MyHeritage DNA

[Ruskie]

Thanks Margaret - I will keep checking back. 

[hdw]

Just checked and my results seem to be available. I have yet to explore the site and check for any matches. My ethnicity results are broadly similar on my Heritage and FTDNA.

My original FTDNA FamilyFinder results were:

British Isles                      63%
Western & Central Europe  32%
Finland & Northern Siberia   5%

Then they sent me revised results:

British Isles   52%
Scandinavia   33%
Iberia            11%
Jewish,
Sephardic        3%
West Middle East <2%

Obviously they had changed their parameters - how do you categorise Norman French, Flemish, Anglian, etc?

Then a genealogist relative uploaded (downloaded?) my results to MyHeritage, and lo and behold I was now

Irish, Scottish and Welsh   60.2%
Scandinavian                    19.3%
Finnish                               4.9%
Iberian                               6.8%
Italian                                2.1%
Baltic                                 4.7%
Nigerian                             1%
North African                      1%

Go figure, as the Americans say.

Harry

[Eric Hatfield]

This is a useful discussion, thanks everyone. I didn't know before how to get around the 250 limit on the tree (thanks Margaret), and the discussion has helped me see that I'm not using My Heritage enough.

I uploaded my FTDNA results there, so now I have my DNA at Ancestry, FTDNA, My Heritage, Gedmatch, DNA Land and Geni. My difficulty is that I don't always remember all these sites, I don't always check them regularly, and I don't have much familiarity with some of them - we can sometimes have too much information for our brains!

So thanks for the incentive to spend more time at My Heritage.

[sugarfizzle]

Eric, I mostly use my tablet these days, rather than my laptop. I 'Add to home screen' any site I use regularly, then bunch them together.

For example, I have all my genealogy (apart from DNA) in one box, all my DNA sites in another. That way as soon as I click on the box I am presented with all the DNA sites that I use, currently ancestryDNA, familytreeDNA, myheritageDNA, Gedmatch and Gedmatch genesis.  So although I work mainly with ancestry, I don't forget the others.

But I agree, there is information overload.

Regards Margaret

[hdw]

I've been having a bit of correspondence with one of my MyHeritage matches, and we are both puzzled. When I go onto the site and click on his details, lining them up alongside my results, it tells me he has Irish/Scottish/Welsh 0.0% and English 73.6%, Scandinavian 3.6% and North and West European 22.8%. But he tells me the results he was sent give him a mixture of Scottish, Irish, French, German and Italian. How can this disparity arise?

As with a few other MyHeritage matches I have, I actually know who his family are - his father comes from my home village in Scotland and taught at my old school - and I know his family-tree as well as I know my own. We had common ancestors called Murray. And both his parents were Scottish, from the same part of Fife, so how can MyHeritage say that their grandson has 0.0% Scottish DNA and 73.6% English? It doesn't make any sense.

Harry

[davidft]

It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't and yet it does.

(what follows is my personal view only and I don't claim any particular expertise).

The first thing to say is that the geographic ethnicity groupings that the testing companies use are not really accurately scientifically based. They work on using sample populations (which can in some cases be very small) to determine the predictors of any one "ethnicity". The fact that different companies use different sample populations shows that they can not all be right and in truth the probability is that none of them are fully right although most do have at least a trace of truth. this is why the ethnicity predictions of these companies should be taken with a large pinch of salt and not taken too seriously.

You mention the discrepancy between the ethnicities of your results and those of a match. You have not said how close or otherwise the match is but in an effort to show how things can change quite markedly even between two very closely related individuals I will detail my results. Originally ftDNA said I was 33% Scandinavian and 67% Western and Central European, note no British Isles which I did not take too well! When they "improved" their classifications they then said I was 16% Scandinavian and 84% Western and Central European, note still no British Isles. By comparison my father was classified at 7% British Isles, 47% Scandinavian and 46% Western and Central European. So even between myself and my father there are large differences.

This is a link to a previous discussion on here that references this subject and includes a link to a presentation the author gave at Who do you are Live.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=720079.msg5638447#msg5638447

Additionally here is a link to that author's blogspot where she details the differences in ethnicities from three generations of her own family

https://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/three-generations-of-ftdna-myorigins.html

and a look at what DNALiving said for her results

https://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/my-updated-family-ancestry-maps-from.html

So in short you will get different results from different companies and even very closely related people will have quite significant differences in their "ethnicities"

Probably over time these companies will be able to come more onto line with each other and the ethnicities will have more meaning but as things stand they can quite fairly be criticised and are really no more than a bit of fun (hope that does not offend).

Hope that helps a bit

[hdw]

I agree entirely that the whole ethnicity thing is best seen as a bit of fun, and I realise from my own experience with FTDNA and MyHeritage that different companies come up with different results. What mainly puzzled me was that this chap had received ethnicity results for himself that differed markedly from what shows up on my computer when I click on his name in my list of matches.

Harry

[davidft]

What mainly puzzled me was that this chap had received ethnicity results for himself that differed markedly from what shows up on my computer when I click on his name in my list of matches.

Harry

Hmm yes I had not picked up on that bit. Maybe he should ask MyHeritage if they can explain it (if you/he gets an answer I'd be interested what it is provided of course it does not give away any personal information).