Is MyHeritage usually wrong?

[Jonathan__Bissett88]

Hi, my name is Jonathan and I am fairly new to the whole DNA and family tree stuff. I have done a basic tree, and even got my parents to do a DNA test to help create a bigger idea of both sides of family ancestry, but have a few questions regarding MyHeritage!

Please could somebody help and explain how I have ethnicities that neither of my parents have, I have searched online and it just comes up with the whole "it's only a guess" and " DNA looks simmilar between different regions, it will be a wrong guess" sort of thing!

Thanks for your time, Jonathan.

[Biggles50]

I would not be concerned at all about Ethnicities.

The algorithms used are only as good as the information in the database that My Heritage uses.

I am on both My Heritage and Ancestry and one would think that the ethnicities that each give for me is actually for two different people the differences are so vast.

The only thing that really matters is the cM values of your matches including your parents.

If you are feeling flush with cash you may like to get each of your parents to do a gender specific DNA test.  yDNA will go from male to male only and an mtDNA female to female.

It could be useful also to sound out Cousins from both sides and get them to test.

[Gadget]

I agree with Biggles - dont't worry about ethnicity and concentrate on your shared matches.

Gadget

[Jonathan__Bissett88]

Thanks a lot for your replies.
 I really do not understand that much about DNA, and It was starting to puzzle me how I was related to a fair few people as 3rd-5th cousins who were not related to either of my parents! Some with quite high cM!

As winter kicks in with its cold nights with little to do, I will have to do a lot more research and learn more about my DNA matches and build a better tree!

Thanks again, Jonathan.

[Sinann]

Same thing happens on Ancestry DNA
They say my niece has 47% Ireland 3% Scotland from her mother, they say the mother is 98% Ireland and 2%Wales.
Let it go, it's not worth even thinking about.

[Rosinish]

Welcome to RootsChat Jonathan 

I agree with the others but I believe the results come from your DNA matches in some way.

The above in turn makes your Ethnicity change on every update i.e. use it as a guide only, however, if there's any NPE in your ancestry then it will differ from what your paper trail shows!

Annie

[plentyn coll]

Myheritage, ftdna, gedmatch, ethnicities are old and outdated. 23andme is very generic. Ancestry is the only company I give any credence to and it matches my tree pretty well.

Ethnicity testing is very complex. The best bet is to read Ancestry's white papers on the subject, they explain it in common language. They don't test all of your genome. Some parts are common and everyone has them so they chop those out. The rest is cut into pieces and compared to test panels. Every company decides what to keep and what to chop. If you upload your DNA from different companies to a 3rd party, you will get different results because of the differences in how each company manipulates the DNA. I wouldn't pay any attention to small percentages.

[Cell]

My Heritage estimates are terrible!.  I've  turned my ethnic bit off ages ago  on my heritage ( ie I've hidden my ethnic bit from my matches view , so they can't see my break down)

My Heritage has me as 47.9 Scandinavian! lol and  15.1 Iberian  and 37%  Irish , Scottish and Welsh.


The reason  I've  hidden mine from my matches view  is that my matches would probably think that  they are related to a half Swedish person, with  Iberian ancestors  or something ,and go chasing up the wrong garden path.

 And  to top it all  off my son hasn't  inherited any of my whopping 47. 9 % Scandinavian at all  lol .
 How on earth did he get away with not inheriting my lovely massive bit of Scandanavian
They say he's  49.9 welsh Scottish Irish and 47% North West Europe.  And 0% Iberian , 0 % Scandanavian lol

Perhaps he was swapped  at birth . I must have been totally off with the fairies when someone  came in  by my bedside and swapped my child.

I think  my heritage have mixed up  all of my Irish and Scottish with  being Scandinavian , and goodness knows what they've done to my son's lol- gawd help my mother if she took a test and uploaded it to my heritage lol , they'd  have her as a full on  100% a swede ( my mother is  Northern Irish and my father is welsh ) , or perhaps they'd  have her as 100% Iberian  lol.


I find  that ancestry's  estimate is far closer to the truth
Ancestry have got it almost being  correct with both myself and son. On there I am over  59% Irish and Scottish  ,which is a little high , I should be 50%  ( but they have my father having a bit of Irish in him , which I haven't  found to be true)  The rest they have as Welsh from my Welsh  father ,  and a bit  of English
Also a tiny bit of Sweden and Denmark ( 2%)   which is to be expected of course.

Did you upload an ancestry test to My Heritage or use a my heritage kit?  I uploaded both our ancestry tests to them.

I have noticed that  my full first cousin  who took a my heritage test and didn't upload another company's to them - his estimates are pretty correct ( 50% Scottish and Irish), unlike mine  and my child's uploaded tests to them ,which are way, way  off.

I think it may be a problem with My Heritage reading uploaded  ancestry test results differently, or incorrectly.
How on earth they have me at almost 50% Scandinavian and my son  a big fat  zilch of that ethnic,  it is utter rubbish .  You'd think at  the very, very  least he'd have 1 % of my almost 50%  lol .



Kind regards


 

[Guy Etchells]

Snip

Please could somebody help and explain how I have ethnicities that neither of my parents have, I have searched online and it just comes up with the whole "it's only a guess" and " DNA looks simmilar between different regions, it will be a wrong guess" sort of thing!

Thanks for your time, Jonathan.

To understand ethnicity we have to understand the history of a country or region.
Ethnicity tests are a very new “science” and that databases used to determined ethnicity are still being developed and refined at present they are little more than an amusing addition to your DNA results and should not be taken too seriously.
The various companies are trying to form databases that will allow them to determine how the DNA of any specific place is made up. These are based on the ethnicities of a panel of individuals whose families have lived in a specific region for a number of generations, but the accuracty of this is constantly being questioned.
However this is very complex as each continent, country, county etc. is made up not from a specific native population but of people whose ancestors have come from all parts of the world at different times and via different routes. This means each resident in a village may have the same ethnicity of his/her neighbour in that village or may have the same ethnicity as the residents of a village thousands of miles away.
This is due to the fact that people move around their own country and even around the world. Visitors have sex with native populations and the DNA in the resulting children carries the ethnicity of both homelands. Armies from one country may travel across wide swaths of the world allowing the DNA and ethnicities to be spread worldwide.
As the science develops it will become more accurate but do not be surprised if this take 20, 50 or perhaps even over 100 years for really accurate ethnic results to be developed.
Cheers
Guy