Should we CELEBRATE genetic Ethnicity?

Over the years I've been one of the biggest critics of those who put great faith of ethnicity predictions based largely on our autosomal DNA test results. Some market research suggests that a majority of millennials who test do so primarily -- if not exclusively -- to get that information. That is why much if not most of the advertising media is aimed at getting the public to scratching this particular itch. You probably recall the dilemma of deciding whether lederhosen or a kilt are the appropriate attire for the next family reunion.

Those who know me know that I like to wear clothes that have something to say. Recently I was working with Alex Coss of Celebrate DNA™ to finalize the shirt order we had began discussing a few weeks ago at RootsTech. I have long admired the colorful and clean lines of Alex's designs but I couldn't decide which of the ethnicity estimates I have received from various labs I wanted to feature. I finally decided I wanted to go a slightly different direction and list the biggest chunk of DNA from each of the top 5 companies. In each case the "biggest" chunk identified was from the same general geographical area: "Great Britain, Ireland", "British Isles", "England, Wales","British & Irish" or "English". Alex was very accommodating of my idiosyncrasies.

Alex Coss' depiction of my 5 current ethnicity predictions.

At first blush these results seem greatly at odds with each other. However, closer examination suggests the results have a basic similarities. Since each company has it's own proprietary algorithm and method of conducting population studies, the bottom three have a certain similarity. One must understand how far back in history each company is trying to measure ancestral migration. 500 years? 5,000 years? 20,000 years? Those who tested several years ago with the National Genographic Project are used to seeing these longer time frames. My Genographic results were a little different than the more current ones above and with good reason. The projected timeline was much longer:

My closest ethnicity prediction by the Genographic project.

My second closest population according to Genographic.

But the attention span of most of us does not extend that far back. Those of us who are now North Americans are primarily interested on where our ancestors were living just before they boarded boats to immigrate here. Generally that is only one to four centuries ago. Even over that short timeline, national borders have changed and ancestors have migrated over the decades before they got to their ports of departure.

Fortunately these ethnicity predictions have been getting better as population geneticists learned more and testing companies improved their projection algorithms. Genetic genealogy is still a new and our learning curve is still steep. By the time some of you read this, my shirt may be out-of-date. FTDNA has announced that it will soon be updating its projections. Your can see a sneak preview of what to expect by reading Roberta Estes' post last month about what we can expect when myOrigins 3.0 is rolled out. Fortunately, when this happens we generally do not have to line up and retest. The reports of results from our original tests are just updated to reflect the new and hopefully more accurate predictions. In my case it may not significantly alter the results as shown on my new shirt; but who knows, I may be in for a surprise.

Below is what the shirt Alex created for me looks like. Read it quickly before the data is obsolete! Thanks Alex, I really like the shirt and my wife does too.

My shirt created by Celebrate DNA