More explanations on the home DNA tests

That's why they are call Ethnicity Estimate. And they WILL change over time as more people test. But yes the commercials are deceptive.

My family just does it the old fashioned way lol By going through records, newspaper articles, ect. That led us to paintings by a distant relative in France.

The mapping results have greatly improved just within the past several years as millions more people have tested.

The ethnic categories were extremely misleading if you didn't open the maps to see what areas where included in a particular ethnicity. For example, you do not expect to see Swiss heritage show up as Italian/Greek as it did for a long time. BUT... if you looked at the map, Switzerland was included in that category.  And some areas of the globe either weren't sampled at all or more people continue to be sampled.

To be a comparison sample, a person has to have a very long, documented history to a specific area from both mother and father and all of their ancestors going back hundreds of years.

Some countries, like Germany, that have seen massive changes in their population over and over and over may not have much of a sample base to compare modern results to.


So... yes and no. The tests have become more ethnically specific, but they will always face a limit in what they can show.


These generic ethnicity breakdowns really tell you where at least one or more of your ancestors probably were several hundred years ago. (Longer ago than most documentation.)

Anyone who works with probability a lot, like a mathematician or a scientist, for example, can understand exactly what these test have always shown. But, I don't think most people typically think in those shades of grey all the time and so the constant updating appears to them to be giving much different answers than they got originally.


These DNA tests are really interesting in that they are both absolute and probable at the same time.

People you are closely related to match to you at such a high probability that it becomes absolute.

The further the relationship between people, the less DNA they share and the more the laws of chance become apparent.

My daughter and husband took a DNA test. We didn't expect anything but what we got, really. We're super white people that came from super white people in the UK and Europe. It was just a curiosity, I guess. I was secretly hoping there was a surprise- like Italian.

But then when the tests were linked up to other family members that had also taken the test- we found out DH was the subject of a nasty bit of family gossip. We only found out because the DNA test proved the gossip wrong, and someone made an offhand remark about it. A couple of questions later, we found out about 20 years worth of really nasty accusations and speculation. His family is usually sort of fractured, but at that point, everyone was starting to come back together.
(Insert sound of screeching brakes.)
Not anymore.
It's kind of strange that some families get thrown up for grabs when DNA tests turn out positive for a parent/child match. For DH's family, it was a weird version of the opposite.