Pop finder / Geno2 admixture differences

[Jdna]

Hello,
I just received my Family Finder results and would appreciate help in understanding something.
My Population Finder results say I'm "100% +/- 0.01% Middle East (Jewish)"... No surprise, but 100%, no admixture?

My geno2 results report me as:
56% Mediterranean, 21% Northern European, 20% Southwest Asian, 2% Northeast Asian.

Why is there a difference in admixture results?
Why didn't Population finder, find my Geno 2 admixture?

I'd appreciate any help in understanding.
Take care,
Brian

[Armando]

Geno 2.0 uses is an up-to-data calculator. Also it doesn't try and break up European populations into European and Middle Eastern.

See the Geno 2.0 reference populations and regions overview at https://genographic.nationalgeograph...e-populations/ and https://genographic.nationalgeograph...tions/regions/ to get a better idea of how Geno 2.0 breakups your autosomal results.

The 2% Northeast Asian makes it look like you have some Eastern European ancestry.

[Jdna]

The 2% Northeast Asian makes it look like you have some Eastern European ancestry.

Thanks Armando,
That explains it and I think I understand the differences in results better.
All but one of my family lines are Eastern European except one from Germany. Was wondering how Asian got in.
Thanks again,
Brian

[dtvmcdonald]

The difference is that the two programs are trying to
do different things. Both can in this particular
case be exactly right (or not). No one program
can reliably tell, unless the person is really truly
>90% Jewish ... and even then I'm not aware of a publicly
available one that can do that reliably.

The Geno2 analysis is one of the absolute worst. And that's
not just because they are using a too-small set of markers.
But it is in general not actually "wrong" ... it won't say you are English if you are Han Chinese.

[Armando]

Thanks Armando,
That explains it and I think I understand the differences in results better.
All but one of my family lines are Eastern European except one from Germany. Was wondering how Asian got in.
Thanks again,
Brian

In your specific case the Northeast Asian is due to the fact your ancestors mixed with people from that region. All Europeans also have Southwest Asian because people migrated east to west since and took their DNA with them and mixed with other people along the way. All of that happened from 10,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago.

[1798]

In your specific case the Northeast Asian is due to the fact your ancestors mixed with people from that region. All Europeans also have Southwest Asian because people migrated east to west since and took their DNA with them and mixed with other people along the way. All of that happened from 10,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago.

The ancestors of modern humans came out Africa 60,000 ybp and spread all over the world.

[Armando]

The difference is that the two programs are trying to
do different things. Both can in this particular
case be exactly right (or not). No one program
can reliably tell, unless the person is really truly
>90% Jewish ... and even then I'm not aware of a publicly
available one that can do that reliably.

The Geno2 analysis is one of the absolute worst. And that's
not just because they are using a too-small set of markers.
But it is in general not actually "wrong" ... it won't say you are English if you are Han Chinese.

Please expand on your claim that Geno2 is the absolute worst. It actually provides the source populations and the components that those populations are broken up into. You can't get more transparent than that. Population Finder does not provide that info and actually gives us incorrect ancestry at times. Population Finder does not tell me how my the people in the countries that my ancestors are from are broken up and which components they have. Geno2 does that.

I assume you are focusing on the portion of Geno2 that tries to match a person's results with a reference population. That portion is definitely inaccurate most of the time and should be ignored, but that is not what the original post was about.

I agree that they are trying to do different things and I disagree with the way Population Finder is doing it. Based on the original poster's Geno 2.0 data I was able to predict he has Eastern European ancestry. I would never have been able to do that with Population Finder.

[Armando]

The ancestors of modern humans came out Africa 60,000 ybp and spread all over the world.

The Asian component does not come from Africa. It comes from Asia.

If the simple answer for all of us is that all of our ancestry comes from Africa we should all stop getting DNA tests and doing genealogical studies because none of what happened between 60,000 years ago and now has any significance. FamilyTreeDNA should just close shop except for a page that says YOUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM AFRICA. STOP LOOKING ANY FURTHER.

[1798]

The Asian component does not come from Africa. It comes from Asia.

If the simple answer for all of us is that all of our ancestry comes from Africa we should all stop getting DNA tests and doing genealogical studies because none of what happened between 60,000 years ago and now has any significance. FamilyTreeDNA should just close shop except for a page that says YOUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM AFRICA. STOP LOOKING ANY FURTHER.

It depends on which group of your ancestors you are more interested in. I am only interested in the most recent even 2000 years is too far out. FF is within that range and for me it is a brilliant test for 99 dollars. The "y" test for me has faded in to the mist. This FF test is by far the best test in the world for breaking down the brick walls. I have two cousin matches with names that are in my family tree and I don't believe they are coincidental.

[josh w.]

Hello,
I just received my Family Finder results and would appreciate help in understanding something.
My Population Finder results say I'm "100% +/- 0.01% Middle East (Jewish)"... No surprise, but 100%, no admixture?

My geno2 results report me as:
56% Mediterranean, 21% Northern European, 20% Southwest Asian, 2% Northeast Asian.

Why is there a difference in admixture results?
Why didn't Population finder, find my Geno 2 admixture?

I'd appreciate any help in understanding.
Take care,
Brian

The results actually are consistent. PF gives a single best guess as to the reference group you most resemble. But Ashkenazi genes and SNPs are not limited to the Middle East. I have not used Geno 2 but any admixture test covers any region where the ancestors of the ancient Hebrews lived as well as regions Jews moved to after the Diaspora. In particular Jews lived in Roman areas after the Diaspora and there were many conversions to Judaism in these regions. As a result, Jews have a large Mediterranean component as well as West Asian, Southwest Asian(Arabian) and Northern European components. If you upload your results to Gedmatch (choose Dodecad or Eurogenes---+ Oracle) you should see other analyses similar to PF and Geno 2. The Northeast Asian component could just be random noise, but some ethnic Russians have such a component, e.g. from Tatars.

[Jdna]

I have played with Gedmatch previously(the site has been down for a few days).
Their results from various parameters are similar to Geno2.
If I can pick and choose which Gedmatch results I like,
Jtest was the only one that had Ashkenazi 31.3%, Eastern Med 20.6%, but a low Mid Eastern 7.1%

[josh w.]

I have played with Gedmatch previously(the site has been down for a few days).
Their results from various parameters are similar to Geno2.
If I can pick and choose which Gedmatch results I like,
Jtest was the only one that had Ashkenazi 31.3%, Eastern Med 20.6%, but a low Mid Eastern 7.1%

Admixture analyses vary in terms of the nomenclature for different regions and how they carve up geographical regions. The Eastern Mediterranean covers Greece, Cyprus and the Levant. Jews show similarity to reference groups from these areas. A study by Haber for National Geographic found that Jews were closest to Lebanese particularly Lebanese Druze. The study did not include a southern Italian sample and I suspect that Jews would be just as close to that group. Regarding the Near East, most programs do not include the Near East region specifically and there may not be an Eastern Mediterranean region. In that case, for Jews the highest Asian component would be West Asian (northern Middle East) with a smaller Southwest Asian component.

[grahcom]

Admixture analyses is pretty useless IMHO as most database reference groups are either too small or non existent.

[Jdna]

Thanks for the discussion everyone.
Now to try to understand it all.
Brian

[josh w.]

Thanks for the discussion everyone.
Now to try to understand it all.
Brian

When Gedmatch is running again, chose the Oracle option with the program. The Oracle results should be similar to PF but with more information