mixture of Celtic, Greco-Roman, indigenous Iberian and likely some Arabic ancestry. There is said to be some Germanic DNA in Portuguese people.

[melba_schmelba]

Well, I now have 5% Spain, 5% Wales, neither which have popped up before. 

I prefer the Living DNA results, which match the paper trail - 97% English, and 3%Irish.

Do you have any evidence of Spanish? Given from what I can see with these new results, Spanish could equally mean France or Italy!

[melba_schmelba]

Mine has become utter nonsense

Today

19% English
4% Irish
77% Welsh

was

69 % Welsh
14% Scottish
7% Germanic
6% Irish
4% English

My tree is clear there are German roots on my fathers side. Over 300 years of English too which now seems to be captured.   I have always found it funny how the system doesn't recognise my parents tests.  so if I look at their 'ancestry' on my account its vastly different to their actual ancestry.

I have come to the conclusion that the database is corrupt now as I also match with cousins my parents don't match with.  How is that possible.

Disappointed.  I know its a bit of fun but how can you use dna to build trees when there are so many changes and errors.

The algorithm analyses tests independently of any close relatives or trees so quite big variations can be found. Regarding matching people your parents don't, what sort of cM size are we talking about? If it is small matches, it can happen as the Ancestry Timber algorithm has a variable effect - click the cM number and you will see two figures, weighted and unweighted. It is an attempt to reduce matches for heavily homogenous populations like ethno-religious groups or small island populations who would otherwise get vast numbers of cousins, but it does work quite randomly. So an unweighted match of say 25cM could be weighted to 12cM on your account, but on your parents it could be weighted to below 8cM, which would mean Ancestry don't show it as matches only go down to 8cM.
  I agree that this update is less than ideal. The have clearly tried to refine the Germanic category to suit people of actual recent German descent, but this seems to be causing false readings for many people of verified British descent and no verified recent German ancestry. The French/Italian/Spanish/Sardinian models have also been messed up and are now as inaccurate as they were several years ago.

[DianaCanada]

Well, I now have 5% Spain, 5% Wales, neither which have popped up before. 

I prefer the Living DNA results, which match the paper trail - 97% English, and 3%Irish.

Do you have any evidence of Spanish? Given from what I can see with these new results, Spanish could equally mean France or Italy!

I have absolutely no evidence of any ancestors except English in the north and in Sussex.  I have traced most of my family lines back into the 1700's where I would expect the 5 percent to show up.  I do have one almost certainly Irish line that arrived in Manchester around 1790.
The Welsh is more likely than the Spanish but I have no hard evidence of that.  One ancestor said she was born in Knutsford, Ches. in one census and Wales in another.  But her name was local to Cheshire and Staffordshire and I have some distant DNA matches (more than one person matches the same set of ancestors) with her surname in Staffordshire. 

[melba_schmelba]

Well, I now have 5% Spain, 5% Wales, neither which have popped up before. 

I prefer the Living DNA results, which match the paper trail - 97% English, and 3%Irish.

Do you have any evidence of Spanish? Given from what I can see with these new results, Spanish could equally mean France or Italy!

I have absolutely no evidence of any ancestors except English in the north and in Sussex.  I have traced most of my family lines back into the 1700's where I would expect the 5 percent to show up.  I do have one almost certainly Irish line that arrived in Manchester around 1790.
The Welsh is more likely than the Spanish but I have no hard evidence of that.  One ancestor said she was born in Knutsford, Ches. in one census and Wales in another.  But her name was local to Cheshire and Staffordshire and I have some distant DNA matches (more than one person matches the same set of ancestors) with her surname in Staffordshire.

I think something pretty bad may have happened to the algorithm if it's just handing out random 5% Spanish to Brits! If there is more evidence of this, this will be going back to old MyHeritage level accuracy ! Some I have seen suggested they might have got lazy and started to use AI and rely too much on it to modify the algorithm with not enough human checking that it is not producing likely false results.

[DianaCanada]

Well, I now have 5% Spain, 5% Wales, neither which have popped up before. 

I prefer the Living DNA results, which match the paper trail - 97% English, and 3%Irish.

Do you have any evidence of Spanish? Given from what I can see with these new results, Spanish could equally mean France or Italy!

I have absolutely no evidence of any ancestors except English in the north and in Sussex.  I have traced most of my family lines back into the 1700's where I would expect the 5 percent to show up.  I do have one almost certainly Irish line that arrived in Manchester around 1790.
The Welsh is more likely than the Spanish but I have no hard evidence of that.  One ancestor said she was born in Knutsford, Ches. in one census and Wales in another.  But her name was local to Cheshire and Staffordshire and I have some distant DNA matches (more than one person matches the same set of ancestors) with her surname in Staffordshire.

I think something pretty bad may have happened to the algorithm if it's just handing out random 5% Spanish to Brits! If there is more evidence of this, this will be going back to old MyHeritage level accuracy ! Some I have seen suggested they might have got lazy and started to use AI and rely too much on it to modify the algorithm with not enough human checking that it is not producing likely false results.

Neither my brother or my daughter show any Spanish or Welsh percentages although, ironically, my daughter did have a low percentage of Welsh via her father, and the paper trail backed that up, as David Lloyd, born in Wales, was her 4x great-grandfather.

[melba_schmelba]

I would say Germanic is referring to the original Anglo-Saxon settlers who undoubtedly left DNA ties behind in what is now Germany - so that some Germans and many English share some DNA with each other.

Yes, but this DNA would be broken down into tiny segments over 1500 years of a split between England and Germany and although similar should be possible to differentiate. I don't think Ancestry really intend for Brits to get so much Germanic. But to be more accurate, it would require more Germans to do DNA tests, and those Germans to also do accurate trees in sufficient numbers. If Ancestry really cared about accuracy they would give out free kits as 23andme and LivingDNA have done in the past for people that can show they meet requirements to qualify as a reference sample for a certain region and then get Ancestry's own genealogy experts to do the trees.