Ancestry dna

[Amanda Blume]

Hi have just received results of dna test from ancestry, I expected most of the results I got from there, except 1% European Jewish. But it's mostly European english, irish, scandinavian and 31% African. (Various regions).

I then used gedmatch and have found 10.0 % native american, and wondered why this didn't show up in the ancestry results, I thought we may have some native american as my grandad was African American and his family were all from georgia, but they have no history regarding this. So this is a little confusing.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Amanda Blume]

Thought I would upload the family tree if it would be any help  the family member from the US is jb Willoughby.

[Seaton Smithy]

The reason you get different ethnicity estimates from different providers is because they have different reference panels that they use to compare your unique combination of DNA against.  The reference panels are usually quite small groups of samples that have been collected for medical or scientific rather than genealogy research.  The estimates are intended to represent genetic history further back (~1,000 years) than the usual genealogy time frame (~300 years or so). 

GEDMatch has many different Admixture profiles you can compare yourself against rather than just one and these are usually based on a specific scientific study, so you are really getting an estimate of how your DNA compares to that study rather than an actual estimate of your ethnicity.  If you selected one that did not include Native American data you would probably get quite a different result.

You can transfer your Ancestry raw data to FamilyTreeDNA and unlock another ethnicity estimate for US$19 which is a lot cheaper than doing a whole new test.

You can also upload your data to DNA.LAND (free) and possibly MyHeritage (if they still allow data transfers) and get a different estimate again. (I personally don't recommend either of these two for finding relative due to the matching process they use.)

Your next question will possibly be which estimate is more accurate?  That's a bit subjective, as most people would say the one that best reflects what they know about their personal family history is the most accurate.  In my personal view the ethnicity estimates are more of a gimmick and it is unfortunate that Ancestry in particular uses this aspect of testing heavily in it's advertising.

[Amanda Blume]

Thanks for your reply, will definitely try family tree dna.  It will be interesting to see what results I get.