Need help understanding GEDmatch results

[ThainofBuckland]

I am still waiting for results on my family finder kit, but in the meantime, I have been using my mother's DNA to look into our ancestry. My mother's ancestry results weren't very revealing. Through her research and the research of others, we have learned that there is a possible Native American ancestor three centuries down. That probably wouldn't show up in her DNA, but what does show up on her results is 3% West Asian Ancestry specifically from the Caucasus. Could anybody explain what this could possibly mean for someone whose ancestors are primarily English?

I have uploaded her DNA to GEDmatch and tried several different calculators based on what seemed most popular. I used the Dodecad World9 Calculator as well as Eurogenes K36 (as well as a few others). I'm not sure how to recognize what people have been calling noise, but the two calculators that I used seem to support each other.

Results for Dodecad World9 Admixture

Population

Amerindian
0.70
East_Asian
0.89
African
0.38
Atlantic_Baltic
71.55
Australasian
0.16
Siberian
0.34
Caucasus_Gedrosia
13.67
Southern
12.05
South_Asian
0.26

Eurogenes K36 Admixture



Amerindian
0.20
Basque
4.70
Central_Euro
4.15
East_Balkan
1.27 ***
East_Central_Euro
4.60
Eastern_Euro
4.70
Fennoscandian
7.60
French
4.73
Iberian
11.62***
Italian
7.49
North_Atlantic
15.57
North_Caucasian
5.48
North_Sea
26.08**
Volga-Ural
0.72*
West_Caucasian
1.10

The results don't look too similar, and even though .7 Amerindian might mean something, only .2 shows up on Eurogenes, so I'm going to post the admixture with chromosomes, because all of the chromosomes that show Amerindian in Eurogenes is repeated in Dodecad. I wouldn't think that would happen with noise. The African DNA that shows up on Dodecad, for instance, is different than the African DNA that shows up on Eurogenes, so I would think the Native American DNA at least is more reliable than the African DNA.

Dodecad Admixture with chromosomes
Image

Eurogenes Admixture with chromosomes
Image 1
Image 2

Why would the Caucasus DNA show so much higher in Dodecad? What do the stars mean in Eurogenes? Does anyone have experience reading the results for these calculators?
If at least three calculators have shown DNA on the same 4 chromosomes, should I consider that noise if they are low numbers? Any help would be appreciated.

[khazaria]

we have learned that there is a possible Native American ancestor three centuries down.
... even though .7 Amerindian might mean something, only .2 shows up on Eurogenes

Actually, the opposite is true. Eurogenes K36 is more meaningful than Dodecad World9 on this question, because false Amerindian readings are less common and less pronounced in Eurogenes K36. World9's extra 0.5 percent is probably noise. The 0.2 percent in K36 could be noise or it could be DNA from the Ancient North Eurasians or it could be genuine Amerindian.

so I'm going to post the admixture with chromosomes, because all of the chromosomes that show Amerindian in Eurogenes is repeated in Dodecad. I wouldn't think that would happen with noise.

GEDmatch's per-chromosome listings in numerical form are unreliable.

what does show up on her results is 3% West Asian Ancestry specifically from the Caucasus. Could anybody explain what this could possibly mean for someone whose ancestors are primarily English?

Signals from Neolithic farmers who moved from Anatolia into southeastern Europe many thousands of years ago.

In Eurogenes K36, you show 0 percent scores for the elements Armenian, Arabian, East Mediterranean, or Near Eastern, so this is not fairly recent West Asian input unique to your family - only the ancient input that's found widely among European peoples.

[ThainofBuckland]

Actually, the opposite is true. Eurogenes K36 is more meaningful than Dodecad World9 on this question, because false Amerindian readings are less common and less pronounced in Eurogenes K36. World9's extra 0.5 percent is probably noise. The 0.2 percent in K36 could be noise or it could be DNA from the Ancient North Eurasians or it could be genuine Amerindian.

Thanks for the reply. I didn't mean that Dodecad was a more reliable calculator so much as that a .7 would be more significant than a .2 would be. I didn't really make that clear in my first post, but I saw that more people favored Eurogenes for its accuracy. If any shows on Eurogenes at all, it is probably more reliable than a large number on K13, but that's just what I've read. Speaking of K13, the American Indian results show up as lower. Just going to different calculators won't help me figure out what it means, though.

Could the DNA from the Caucasus be linked to Iberian DNA?

Is there any truth to the recent publications about Native Americans showing West Asian DNA?

[khazaria]

Is there any truth to the recent publications about Native Americans showing West Asian DNA?

There is no legitimate scientific publication that says that.
Native Americans descend from two groups of peoples that coalesced in Siberia and Beringia by 20,000 years ago, and neither group had immigrated recently from West Asia.

Haplogroup Q got to West Asia from Siberia, not the other way around.

[ThainofBuckland]

There is no legitimate scientific publication that says that.
Native Americans descend from two groups of peoples that coalesced in Siberia and Beringia by 20,000 years ago, and neither group had immigrated recently from West Asia.

Haplogroup Q got to West Asia from Siberia, not the other way around.

Oh, I'm sure you're correct just based on this statement alone and your solid credentials... You have a rather sideways method of answering questions, and I still have no idea what you mean by "that" since I didn't make any assertions in my question. But do explain what you mean if you are implying that Native Americans do not have West Asian DNA.

[MMaddi]

Oh, I'm sure you're correct just based on this statement alone and your solid credentials... You have a rather sideways method of answering questions, and I still have no idea what you mean by "that" since I didn't make any assertions in my question. But do explain what you mean if you are implying that Native Americans do not have West Asian DNA.

He did answer your question. He wrote that Native Americans are descendants of Siberians who crossed the Bering Strait during the Ice Age.

Look at a map and see how far West Asia is from Siberia. The populations in those two areas haven't been related for tens of thousands of years. I know of no scientific study in which a population geneticist has concluded that Native Americans and people from West Asia have any recent common ancestry. If you do know of such a study, please provide a link to it.

[Biblioteque]

And, yes, MMaddi and khazaria have the most solid of credentials.

And, if you want to prove/disprove NA in your MOTHER's matrilineal line (mother to mother to mother back in time), that is easy, and well worth the dollars. You can do the mtDna test at FTDNA. Native Americans have their own Haplogroups.

[ThainofBuckland]

And, yes, MMaddi and khazaria have the most solid of credentials.

And, if you want to prove/disprove NA in your MOTHER's matrilineal line (mother to mother to mother back in time), that is easy, and well worth the dollars. You can do the mtDna test at FTDNA. Native Americans have their own Haplogroups.

I'm sure a scholar would understand if I wanted more than an answer on the level of word of mouth. I just have what he says. I'm not saying he's wrong, but he hasn't proven that he's right, either. I wouldn't know where to start researching if I wanted to access journals on this issue, but I don't think it's something to dismiss, either. I had expected some mixed opinions, but if somebody's going to state something as strongly as that, it needs more support than an opinion. (Do you know of any journals that might have published studies on this specific subject?)

I had looked into MtDNA, which seems like a great way to go, but her ancestry isn't matrilineal; it's passed down patrilineally to her mother. I don't know if I wrote that in a way that makes sense.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

[ThainofBuckland]

Dr. Eske Willerslev
This is one of the researchers involved in discovering the link between Western Europeans and Native Americans as seen in this National Geographic Article.
Here is the journal with the results of the study.

[ThainofBuckland]

He did answer your question. He wrote that Native Americans are descendants of Siberians who crossed the Bering Strait during the Ice Age.

Look at a map and see how far West Asia is from Siberia. The populations in those two areas haven't been related for tens of thousands of years. I know of no scientific study in which a population geneticist has concluded that Native Americans and people from West Asia have any recent common ancestry. If you do know of such a study, please provide a link to it.

I don't know why we're considering recent ancestry at all? The West Asian DNA would have been picked up before the crossing of the Bering Strait (I don't think this would be considered recent by anyone). Because the discovery of European DNA was so recent and so few DNA tests have been conducted, you can hardly expect to argue the falsehood of something due to a lack of publications. (And is it really, truly a lack of publications or a lack of interest in finding them?) The Caucasus and the Altai are pretty far from each other - I had to look at two maps to see the two in relation to each other, though the maps I was using were bad; however, I don't think this necessarily negates the possibility of people migrating from the Caucasus to Siberia before The Last Glacial Maximum. So, why couldn't Native American DNA present as West Asian? I think the only way to find out more would be to study Native Americans in the X2a Haplogroup.

Here is a study that I have found comparing Haplogroup X in Europeans and Native Americans.

Overall, the sequence data and phylogenetic analysis suggest that the Native American and the European haplogroup X mtDNAs share a common maternal ancestor but also suggest that they diverged from each other long ago.(Brown, 1998)

Given the apparent absence of haplogroup X in modern eastern and northern Asia, it is difficult to define a source population for haplogroup X in the Americas. The similarity between the western Asian/European and Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs appears to indicate a western Asia origin of this haplogroup. Indeed, on the basis of limited RFLP data, the coalescence time for haplogroup X in Caucasians is estimated to be 30,000–40,000 years ago (data not shown), compatible with both a Near Eastern origin of haplogroup X and its subsequent spread, probably at a low frequency, into Europe and Asia. (Brown, 1998)

Just in case?
Brown, Michael D. "MtDNA Haplogroup X: An Ancient Link between Europe/Western Asia and North America?" The American Journal of Human Genetics 63.6 (1998): 1852-861. ScienceDirect. Web. 08 Aug. 2017.

[ThainofBuckland]

Still trying to understand what Caucasus DNA could mean for someone whose parents lines can be traced back to England around the 1600s. Theories on this would be appreciated. Please back up any claims.