{"id":8272,"date":"2019-01-15T16:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=8272"},"modified":"2019-01-15T16:00:07","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T16:00:07","slug":"the-science-behind-ethnicity-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=8272","title":{"rendered":"The Science Behind Ethnicity Estimates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently posted to my personal Facebook wall:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Ethnicity estimates<\/em>: a marketing tool that ends up making people question the whole thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;ve mentioned the ethnicity results before here. For the most part, my view is that they are entertainment except in situations where a parent or grandparent is totally unknown (and then the estimates are only a broad clue). The ethnicity estimates are based on samples and assumptions which makes them guesswork from the start. Calling the estimates &#8220;science&#8221; doesn&#8217;t change that, but the use of that word suggests they are wrapped in a cover of accuracy that is more of a foggy damp cloud.<\/p>\n<p><em>AncestryDNA\u00a0<\/em>recently announced a &#8220;launch&#8221; of their Irish DNA regions. Being one-eighth Irish, I was curious about the results. I&#8217;m no longer curious, but I am just as uninformed a I was.<\/p>\n<p>Then my updated ethnicity results at\u00a0<em>AncestryDNA\u00a0<\/em>indicated that I wasn&#8217;t Irish at all&#8211;at least ethnically according to their database and interpretation. My most recent &#8220;ethnicity estimate&#8221; at\u00a0<em>AncestryDNA\u00a0<\/em>indicated:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>56% England, Wales,and Northwestern Europe<\/li>\n<li>37% Germanic Europe<\/li>\n<li>5% Norway<\/li>\n<li>2% Sweden<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was hoping for a sliver of Irish in my estimate. There was none, probably because at least half my Irish were not really Irish at all and probably haled from Scotland. I used to think it was somewhat educational to &#8220;reverse engineer&#8221; the results based upon my own known pedigree. Using historical information about migrations and political boundaries, it was fun to play the game of &#8220;how&#8217;d they get that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve decided that game is no longer fun. It is beneficial to know about migrations and political boundaries. It also is a better use of my time to apply that information to my research than to sit and figure out &#8220;how Ancestry&#8221; got these ethnicities. My time spent with my DNA results is best used in analyzing the matches I have, the shared matches, etc. The science behind that is entirely different than the science that says &#8220;You&#8217;re 50% German, get out the lederhousen.&#8221; The cousin relationships are what matters, not the ethnicity estimates.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently posted to my personal Facebook wall: Ethnicity estimates: a marketing tool that ends up making people question the whole thing. We&#8217;ve mentioned the ethnicity results before here. For the most part, my view is that they are entertainment except in situations where a parent or grandparent is totally unknown (and then the estimates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}