Have you seen FTDNA's new "Chromosome Painter"?

Question

Roberta Estes wrote about it in her blog. It looks promising?

For me, and about 47% of testers there is no functionality right now - it shows all of my origins information in the list but doesn't allow me to see them in either view. I am blue. Just blue.

I am Blue - a sea of blue and nothing else. Did they roll this out too soon?

What are you seeing?

Mags

UPDATE: September 2,  11:00AM EDT. Just got off the phone with the folks at FTDNA and they are aware of an issue with the Chromosome Painter and non-functionality. Working to correct it.

AND Janine just answered my FB post: "That's because your ancestry is 100% Western Europe. If you even had a percent Eastern Europe or the Americas, that would show up with the appropriate percentage next to it, but there are 32 superpopulations beneath the continental level."

As someone with Western European Ancestry, then I must live with being Blue? Western European Ancestry makes up a huge percentage of people/testers. Here is the explanation for this: Super Populations

myOrigins estimates your ancestry from as many as 90 different population clusters. However, this level of specificity is only afforded by using a large number of genetic markers from your entire genome. The Chromosome Painting must paint small DNA segments with very few markers, so to maintain accuracy, we must sacrifice some population specificity. That is why we group the 90 populations into 34 Super Populations, based on genetic similarity, and display these Super Populations in the Chromosome Painting.

Jonny Perl has an interesting workaround he posted to the DNA Painter Users Group.

Comments

Two other open questions about this new feature already:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1293912/new-autosomal-dna-painter-at-familytreedna-com

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1294147/announcement-by-ftdna

I was excited when I first got wind of the new addition, but then found out it dealt with "MyOrigins" and admixture only, not segment detail for genealogy. And I'm as blue as you are: 98.9% Western European.

I'm sure it will prove interesting to some, but I very much wish they had expended the research & development time, money, and effort on something else.

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We're all blue ;-)

Answer 1

It doesn't really much value when their ethnicity prediction is the worse of all 4 major DTC's not only from the detail level but even more from an accuracy PoV.

I have written a blog post which compares my own results for all 4 DTC's and ranks them for my unique German/Italian ethnicity (with some yet unproven Scandinavian DNA).

You can find it here: What DNA testing company offers the most accurate & detailed ethnicity prediction if you have German ancestry?

Please note that as per my own ethnicity FTDNA comes in last place (with the 2021 results), especially as I have ethnicity that neither of my parents have (some sort of Ghost DNA??).

Answer 2

In general, I think people have unrealistic expectations for ancestral origin estimates. I am like you, Mags, with 100% Western European, and that's fine by me. My husband has 97% Western and < 3% Eastern European (no known ancestors from there, but certainly possible given migration patterns within Europe).

However, our son has 6.9% Eastern European, and that is more troubling. He has many segments not found in his father. I thought perhaps this could be mitigated if I eliminated small segments, but some are quite large (over 30 cM). This is just eyeballing -- it would take me some time to figure out a good Excel method, and I don't think it's worth it.

Comments

All I can say is I am Blue about this whole thing! 

Answer 3

Not a game-changer, but not a bad start. My FTDNA autosomal geographical map overlay strongly resembles the one from 23&Me. The input data came from the same chip since I just uploaded my 23&Me results to ftDNA. In my own experience, 23&Me produces the most "accurate" autosomal geographical maps, based on my known genealogy. Both 23&Me and ftDNA capture my 1.2% Ashkenazi Jewish markers that probably came from this guy and his wife. FTDNA puts a green splotch over the Middle East, 23&Me doesn't bother. FTDNA is the first company to suggest I have genes from Malta.

Overall, I'd put the ftDNA map in second place. Next comes AncestryDNA, who accurately predict some clusters of my European immigrant ancestors in America, and who also identify me as about 1% Ashkenazi.  But Ancestry assigns way too much "Norway", based on what I know about my Norwegian ancestors. Notably, the AncestryDNA used their own chip, so the dataset is different. Perhaps it is the combination of the database composition/size and the chip used that matters to produce the best map? 

Taking up the rear in my autosomal geographic maps test--once again--is myHeritage. Their database is somehow so skewed to "English" that it says I am 90% "English".  MyHeritage have some work to do to catch up to the other companies.  The input was from the same 23&Me chip data.  

Comments

Just as a piece of related information, FTDNA will likely show different results depending upon which test data you upload to them, and between a test taken with them and a test from a different company. In other words, though I have no statistical detail, their genotype imputation isn't accommodating with precision the different SNPs targeted by different companies' tests and chipsets.

In one example, an individual with two accounts at FTDNA--one with uploaded AncestryDNA results and one with FTDNA's own GSA chip test--shows West Slavic segments on the new chromosome painter present on the FTDNA test on chromosomes 4, 14, and 17 that do not show on the uploaded Ancestry data, and on the Ancestry results segments on chromosomes 7, 10, and 19 that are not present on the FTDNA results. Overall, there's about a 4% difference in the "super population" representation. Your mileage, of course, may vary; but I have a feeling that the different SNPs tested will align differently with the cohorts FTDNA is using as reference panels.

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I have tested with them (as have my parents and all their siblings) and I still see a lot of problems and plain wrong data (see my blog post above, how can I have ethnicity that neither my parents have?).

I agree with Michael that 23andMe has the best accuracy and level of detail (down to smaller areas like eg islands in the Philippines for a half Filipino friend and the specific federal states in Germany for my own results.

FTDNA just has a too small user base (which is part of their whole story of decline, as they used to have the largest one by far) to get a good variety of results from their user base.

23andMe also asks users for the country of origin of their Grandparents, which I think none of the other DTC's does (please correct me if I'm wrong).