Question

Which is better for finding ethnicity, 23andMe or AncestryDNA?

Comments

In my opinion, both are pretty general.  I have two cousins (siblings) that actually tested from each site and the results were almost identical.  

My go to is gedmatch. Wherever you purchase and send your test, gedmatch can help you break it down and has tutorials that I found informative.  Beware- yhe abundance of information on your DNA may be overwhelming.  Be sure to have a list of your curiosities nearby or else you could end up "down the rabbit hole". (That's where I tend to hang out anyway)  Best of luck!

Answer 1

I've taken both tests.

23andme

Italian 45.9%

French and German 14.7%

British & Irish 14.2 %

Iberian 1.8%

Balkan .7%

Eastern European .2%

Broadly NW European 12.2%

Broadly Southern European 7%

Broadly European 3.4%

Ancestry

Italy 42%

ENG Wales & NW Europe 25%

France 18%

Germanic 11%

Ireland 2%

Norway 1%

Sardinia 1%

So that is how the results come out from each test. I've been trying to find out more about DNA and I found a chart to decide which test to take:

Ancestry - Pros - Americans with colonial ancestry, who know their grandparents, have extensive trees, African Americans; Cons - no info on matching segments, lacks advanced tools and chromosome mapping

23&me - Pros - Has the most tools, good ethnicity/ancestral origins, 2nd largest database; Cons - not very genealogically minded, poor track record with genealogy community and listening to customers

So I guess it depends on what you want to do with it.

Comments

I also forgot to mention that I am having trouble uploading my 23 and me test to gedmatch. I think 23 and me doesn't give enough snps so you have to use the beta version. It has been more than a week that I have been waiting for all the batching to finish. My sister as well. In fact, she uploaded our mother's Ancestry raw data to GEDmatch and it finished by the next day.

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You have to use GEDmatch Genesis because the main GEDmatch site is designed to accept uploads using the Illumina OmniExpress chip, which Ancestry use and 23andMe's v4 test used. 23andMe's v5 test uses a different chip, the Illumina Global Screening Array, which tests different SNPs (both chips test around 650K SNPs but they only overlap for 100K).

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Oh I know. I did that but it is taking weeks. I am thinking of just doing it again. My sister and I uploaded on the same day and are having the same problem. I already have my Ancestry DNA there no problem. I also uploaded a new GEDcom!

Answer 2

"Ethnicity" testing is mostly a gimmick. It is not as refined or precise as most people seem to think. The genetic differences between most European populations are relatively small. All that a DNA test can say regarding "ethnicity" is that some percentage of your DNA resembles a reference sample of people from a given location with all four grandparents born in that location.

My results from various testing companies:

23andMe: 76% British and Irish, 8.7% French & German, 5.6% Scandinavian, 0.8% Italian, 8.8% broadly NW European, 0.1% broadly Southern European.

Ancestry: 62% England, Wales & NW Europe, 32% Ireland & Scotland, 4% Germanic Europe, 2% France.

(Note: I also have 43 "DNA circles" for known ancestors and four "genetic communities" that match the origins or known migration patterns of ancestors on Ancestry).

LivingDNA: 79% Britain & Ireland, 21% Germanic.

FTDNA (Ancestry upload): 78% British Isles, <2% Eastern Europe, <2% Finland, <2% Southeast Europe, 3% Iberia, 10% West and Central Europe.

MyHeritage (Ancestry upload): 81.4% English, 15.3% Scottish, Irish & Welsh, 3.3% Iberian.

As you can see, there's an awful lot of variation between those; the only thing they agree on is that most of my ancestry is from the British Isles (which is accurate, based on my paper trail and DNA matches).

The ethnicity results are vaguely interesting, but DNA testing is something best used in conjunction with traditional genealogy, where it can verify relationships (or disprove them) going back for around 5 generations (to third great-grandparents) in most cases and as far back as 10 or 11 generations in some cases.

Answer 3

It really depends on what you want to get out of it and what your known heritage is. In my case, I went with AncestryDNA because of my Italian background and I was told that AncestryDNA was best for people who had ancestors who came from Italy. That and you can easily download the DNA from there and hit up the major sites like FTDNA and Gedmatch with it.

23andme lets you download it as well from what I understand. It just depends on a lot of things.

Ancestry may even help knock down some of the brick walls you have as their database is largest in the world and with the recent influx of tests, you might strike gold.

Answer 4

My $0.02:

Actual ethnicity composition as per genealogical research (subject to change as new data appears, previous data is removed, etc; some NAs were inferred, others have no chance of being identified without some form of further info)

• 75% Italian
  • 12.5% Northern Italian
  • 62.5% Southern Italian
• 7.91015625% German
• 7.1533203125% English
• 6.25% Czech
  • Some very small sliver Rom... DNA triangulation with people born and living in Hungary with a shared Rom ancestor that I match on the same spot they match each other
• 2.5390625% Completely Unknown
• 0.78125% Dutch
• 0.2685546875% Scottish
• 0.09765625% French

23andMe ethnicity composition

• 62.2% Italian
• 10.7% Broadly Southern European
• 10.1% French and German
• 5.7% Broadly Northwestern European
• 3.8% Broadly European
• 3.3% Balkan
• 1.7% Western Asian
• 0.6% British & Irish
• 0.4% Iberian
• 0.3% Broadly Western Asian and Native American
• 0.1% Finnish
• 0.1% Broadly Sub-Saharan African
• 0.1% Japanese (???)
• 0.1% West African
• 0.8% Unassigned

Ancestry ethnicity composition

• 77% Italian
• 9% Germanic Europe
• 5% England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe
• 3% Greece and the Balkans
• 3% Spain
• 2% Eastern Europe and Russia
• 1% Baltic States

Hope that helps lead you towards a better pick. As a note: there is a lot of shared genetic history between different regions that can produce surprising results. Additionally, we do not necessarily inherit all the DNA from all of our ancestors, so some pieces may be lost from several generations back.

Comments

My full sister's Ancestry results, for more comparison

• 76% Italian
• 6% Germanic Europe
• 4% England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe
• 4% Greece and the Balkans
• 4% France
• 3% Spain
• 2% Baltic States
• 1% Eastern Europe and Russia

Our biofather's genealogical ancestry

• 100% Italian
  • 68.75% from Montesano sulla Marcellana (Salerno, Campania)
  • 25% from San Pietro in Guarano (Cosenza, Calabria)
  • 6.25% from Tramutola (Potenza, Basilicata)

Our biofather's 23andMe ethnicity composition

• 82% Italian
• 7.9% Western Asian
• 4.3% Broadly Southern European
• 2.2% Iberian
• 1.9% Balkan
• 0.5% North African & Arabian
• 0.5% Unassigned
• 0.3% Broadly European

Answer 5

The whole concept of ethnicity revolves around the idea of static populations with specific DNA markers.  The world's reality is far different.  Sitting here in the 21st century we do not always really understand how much our ancestors traveled and how frequently they did so. If DNA studies show us anything it is that most of us are a complex mix of genes that are shared by people all over the world....

This concept was driven by advertising used by Ancestry and then others.  It is ad hype and really nothing more.  It is not based on science but on statistics coming out of specific databases that do not mirror the world.  

If you are buying DNA tests for ethnicity you are throwing your money away.  If on the other hand you are buying a test to see who you match in the world, then if you have relatives who have also tested you have a chance of finding them and building more complete trees.  

Ethnicity is the parlor trick to get you to buy the test.

Answer 6

I agree with most of the answers above.  The best way to learn your ethnicity is to build your tree.  DNA can help with that.

Yes, ethnicity results are a gimmick.  It is perfectly obvious when two full siblings have very different ethnicity results that people are not being told what they want to know.

In my opinion, most people want to know:  Where did my ancestors come from?  That is what I call their cultural ethnicity.  What did my grandparents cook?  What were their traditions, brought to this country from their homeland, or their parents', etc.?

But what DNA testing tells you is your genetic ethnicity, and that just depends on your random inheritance of various genes from your parents, and theirs from their parents, all the way up the line.