Getting 1-2% Nigerian at MyHeritage & Ashkenazi

[ltd-jean-pull]

I uploaded a relative's FtDNA kit to MyHeritage last week and was too busy looking at all the mutual matches to notice the estimated ethnicities.

This kit is coming up with 1.2% Nigerian and 1% North African, plus a small amount of Ashkenazi as well.

What I have noticed is that some other matches that are getting an estimate of a small amount of Nigerian (1-2%) have quite a bit of Irish ancestry, or even live in Ireland and their tree appears to be completely Irish.

Has anyone else noticed something similar?

This kit throws up some geographically interesting distant matches at times with people living Russia, Hungary, Slovakia etc, even by FamilyTreeDNA's stricter matching requirements (whereas the maximum segment lengths for a match at MyHeritage and Ancestry appear to be lower) which I've tended to just dismiss as false matches.

[khazaria]

"Nigerian" readings for full Irish people are clearly noise.

Here are some false readings that some full Ashkenazic Jews have encountered in small amounts in MyHeritage DNA: Melanesian, Papuan, Irish/Scottish/Welsh, Finnish, Nepali, Native American, Amazonian, Eskimo/Inuit.

It's a pretty good calculator overall but not perfect.

[jimbirk]

MyHeritage ethnic origins is very odd.

My brother and I are 25% Danish, 25% Irish and 50% Polish.

I show 1.6% North African and 1.0% Nigerian. My brother shows 1.4% North African and 1.0% Nigerian.

I show 6.5% Balkan and 12.3 % Iberian. My brother shows 24.0% Balkan and no Iberian.

Don't see any of those ethnic origins at FTDNA or Ancestry.

I will just wait for the next iteration of their estimates.

[Frank Kelch]

My FTDNA and My Heritage results are fairly similar to each other (my Ancestry results are the problem). My Heritage has a update to their ethnicity calculator due for later this year.

[jötunn]

MyHeritage ethnic origins is very odd.

My brother and I are 25% Danish, 25% Irish and 50% Polish.

I show 1.6% North African and 1.0% Nigerian. My brother shows 1.4% North African and 1.0% Nigerian.

I show 6.5% Balkan and 12.3 % Iberian. My brother shows 24.0% Balkan and no Iberian.

Don't see any of those ethnic origins at FTDNA or Ancestry.

I will just wait for the next iteration of their estimates.

Actually many Polish people have Balkan origins due to Tatar invasions.

By the way, our of curiosity, where do you live and how old are you? "25% Danish 25% Irish 50% Polish" sounds like Danmark, and that 50% Polish is your father, right?

[montagnoli]

I have an acquaintance who is full blooded Norwegian, who was born and lives in Norway, and shows 1% Nigerian on My Heritage... So it seems MH ethnicity calculator is not that reliable.

[gatty]

A lot of Europeans are getting small amounts of Nigerian. I've got 1.4% or so with various uploads. They had seemed to correct the problem but then decided to give people back the Nigerian!