MyOrigins - MANY Discrepancies - please list yours here

[vinnie]

You need 1000 Italians to tell ACCURATELY where somebody is from in ITALY. Well, maybe 600.

But to tell over the WORLD, you only need 1000 people
over the whole world to the same RELATIVE accuracy.

Yes, you don't need that many Italians, Chinese, and Bantu to figure out who's who from among them. But when trying to discern much more closely-related populations, is general statistical theory sufficient?

And wouldn't it be great if MO could distinguish Sicilian from Tuscan heritage? Or Bavarian from Danish? etc.

[Ftdnauser]

One thing that bothers me is the relatively low number of samples that MO is based on. I'm not a stats whiz, and I can't say that I completely understand how they use the small samples they do to generalize. However, in polling/survey research, it takes 1k+ of randomly sampled subjects to generalize to the population in question. I don't know to what degree having 1k samples from a given population would improve MO, and perhaps that many wouldn't be needed because this isn't about polling attitudes, but I don't understand why FTDNA couldn't dedicate some of its resources to subsidize testing in key areas.

For example, the DNA from only 30 Italians were used for MO. What part(s) of Italy did they come from? Were all four of their lines Italian? How far back could they document their genealogy? While not being privy to FTDNA's finances, I would think that an investment in testing 1k Italians would be worth it; offer it for $50 U.S. instead of $99 to the desired number of people. If they could also test a similar number of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, we might be able to come to some reasonable conclusions about the shared heritages. I know that this situation is very complicated, but I just don't trust the statistical inferences that are being made based on such small sample sizes, despite the fact that both PF and MO are fairly accurate for my parents and me, at least in relationship to how they compare to the Gedmatch tools.

In the meantime, I'll continue to encourage DNA testing among my Italian community, and perhaps those with access to Sephardic communities can do the same.

Exactly Vinnie! I have long felt the same thing. The population samples are just way to small.....it's expensive to test soooo many people from a population set and verify lineages, and at this point in time, these are the population samples we have to work with. I get that. HOWEVER, I still feel that more can be done. Especially when other companies are seemingly able to pinpoint better.

And I thank you for bringing up the Sephardic communities.....everyone has based their studies around Ashkenazim and not nearly enough about Sephardim, Mountain Jews, Romaniote Jews, Yemen Jews, Morrocan Jews, etc. I have also been saying this for awhile now too.

[Ftdnauser]

You need 1000 Italians to tell ACCURATELY where somebody is from in ITALY. Well, maybe 600.

But to tell over the WORLD, you only need 1000 people
over the whole world to the same RELATIVE accuracy.

Agreed, but we would like to see if we can get it broken down further. With Pop Finder, it was generalized....and yet with MyOrigins, it's STILL generalized. Like I said before, other companies successfully pinpoint "Spain", "Portuguese", "Iberian"........and for me, that's absolutely correct.....but Pop Finder didn't do this for me, and neither had MyOrigins

And yet these same companies have the same data reference studies to pull from the same as FTDNA does....maybe less so

[vinnie]

I don't know how 23 did it financially, but they offered free testing to African Americans for quite a while.

I've done what I can with my own family, but I just can't do too much more. It's too bad that there are so many children of the Great Immigration still alive in their 80s, 90s, and even 100+ but who are dying every day without being tested. FTDNA wouldn't even have to go to Italy, just NYC, Pittsburgh, Toronto, etc.

I might make a call on the Sephardic congregation in my city of origin this summer...

[Ftdnauser]

I don't know how 23 did it financially, but they offered free testing to African Americans for quite a while.

I've done what I can with my own family, but I just can't do too much more. It's too bad that there are so many children of the Great Immigration still alive in their 80s, 90s, and even 100+ but who are dying every day without being tested. FTDNA wouldn't even have to go to Italy, just NYC, Pittsburgh, Toronto, etc.

I might make a call on the Sephardic congregation in my city of origin this summer...

I agree.....I've spent a lot of my own resources taking trips into Mexico, gathering DNA for my own private database......and the older ones are dying off, but I've managed to collect quite a few from people 100+.....

I'm involved in a Jewish DNA project, concentrating solely on Sephardim......let me know if you get ahold of that congregation.

[vinnie]

I'm involved in a Jewish DNA project, concentrating solely on Sephardim......let me know if you get ahold of that congregation.

Will do, but that won't be until July/August.

[Hominin]

British (European Coastal Islands) Missing Entirely

Like Germanica and others, MyOrigins is completely missing my British (European Coastal Islands) ancestry although both 23andMe and GEDmatch report it. Previously, I was 93% Orkadian. 23andMe reported British and Irish as 9% (standard) to 24% (speculative) while GEDmatch reported North Atlantic as 12% (K36). Three of my great grandparents were British in origin (mostly from southern England) and the lineages of two have been traced back to the 1600s and 1700s, entirely in Colonial America and Great Britain. So, while I wouldn't necessarily expect close matches when using different population samples and methodologies, the magnitude of this discrepancy suggests, to me at least, that the developers might want to take another look at their model.

[robe3b]

I don't intend to complain over my ancestry results according to the new myOrigins. Still, there are a couple of issues that make me feel frustrated and confused. My Population Finder results showed 14.38% Middle Eastern, which seemed to be quite logical since 27.7% of my Family Finder "cousins" are Ashkenazi jews. myOrigins states that I actually have 1% Middle Eastern. Now, the Native American issue: PF results showed 36.4% Native American DNA; myOrigins states that I'm 23% NA (Beringian Expansion) plus 8% Asian Northeast, 31% on the whole. I'm perplexed!

[Ftdnauser]

@hominin, @robe3b - thank you both for posting......there's definite bugs in the model......I just seen another case where both parents show no African, and then the son shows 1%........

[suttonwho]

0% ECI: Zilch, Zip, Nada

I can be added to the people who didn't get any ECI. My father is half Irish, maternal grandmother Irish, I am Irish and I live in Ireland.

Dr McDonald gave me this result:

Most likely fit is 100% English (Western Europe) which is 100% total Europe
The location error = 0.006628 with 1 group
English= 1.000
His custom fit included a touch of other Northern European (Germany, Poland, Lithuania).

PF had had me listed as 93% Orcadian and 6% ME.

What I did get was 67% ECP. With a Flemish grandfather (by birth), Polish g-grandmother (haplogroup W; by birth), Alsatian GG-grandfather (by birth), Bavarian G-Grandfather (by birth), Saar Valley Palatine G-Grandmother (by birth), fair enough.

My Colonial descent G-Grandmother was a mixed bag but mostly Scots British.

With 1 G-Grandmother born in Norway, I also expected some Northlands. I got 32%.

Had I not clear and recent Irish heritage, I would've suspected the inflated Northlands was a result of the test picking up Flemish and Polish and getting Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Finn hits. Instead, it appears all my Irish was mistaken for Northlands (no circumpolar).

I am a believer in the adage, "DNA doesn't lie." Admittedly, I am a mutt. The problem, Houston, in this instance is that the test could find 1% Trans Ural yet 0% ECI. It isn't plausible (to me) that none of my Irish is Irish-y enough to be identified, particularly since I already have distinct Irish matches from known family in the West of the country after only having results since the end of April.

[paulanthony1976]

With Population Finder I was 89.67% Western European (Orcadian) and 10.33% Middle East.

While with Geno2 I was 43% Northern European (English & German), 36% Mediterranean, 18% South-West Asian and 2% South-East Asian.

But now with MyOrigins I am 100% European:71% European Coastal Islands, 21% North Mediterranean Basin and 8% European Northlands.

Argh, this is so confusing!

[Bartot]

Note:
The creator of MyOrigins is the same creator of Dodecad ancestry formulas used in Gedmatch etc.

Logically, he must be using these types of Dodecad ideas

[Ftdnauser]

Note:
The creator of MyOrigins is the same creator of Dodecad ancestry formulas used in Gedmatch etc.

Logically, he must be using these types of Dodecad ideas

Are you kidding me? Just great. That explains some things then.....I really wish they hadn't.......

[CWF]

Terrible.

My ancestry is multiracial. The MyOrigins results are confusing to say the least.

My African results appear consistent. The European components shifted heavily to the Baltic States from Scandinavia. My Native American component (and those of my matches) is now....Turkish. In fact, my MyOrigins results show no Native American connection at all. My maternal haplogroup is Native American.

All of my results prior to MyOrigins have been consistent with each other and my understanding of my family history. This is the first genetics based test result that I just don't believe. I'm sure being Turkish is a wonderful thing but I don't believe I have any Turkish ancestry.

I hope this is a beta version.

[Ftdnauser]

My ancestry is multiracial. The MyOrigins results are confusing to say the least.

My African results appear consistent. The European components shifted heavily to the Baltic States from Scandinavia. My Native American component (and those of my matches) is now....Turkish. In fact, my MyOrigins results show no Native American connection at all. My maternal haplogroup is Native American.

I hope this is a beta version.

HAHAHAHAHA! That's the most hilarious thing I've heard all night! I thank you for that! ........Native American is now Turkish... I'm with u on that one.....this better be a serious Beta.....unfortunately, FF was in Beta from the day it's inception, until last Tuesday when it changed over, and unfortunately, the data sets never changed...