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Original poster

To think these DNA ancestry tests make no sense

335 replies

CarolineFields · 11/05/2024 19:41

So you get back a score of 40% Nigerian. Meaning out of the tiny scrap of DNA tested - less than 0.1% -40% of that matches the average population in Nigeria. But if those Nigerians are tested, they won't come back as 100% Nigerian, so 40% of 0.1% matches people who are likely to be told they are 50% not Nigerian?

And if you are in Iceland when you have that test, you are told you are 40% Nigerian, but someone in Australia can be told they are 80% Icelandic due to being compared to you and you cohort?

OP posts:
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Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · 11/05/2024 21:14

My family came back mostly German and hardly any French (we have a lot of French in the family and some German but less so). My mum was really pissed off with ancestry.

VestibuleVirgin · 11/05/2024 21:06

CarolineFields · 11/05/2024 20:21

well, everyone in Europe North America, North Africa or Asia has Viking ancestors. Dont need any sort of DNA test to know that.

How did you come to that (incorrect) conclusion?

Walker1178 · 11/05/2024 20:56

My DP is Kazakh, not a country I would expect to come up randomly. I bought him a test and it did indeed come back with Kazakh as the highest proportion so I’m pretty sure it was accurate. He had a smattering of ethnicities from along the ‘silk road’ line which would also make sense.

Spratt · 11/05/2024 20:23

If you’ve ever watched DNA family secrets on BBC, you will see that it can be very useful in identifying heritage and where patterns occur. There have been cases featured of unknown parentage where the experts doing the testing have been able to identify the heritage of people adopted at birth. One case showed a ‘brown’ guy adopted by white parents who told him that his father was from Egypt, the experts actually identified that his father was Punjabi. It’s definitely worthwhile.

Original poster
CarolineFields · 11/05/2024 20:21

well, everyone in Europe North America, North Africa or Asia has Viking ancestors. Dont need any sort of DNA test to know that.

OP posts:
OfficeWoes · 11/05/2024 20:18

Adam Rutherford has some criticism of these, and as a geneticist I think his take is worth listening to. Personally, I did a test and it returned very narrow results which didn’t match up to what I understood my family complexities to be, and maybe that’s because it’s all about who else has taken the tests and it doesn’t really prove anything much at all, not that there even is anything to prove. Like said above, it’s sold on some romantic notion of weird Viking longings. It seems like the only people who bother taking these tests are people of one particular demographic group, albeit spread throughout UK, USA and Australia. I guess that’s the group who can afford this.

Original poster
CarolineFields · 11/05/2024 20:14

Seashor · 11/05/2024 20:05

My was very, very accurate.

how do you know?

OP posts:
Seashor · 11/05/2024 20:05

My was very, very accurate.

JamSandle · 11/05/2024 20:03

Mine is very accurate based on knowledge I have of my family.

But families can be complex. There can be many surprises!

Misthios · 11/05/2024 19:52

The "ethnicity results" which you are referring to are just a bit of fun and will change over time. For some people they're very accurate, others not so much. It's all done by comparing your DNA to that of many other people who have tested and who have a proven genealogy going back several generations. Mine is actually fairly accurate.

Where Ancestry and similar tests are more useful is for matching you with other test takers, telling you how many centimorgans of DNA you share. This helps you grow your own tree and research your family history by connecting with mote distant family members.

The problem is that the tests are often marketed as "find out what percentage viking you are" and people are presented with this long list of names and numbers and don't have the know-how to understand it.