DNA.Land 2.0, Why the major difference in Ethnicity Results?

Question

As most everyone knows, DNA.Land shut down Sept. 30th, and re-launched as DNA.Land 2.0 on Oct. 1st. Since I had a few matches on there, I thought I would join again.

I knew there would be differences, but was thinking more refined if anything. I used the same exact DNA sample file for the upload on both.

The original DNA.Land estimate:

West Eurasian 100% - NW European 83%, South European 8.5%, Northeast European 6.5%, Ambiguous 2.1%

My DNA.Land 2.0 results have just came in as:

West Eurasian 88% - Northwest European 70%, South/Central European 12%, Central Asian 3.1%, (Mid-Turkic 1.9%, Indo-Iranian 1.2%), Ambiguous 2%, Finnish 2%

African 6.7% - West African 4.6% (Mende/Akan 3.6%, Ambiguous 1.1%), Aka 2.1%

Cambodian/Thai 1.7%

Native Oceanian 1.7%

Ambiguous 1.5%

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Ethnicity estimates are very imprecise. I’d ignore anything at around 3% or less unless you have reason to suspect trace amount of that  ethnicity from your tree. The main change is them the introduction of African ancestry in your admixture. I’d guess that is the result of a refinement in their reference sets or their algorithms. That corresponds roughly to one great-great-grandparent contribution, but could certainly be from a great-grandparent or a 3-g-grandparent because estimates are imprecise and because your ancestors will often be over- or under-represented in your DNA by the random nature of genetic recombination.Can you identify a person in your tree who may have provided you this DNA?

Comments

No one matches anything other than European ancestry of some type.  I have all of my grandparents out to 2nd or 3rd figured out and there's no hints of anything other than European. Even on GEDMatch on the various ethnicity estimates there's nothing about African, Asian or anything else.  Since I used the same sample, I figured it should have a similar result. I know there will be differences between the various testing companies, but nothing shows up close to this.

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"Ethniticy results are very imprecise." And, IMO, ethnicity isn't the same thing genealogy. 

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I know that and agree with it.  Just curious as to why the distinct difference when using the same sample with a company using the same procedures and reference samples supposedly.

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All the companies revise estimates periodically, and lots of people’s ethnicity estimates change when that happens, even though it’s the same company and same sample. It can happen both because of changes to the underlying reference populations and also to the admixture algorithms.

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I know I am replying to an old post but my experience was the opposite. I knew 100% that my results would show up with African and Indian ancestry because my grandfather was from Kashmir and my 4th great grandfather was from Jamaica. My Father is Irish and my maternal 4th great grandmother  was English. I put my dna on about 5 different sites and they all came back with the same results and some even gave me the tribes in Africa, It turned out that I had almost all the entnticities ranging from Native American all the way to Siberia with all the  other countries in between. I always thought I was Anglo/Irish, /indian/African as these were the ones are actually knew I had before doing the test. Turned out I had a lot of Viking from my father and my mother had more Scandanavian than English, Some European connection even went back to royalty and some ended up in The Workhouse, Many went to Utah and became Mormons, others were gypsies and many were on The Mayflower, otheres ended up in Australia for stealing some washing off the clothes line, To my surprise I discovered that my Jamaican 4th GGrandfather was in the Royal Navy (he was a British subject as it was 1877) for 20 years and thats how he met my 4th ggrandmother in Harwich Essex. Studying your ancestors and their ethnticities is an interesting and surprising passtime which has taken me hundreds of hours. As I mentioned beforehand. Many people are surprised at their results and had no idea that they have ancestors from all corners of the globe,

Answer 2

It can also be a difference of time frame. Perhaps DNA Land 1.0 computed "where were your ancestors 300 years ago?", and got a result of Europe. If someone were to ask, "where were your ancestors 800 years ago?", it stands to reason that some were still in the process of migration from Africa to Europe, some of which went through Central Asia to do so. If someone asked about 2,000 years ago, very few would be in Europe.

Comments

Remember that if you look far enough back, we're all from Africa! ;)

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I think things may be on a longer time frame then you think.  For example my y-dna can be traced back to a common ancestor who was in Sweden 4,000 years ago.

My maternal grandfathers y-dna goes back to the Pyrenees mountains about 3,000 years ago.

While of course people are always migrating every year.  Europe has been populated for a very long time.

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I agree, Erik! The OP was talking about auDNA, because that's what you upload to DNA.Land. Y- and mitochondrial DNA go much farther back.