I used MyHeritage, a brand I never heard of, because I was willing to spend fifty nine bucks but not two hundred and fifty, which was what most of the other ones were charging. I found out that you pay more to get rid of “noise” and sometimes when you get those piddling “less than 1%” stuff it is just the company shrugging and giving their best guess for the money provided. But I was very disappointed with my results:
60% African, 30% European and 10% Mixed. WTeffingF? Mixed? I know I’m mixed, I paid for you to tell me what the hell the mix is! Well, they actually called it Mestizo (which means “mixed”). A place they dumped Latin Americans who can be any kind of Native American, European and African in any proportion, this company doesn’t feel like sorting it out.
I can’t imagine there are markers for “Mestizo”. As you say, it’s a term for mixed in Latin America and the various “mixed” parts should show up in your African, European or Native American parts. If someone is from Mexico, they don’t get a result back that says 100% “Mestizo”.
I had mine done ages ago, before all this fancy-schmancy stuff was available. At the time, all you got was a choice of Y-DNA or mtDNA. I picked mtDNA and it came back as some vague brand of “Northern European”, which was exactly what I thought it should be.
There are no markers that would say mestizo. That’s what I am, basically. I took the test a year or so ago (from Ancestry), and while I don’t recall the exact percentages it was native American from central and northern Mexico, Spanish, Greek/Middle East, then a bunch of low percentage ones from Europe (Eastern Europe mainly). It created more questions than it answered, but it was still pretty cool. I had guessed at the native American and Spanish parts, but Greek? Middle East? Eastern Europe? I seem to recall a percent or two from North Africa and even India. I’m actually thinking of trying again or having my kids take it from 23 and Me, as I heard they give a bit more detail.
Yeah, I figured that, though I really never thought about the Spanish side of my ancestry. In my family, it’s best to avoid even thinking that we MIGHT have some Spanish in the wood pile. I assume the Greek (well, it gives by region, so maybe Turk?) was something similar. Was…eye opening. I always assumed mainly native American with, I don’t know, maybe something cool like English, Dutch or Scotts or German (lots of Germans in Mexico). Nope…southern Europe (smack on Spain) with little pockets in eastern Europe, North Africa, Greece/Turkey and even India (which is pretty cool, actually).
No idea how accurate any of this stuff really is. I assume it’s reasonably accurate as far as it goes, but that a lot of it is still just guess work.
I sent my saliva sample off this morning. There is a lot of fine print about Are you sure you REALLY want to know? I presume they are preparing me in case I have a Black great-great-grandparent.
More likely in case, they come back with some genetic issue or problem. Mine had some medical stuff on it, and I presume there is a risk someone other than you might get ahold of it and use it against you…or something.
I haven’t done mine, but my mom did hers with Ancestry. She came back 1/3 Celtic, 1/3 Norwegian and 1/3 Assorted European (+ .01% “Other”, of course), which makes her the Viking Princess of Dublin. It’s all fun and games, I guess. I can’t shake the feeling that’s it’s hopelessly unscientific but maybe that’s just the way it’s being expressed for lay people.
I ordered a kit from 23andme last week (it was on sale.) It’s on it’s way to me. I am very curious about the ethnicity of my mother’s father.
Also my father is the bio for a few people* who may want to meet their unknown siblings.
One of them - 23andme, iirc - got in trouble at one point with the FDA for providing medical tests without being an accredited medical lab and without having the relevant medical professionals involved. They were made to stop sending medical information but they can still do the general genetic pattern assessments.
Despite all of the family stories of Native American ancestry, we came out as 100% Northwestern European (except for a less than 1% Ashkenazi Jewish, which came out of nowhere. I attribute it to the Dutch ancestry, but who knows.
The weird thing is that many of the names of the people 23andme connects me to as distant relatives have a lot of Jewish names, such as Shapiro.
23andme says I’m 99.6% European with a 75% likelihood of Northwestern European. Also .4% Sub-Saharan African. Not even going to try to calculate how many great grandparents ago that was.
No particular emotional investment in the results. It is what it is.
I was happy to learn that they predict below average susceptibility to most ailments that can vary based on genetics.
I guess some of the testing places are pretty dodgy though. One YouTuber I follow was talking about testing sites that come back and tell you that you are related to this or that King of England (as we all know, of course, there IS no QUEEN of England) or other European royal house. Had anyone gotten one of those tests that come back and say you are related to some famous person or royal line or whatever?
Well, it might be interesting to see if your results and their results are similar wrt the mix between your parents…sort of a test to see if the tests are bullshit or reasonably legitimate I suppose. Other than that and what you brought up about potential questions about your actual parentage though, probably not much to be gained.
That’s what bothers me so. They broke down the African (mostly Nigerian with some North African/Berber) and European (Greek(?), Sardinian and Scandinavian (???)) and Central American Mestizo-- which includes Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Peru-- you know, all of South America and then some. Which, last I looked, isn’t in Central America. All the people who live here in this large swath of the world-- which, I repeat, is mostly NOT Central American-- are not worth sorting out.
And, of course, the Jews.
I assume the Greek (well, it gives by region, so maybe Turk?) was something similar. Was…eye opening. I always assumed mainly native American with, I don’t know, maybe something cool like English, Dutch or Scotts or German (lots of Germans in Mexico). Nope…southern Europe (smack on Spain) with little pockets in eastern Europe, North Africa, Greece/Turkey and even India (which is pretty cool, actually).