#52Ancestors - Week 38 - New to You

There is always something new to explore in our Family History research.  New data made available.  New websites to explore.  New books to read.  New relatives discovered.  New results to incorporate into our trees.  New knowledge to add.

Recently, Ancestry updated their DNA Ethnicity Estimates, so I have again been studying the new, updated results.  I have commented before that with every ethnicity estimate, my results seem to move further from my family tree as I know it.  This time was no exception.

The table below shows how my ethnicity estimates have changes over the past few years.  According to my researched Family Tree, my father's family is 100% English back to the early 1700s and further, and is primarily from the Essex/Suffolk area. My father's parents married in England before they came out to Australia.  My mother's family is at mostly English with some Irish (a Great-Grandmother), German (Great-Great-Grandfather) and Scottish (Great-Great-Grandmother) mixed in.  Most of her lines arrived in Australia in the 1840s and 1850s, and the various nationalities intermarried out here.  This is not reflected in my ethnicity estimate.  It is worth noting that in 2018 and 2019 the Irish ethnicity actually represented Ireland and Scotland combined.

	Sep-18	Sep-19	Sep-21	Apr-22	Sep-22
England	65	78	54	45	33
Ireland	22	10	2	2	1
Scotland	0	0	33	32	38
Germanic Europe	8	3	0	0	4
Ivory Coast / Ghana	2	1	1	2	2
Sweden / Denmark	2	5	0	2	19
Norway	1	2	9	14	0
Mali	0	1	1	0	0
Wales	0	0	0	3	3

Ultimately, we need to remember that these numbers are estimates only, and can still be quite inaccurate.  More important to most who are actively researching are their cousin matches, people whom the DNA tests show are being related. I have cousin matches on all the major branches of my tree intersecting at various grandparents, great grandparents and further back - so for several generations back I am reasonably confident my tree is accurate - or as accurate as it can be.

Ancestry DNA Update

Ancestry has again updated the ethnicity estimates for those who have done DNA tests with them, as well as adding a new feature showing Ethnicity Inheritance - an estimate of which parent testers have inherited each portion of their ethnicity from.

Once again my Ethnicity Estimates have changed slightly, and once again they have moved a little further from what I expected.  My estimate is now 45% England, 32% Scotland, 14% Norway, 3% Wales, 2% Ivory Coast & Ghana, 2% Sweden & Denmark and 2% Ireland.  This is different to my last estimate, which was 54% England, 33% Scotland, 9% Norway, 2% Ivory Coast and Ghana and 2% Ireland.  My original estimate, back in 2018, was 65% England, 22% Scotland & Ireland, 8% Germanic Europe, 2% Sweden,  2% Ivory Coast & Ghana.

My known German heritage has still vanished, turning into unexpected Scandinavian ethnicity.  My Scottish ethnicity is unexpectedly high, and my Irish extremely low.  I still have no explanation for the fairly consistent 2% Ivory Coast & Ghana, and every update seems to diminish my dominant English heritage even further.

My Ethnicity Inheritance makes it immediately obvious to me that Parent 1 must be my mother and Parent 2 my father.  Parent 2 is almost completely English, and my father's family comes almost exclusively from Essex and Suffolk.There is a small amount of Scandinavian heritage there as well.

My mother would logically be Parent 1.  It is from her grandparents and great grandparents that I trace my German, Irish and Scottish ancestors, although I have no explanation as to why I have inherited absolutely no English ethnicity from her.

The new tables for Ethnicity Inheritance are another great tool for tracing how we receive the Ethnicity Estimates provided by Ancestry and where any unexpected results may come from.

While the numbers raise some questions for me, they are still a fascinating insight into my heritage and another tool to help my further understand where I come from, and I hope to spend some time over Easter exploring more.

Although I would still love to know how my German ancestry became Norwegian.

And if anyone out there can give me an ancestor from the Ivory Coast / Ghana, I would love to hear from you!

Where has my Germanic Ancestry Gone?

I have been looking at my Ancestry DNA results lately, and have been struck again by the unexpected disappearance of my German ethnicity estimate.

When I first received my DNA test results several years ago, my ethnicity estimate was 65% England, 22% Ireland and Scotland, 8% Germanic Europe, 2% Ghana, 2% Sweden and 1% Norway.

In 2019 an update to results showed small changes.  I was now showing 78% England, 10% Ireland and Scotland, 5% Sweden, 3% Germanic Europe, 2% Norway, 1% Mali and 1% Ghana.

My Germanic heritage has now disappeared completely.  In 2022, I seem to have swapped it for a totally unexpected 9% Norwegian heritage - to date I have exactly 0 Norwegian ancestors in my tree.  At the same time, 33% Scottish seems rather high for the one great great grandparent who is the basis of the only Scottish line in my ancestry, while my Irish great grandparent only shows 2%.  My English ancestry was always high, as my father's entire family comes from Essex and Suffolk for generations back, and my mother's family has significant English heritage as well, so I would probably expect a higher number than the 54% I have now.

The key is to remember that these numbers are estimates only.  DNA ethnicity is by no means an exact science.  These estimates are pretty good at the continental level, distinguishing between Europe, Asia and Africa, for example, in their estimates. Once they get below the continental level, to a regional or country level, all of them start to run into issues: country boundaries have changed; entire populations have moved; people from one area have invaded and intermarried with people from another.  All this makes accurate ethnicity estimates a challenge.  

This is all very well - but I would still love to know where my Germanic heritage has vanished to.  And why I suddenly seem to be part Viking.

Ancestry Updates DNA Results

Ancestry has just updated their ethnicity estimates for those who have done a DNA test with them, and like me there are many who are logging in to see what changes have occurred.

For most, there will be few surprises and no really major changes.  These adjustments take into account all the recent data added to the DNA database held by Ancestry, and uses them to (hopefully) give slightly more accurate ethnicity estimates for those who have tested their DNA.  For many who have been researching their family history for a while, their ethnicity estimates will be a rough reflection of what they already know about their ancestry.

The key is to remember that these numbers are estimates only.  DNA ethnicity is by no means an exact science.  These estimates are pretty good at the continental level, distinguishing between Europe, Asia and Africa, for example, in their estimates. Once they get below the continental level, to a regional or country level, all of them start to run into issues: country boundaries have changed; entire populations have moved; people from one area have invaded and intermarried with people from another.  All this makes accurate ethnicity estimates a challenge.

For me, once again my ethnicity estimates have changed slightly,  and, once again, they seem to have shifted a little further away from what I would expect.  My Germanic heritage has now disappeared completely.  I seem to have swapped it for a totally unexpected 9% Norwegian heritage - to date I have exactly 0 Norwegian ancestors in my tree.  At the same time, 33% Scottish seems rather high for the one great great grandparent who is the basis of the only Scottish line in my ancestry, while my Irish great grandparent only shows 2%.  My English ancestry was always high, as my father's entire family comes from Essex and Suffolk for generations back, and my mother's family has significant English heritage as well, so I would probable expect a higher number than the 54% I have now.

Ultimately, we need to remember that these numbers are estimates only, and can still be quite inaccurate.  More important to most who are actively researching are their cousin matches, people whom the DNA tests show are being related.  That is what I, and many other family history researchers, are truly interested in.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 5 - DNA

A lot has been said about Genealogy and DNA tests, and while a lot has been positive there has also been a significant amount of negative commentary as well.  The issues that have arisen regarding privacy, informed consent and law enforcement access have caused great concern and discouraged some people from testing.  Over the past few years I have blogged several times about DNA, both my own results and the ongoing law enforcement access issue.

For myself, taking a DNA test has largely just confirmed what I had already discovered in my research over the years, and has produced no major surprises.  For a few others I know, that has not been the case.  For one friend (who has given me permission to speak generally about her discovery) a DNA test had major repercussions when it led to the discovery that she was adopted.  Her adoptive parents had never told her about her birth, and she had no idea she was not biologically related to them until she received her test results.  She found no relative matches to several family members she knew had done DNA tests, and matches to people she didn't know, including 2 sibling matches to complete strangers.  It was a lot to deal with and the entire family have had to come to terms with the discovery.

In the couple of years since I did my own DNA test (taken with Ancestry.com) there has been a few updates in ethnicity estimates.  As more people test, more ethnicity information becomes available and (presumably) more accurate estimates can be given.  The current ethnicity estimate for Ancestry.com customers was calculated in August 2019 and has 40,000+ reference samples and 1,000+ possible regions.  The latest update saw minor changes in my ethnicity, with the English component increasing and the Ireland/Scotland and Germanic Europe components decreasing.

DNA matches have also been interesting.  Last year one of my first cousins finally did the test - until then my matches had been second cousin at best.  Third and fourth cousins were much more numerous, and I have exchanged information, stories and photos with several of them.  Although I come from quite a large family (my father was one of ten siblings) few of my first cousins are interested in genealogy and had not done DNA tests.   This brings home the reality that you can only match to others who have tested - and no matches to a branch of your family doesn't necessarily mean you are not related, it could just mean no one from that branch of your family has done a DNA test yet.  Something to keep in mind.

GEDmatch in the News Again

For those of you who have been following the ongoing issues of Genealogical DNA testing, access and law enforcement, there is a new development you should be aware of.  On December 9 it was announced that GEDmatch had been acquired by San Diego based forensics genomics company Verogen.

I have been following this issue for some months now, through the media and the posts of Judy Russell, who blogs as the Legal Genealogist.  To read Judy's latest post on the acquisition of GEDmatch, click here.

While the original founders of GEDmatch and the new owners Verogen have both stressed that it will be business as usual for the GEDmatch database, as well as highlighting the advantages of the buyout for users, the fact remains that Verogen's core business is serving law enforcement.  As a for-profit company, there is no point in purchasing a (formerly not-for-profit) company unless that purchase serves their needs.

As Judy points out, we will now have to wait and see just how much GEDmatch continues to serve its original genealogical purpose, or whether it becomes more of an entry point for law enforcement to access user data for criminal investigations.  There will be a number of people, however, who choose to withdraw their data from the GEDmatch database now it is owned by Verogen.

In addition to the buyout itself, GEDmatch users had no advance notice that an acquisition was in the winds, and were not notified about it by email. The buy-out came to light only when users trying to log in to the site were presented with a new set of terms and conditions, and given the option of either accepting those new T&Cs or deleting their GEDmatch registration and removing all data from the GEDmatch servers.

There is also the wider fallout to consider, as the negative publicity generated by GEDmatch flows on to the whole concept of genealogical DNA testing.  Will people hear about these issues and be put off doing ANY testing, even with completely separate companies like Ancestry or 23 and Me?  I will certainly be keeping a close eye on any changes to the terms and conditions of any DNA testing company that holds my data.  Not to mention keeping a close eye on the news.

Ancestry Updates DNA Ethnicity Estimates

Recently the people at Ancestry have again updated their ethnicity estimates for those who have done a DNA test with the company.  As more people test the Ancestry, they have a larger database to draw their ethnicity estimates from and can give (hopefully) more accurate numbers.

The current estimate shows me as being 78% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe, 10% Ireland and Scotland, 5% Sweden, 3% Germanic Europe, 2% Norway, 1% Mali and 1% Ghana.  This is a change from my previous estimate, which showed me as being 65% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe, 22% Ireland and Scotland, 8% Germanic Europe, 2% Ghana, 2% Sweden and 1% Norway.

While the numbers are not hugely different, I seem to be becoming more English with every update, while everything else drops.  As my father's family is 100% English for several generations and primarily from the Essex/Suffolk area and my mother's family is at least half English with some Irish and German mixed in, the estimates pretty much confirm what is currently in my tree, although I am a little surprised by how much the German has dropped. 

This current estimate was calculated in August 2019 and has 40,000+ reference samples and 1,000+ possible regions.  So if you have gone a DNA test with Ancestry and haven't looked at your results for a while, it might be worth revisiting to see your latest updates.

DNA Testing in the News Again

I have posted a few times about the debate occurring, largely in the United States, about the use of Genealogical DNA databases by law enforcement.  Allowing police access, with or without search warrants, to the genealogical DNA databases held by the likes of Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch is creating a great deal of uncertainty.  I have been following several posts by The Legal Genealogist Judy Russell about this issue and the legal mess it is creating.  To read Judy's latest post, click here.

The latest issue rises from the disclosure by the New York Times on Tuesday that a Florida judge had issued a search warrant for the GEDmatch DNA database.  Originally GEDmatch had allowed law enforcement open access to upload DNA from crimes.  In April 2018, GEDmatch's privacy statement said it "exists to provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research purposes." The statement said that this, "by its very nature, requires the sharing of information. Because of that, users participating in this site should expect that their information will be shared with other users."  In May 2019, GEDmatch began requiring people who had uploaded their DNA to its site to opt in to allow law enforcement agencies to access their information.  That warrant issued in Florida overrode the privacy settings of GEDmatch users and opened information to police scrutiny even if the users had chosen not to allow police access to the data.

Currently GEDmatch is one of the smaller fish in the Genealogical DNA ocean, with a database of approximately 1 million users.  DNA policy experts have said the development was likely to encourage other agencies to request similar search warrants from the big fish like 23andMe, which has 10 million users, and Ancestry.com, which has 15 million.

It is important to remember that not all Genealogical DNA sites are alike. GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA make it possible for anyone to upload his or her DNA information and start looking for relatives. Law enforcement agents began conducting genetic genealogy investigations on these sites not because they were the biggest but because they were the most open.  By contrast, Ancestry.com and 23andMe are more closed systems. Rather than upload an existing genetic profile, users generally send saliva to the companies’ labs, and then receive information about their ancestry. For years, fearful of turning off customers, Ancestry.com and 23andMe have been adamant that they would resist giving law enforcement access to their databases.

Now that a legal precedent has been set allowing the GEDmatch privacy settings to be overridden, will it be easier for law enforcement to gain access to any of the Genealogical DNA databases?  And given the success of accessing GEDmatch to help solve crime in America, how long will it be before law enforcement in other countries try testing the water to see what they can access to assist in their own crimes?  Suddenly the glow of finding my family's ethnicity and distant cousins using DNA is fading as wider implications become obvious, and no solutions to the issues seem to be in sight.

Ancestry DNA

AncestryDNA has unveiled an updated service offering county-level ethnicity results in the UK for those who have tested with them.  As part of the update the company increased its UK Genetic Communities from 18 to 73.

AncestryDNA’s results reveal customers’ ethnicity within the past 1000 years. The new Genetic Communities technology then analyses their origins in the past 300 years, including specific groups they’re related to, where those ancestors lived and the migration paths they followed – to county level in the UK.  The results can also be cross-referenced with Ancestry’s family history records.  Genetic Communities are groups of AncestryDNA members who are most likely connected because they share fairly recent ancestors who came from the same region or culture. These groups identify areas where your ancestors may have lived more recently. Regions with a dotted circle are based on Genetic Communities.

Russell James, family historian and DNA expert at Ancestry, called Communities “an incredibly valuable tool for those wanting to discover more about their DNA and family history”.  The 55 new UK communities will automatically be added to the results of existing AncestryDNA customers.

Ancestry has also increased its global number of communities to 225, covering France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, further improving the ethnicity results for its customers.

So if you have taken an Ancestry DNA test, it might be time to revisit your results and check out all the new information that is waiting for you.  There might even be a new cousin or two!

Genealogical DNA testing and the law

Yesterday in her blog, Legal Genealogist Judy Russell raised more issues with the use of Genealogical DNA by police in identifying perpetrators in major crimes (to read Judy’s blog post click here).  At the time when Family Tree DNA has decided to allow law enforcement access to its matching database for crime scene kits, a Washington State woman learned that her identity as a distant relative of a man arrested for murder in Iowa had been disclosed in one of the search warrants issued in the case. She had uploaded her data to GEDmatch.com where it was used to help identify the suspect, and as a result an arrest was made.  In the ensuing court case, her identity was disclosed – so the suspect and his legal team know her identity as the person who provided the DNA which was, at least in part, responsible for his arrest.

This had me suddenly sitting up and taking notice, and totally reviewing my opinion on the use of genealogical DNA by police.  While my attitude until now has been that if a distant relative of mine was a murderer, rapist or committed some other major crime and my DNA help to identify them, more power to the police.  The idea of that individual and their friends and legal team having access to my identity via the police search warrant, however, does not sit so well.  As Judy says “in that particular case, at least so far, no-one close to the suspect has decided to take any action against the unwitting relative whose test was the key to identifying the suspect” – but what protection would we have if they did??  While the possibility of someone seeking revenge on the DNA provider who helped convict them might be remote, protections still need to be in place.

There is also the fact that at this time, anyone doing a DNA test with Family Tree DNA has to actively opt OUT of allowing their DNA to be used by law enforcement, rather than choosing to opt in.  So people have to firstly be aware of the possibility of their DNA being used by law enforcement, read the fine print and follow through on how to opt out for law enforcement access.

There are other questions to be asked.  How long does law enforcement keep information they have obtained from genealogy databases? Are users whose information has been tapped by law enforcement or their proxies notified?  Is it required that the individual(s) who provided the matching DNA be revealed to the suspect and his/her attorneys or could the court order such information sealed?  There seems to be little, or no, protection for the privacy of the individual who tested their DNA for genealogical research after law enforcement becomes involved.  This information COULD be sealed and not disclosed. Identities of ‘confidential informants’ (the legal term) are protected all the time unless there is a compelling need for disclosure that can’t be met by any less intrusive means. The problem is that the police and prosecutors aren’t treating DNA matches as confidential informants and not ensuring that their privacy is protected.

Also, opting out closes off looking for DNA matches for service men and women’s remains and unidentified bodies.  It is currently all or nothing, and we are all – genealogical DNA testing companies, law enforcement and the general public – playing catch-up with the legalities.

Ancestry.com updates DNA Ethnicity Estimates

For those of you who, like me, have done a DNA test with Ancestry.com, there is some interesting, and welcome, news. 

AncestryDNA has updated its ethnicity estimates, and the results are rolling out for all 10 million plus people who’ve tested with the company.  So if you haven't visited your DNA ethnicity data recently, now might be a good time to take another look.  I have included my new ethnicity results below.

There were two changes in the update:  firstly, more people have been added to the reference populations (the groups of people with well-documented pedigrees to whom our DNA is compared to make conclusions about ethnic origins) and secondly, the method of making the comparisons has changed.

In the last update, there were roughly 3000 reference samples assigned to 353 regions of the world. In this update, there are 16,000 reference samples assigned to 380 possible regions. This helps screen out less-likely regions and make more nuanced estimates between, say, Scandinavian and Norwegian or Swedish.

On the methodology side, in the last version, the bits and pieces of DNA were compared bit by bit, while the new update looks at longer stretches of DNA at a time. That also helps minimize the chances of misreading a person’s ethnic origins.

All of which is exciting for those of us who have found our DNA ethnicity results to be a little vague, and possibly not quite what we were expecting.  Mine are pretty much in line with my research - mostly English, with a bit of Irish, Scottish and German.  Although I'd love to know just where in my family history that Ivory Coast/Ghana 2% came from.  Any relatives out there with a clue, please contact me - I'd love to know!

DNA and Crime Fighting - A New Ethical Dilemma

It has been in the news recently that Californian police used DNA samples from genealogy website GEDmatch to help identify the Golden State Killer, the criminal believed to be behind at least 12 murders, 46 rapes and hundreds of break-ins in California in the 1970s and 1980s.  A distant relative of the suspect had used the genealogy site to learn more about his family history, little knowing it would later be used in a murder investigation.
The fact that DNA in a genealogy database has been used in such a manner has raised many questions about privacy and the ethical use of  such information, and has sent many DNA-testing genealogy companies scrambling to reassure users about their privacy policies.  While many people might be happy for their DNA to be used to catch and convict a killer, there are still questions about informed consent and legal use.  Will people want to upload their DNA to genealogy websites if it could one day incriminate their children—or their children’s children’s children?
DNA tests have gained popularity in Australia over the last few years for people wanting to know the ins and outs of their family history and ethnic make-up.  Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, AncestryDNA and MyHeritage DNA are among the testing services that say they can give you an insight on your origins.  But when you ship off your saliva to get your data, who actually owns your DNA, and what can they do with it?
The commercial DNA testing companies generally have privacy policies designed to protect data from being used for other purposes, but these do not apply to GEDmatch, which is a free public database where users upload the results of DNA tests from other companies.  A spokesperson for 23andMe, for example, stated: "23andMe's policies prohibit the company from voluntarily working with law enforcement."
In their statement, GEDmatch said that it was not approached by law enforcement about the case, but that it had a policy of informing users that the database could be used for other purposes.  "While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes," it added.  "If you are concerned about non-genealogical uses of your DNA, you should not upload your DNA to the database and/or you should remove DNA that has already been uploaded."
The ethical use of DNA is a rising issue today that is not easily resolved, and will be the subject of debate and concern for years to come.  While the major genealogy companies do have measures in place to ensure their user's privacy, there will always be questions about privacy, legal use and security.  Bottom line - always read the terms and conditions before you send off your test kit, and be sure you are prepared to accept them.

DNA and Genealogy

I was recently reading a post by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, on DNA, and how the results of a test can be misinterpreted.  I've been thinking about doing a DNA test recently, and found her blog post absolutely fascinating.  I have included a link to it above.

Judy gives two examples of how the results of a DNA test can be misinterpreted.  Firstly - identical twins.  Because the DNA of identical (NOT fraternal) twins is the same, the children of both twins will share sufficient DNA to appear as siblings, and will share enough DNA with their parent's identical twin for them to show as parents.  So if your mother is an identical twin, her identical sister will show as a parent match, and that identical sister's children, your cousins, will show as sibling matches.  Just imagine the trouble misinterpreting those results could cause!

The second example is one I never would have considered.  If the person tested has ever had a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, then the autosomal DNA will match the donor, NOT the person's biological parent.

I know a number of people who have has a DNA test with one company or another, and for most of them the experience has been a positive one and the results have been approximately as anticipated.  There have, however, been a few people I know who have been surprised - or quite rudely shocked - by their results.  One friend (who has given me permission to refer to his results) turned out to NOT be a DNA match to the man he had always thought to be his father.  This was something both his parents has been aware of, but he had not.

While 'unexpected' results to a DNA test seem fairly rare, they are always a possibility - just as when researching your family history there will sometimes be surprises, shocks and scandals.  We all need to be aware of this - and be prepared to accept that our ancestors may have been fallable, our family stories may not be 100% accurate, and that every family has the occasional black sheep.