ancestry dna small % asia south

[myrrhn]

With my ancestry dna results, I have <1%, with a margin of 0-2% Asia South. I have no knowledge of any ancestors with a connection to the region, but I do have gaps in my tree. Is there any way of knowing how far back this % is from? Could it be indicative of Romani ancestry?

Just trying to figure out if this is ancient ancient, or from someone from a few hundred years ago whose name I could learn.

I have attached screenshots from ancestry dna, dna.land, and myheritage. Any insight would be much appreciated!

[Ruskie]

Welcome top rootschat myrrhn.

I think you could probably forget about that minuscule percentage of South Asian.  If accurate, there would be no find-able records for them, and their origins are too vague to be of any use genealogically.

I'm sure the experts will be along soon to correct me if I am wrong  and explain this percentage to you properly.

[davidft]

DNA testing be it with Ancestry, ftDNA or any of the other testing companies does NOT tell you your ethnic makeup. What these tests do is compare your results with their sample databases. The fact that all these companies have different sample bases means you get different results depending on which company you test with. That should be a huge warning that these tests are not accurate and should only be looked at for their curiosity value.

[melba_schmelba]

It is interesting how extremely different those are - I presume that is the old Ancestry sample base however. Ancestry and DNA LAND seem to agree on the South Asian/Kalash, but DNA LAND seems to agree with MyHeritage on there being a significant percentage of Iberian and east European/Slav which Ancestry seemed to almost completely miss. Asia South, as well as Romany could be from an Anglo-Indian ancestor through an ancestor who worked in the East India Company where inter racial marriages were encouraged until around 1800, but even afterwards still occurred.

[seemex]

Sometimes even a small CM count can be significant. I was contacted last year by an Ancestry tester in Netherlands who had done a DNA test for her adopted Chinese daughter. They have no idea as to her background as she was adopted as a baby. I'm caucasian and live in Canada but I turned up as a small match to this girl. The CM amount was so small that it would normally be regarded as "noise" however, I do have Asian DNA and was able to direct her to where I thought mine came from. With my information she concentrated her search to Fujian province and in so doing, was able to discover some much larger matches. My small degree of knowledge about my own origins, was at least helpful to someone.

[Rena]

As previously noted - it would be practically impossible to find our earliest ancestors.

Mankind has been travelling around the world for thousands of years trading goods, knowledge and slaves ; whether that's slaves from Europe to the south or from the south to Europe in the north.

My school history included a short lesson on Alexander the Great of Macedonia and a few decades later whilst in the Netherlands I heard  about him again as giving the name to a small town down the road.  He and his entourage would regularly travel along the Spice Road/Silk Road and he would apologise for his late arrival at a country hostelry saying "It is Late" - and that's how the town got its name of "Sittard".

https://www.twelfx.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-exploration-the-spice-road