Regional difference between FTDNA and Genographic

[RHernandez]

Both my father and mother's families immigrated from Mexico. I've traced my family tree to Mexico and Spain.

My Genographic DNA lists my regional heritage as:

47% Southern European
29% Native American
10% East Asian
6% West African
4% Finish/Siberian

When I uploaded my DNA results to FTDNA May 2016 the results where the same as Genographic.

As of today, the Genographic regional analysis has not changed but the FTDNA regional analysis has changed to:

45% European
45% New World
5% African

and trace results for:

East Central Africa
North Africa
Northeast Asia
South Central Africa
Siberia

I don't understand the changes to my regional analysis on FTDNA. Can someone explain the disparity between the two?

[Armando]

All of the companies have added or increased reference populations and their methodology over the years. Even though ethnicity calculators have been around for a while it is still relatively new. That being said some companies do better than others so there is a high likelihood neither of your results are as good as they should be.

Your Geno 2.0 results used the old myOrigins calculator that gave you way too much Northeast Asia and Finish/Siberian which was from your Native American DNA from when our ancestors crossed over the Bering Strait from Siberia and Northeast Asia. That was about 18,000 years ago. It doesn't take that long for drift to occur so it was ridiculous that Native American DNA was broken up like that. When myOrigins 2.0 came out they improved the Native American calculator by adding back in some populations that should have included in the previous version of myOrigins. It is one of the few components (ethnicities) that has a high accuracy for a very large percentage of testers.

So your 45% New World in myOrigins 2.0 is from your 29% Native American, 10% East Asian, and 4% Finish/Siberian. The other 2% is from the other DNA that was under estimated with myOrigins 1.0/Geno 2.0.

If you upload to Gedmatch and get a DNA test with 23andme and Ancestry.com you will that they will also give you about 45% Native American & East Asian.

[RHernandez]

Thanks

Thanks Armando. Your analysis is very helpful. Makes sense.

Rich