Part 496 - Smith Robertson Genealogy - Autosomal Test Results - Huh?

Evening,

As I have mentioned and written on numerous occasions, I am slowly trying to understand the elements of Genealogy and DNA. My previous Posts have discussed YDNA, the (Y) paternal line, and mtDNA, the (X) maternal line. See Part 492. In order to sea and read my previous Postings and discussions, enter the phrases YDNA or mtDNA in the “Search This Blog” box in the right-hand column.

The next series of results are my Autosomal DNA.

The above image is one that I created which may logically explain, with the use of Venn diagrams, the results of my current sets of Autosomal DNA testing.  A Venn diagram is a representation of circles to represents sets, with the position and overlap, or non-overlap, of the circles indicating the relationships between the sets.

An autosome is a chromosome that is not either of the sex chromosomes, that is the X or the Y chromosomes. In humans there are 22 pairs of autosomes.  Including the sex chromosomes, we have, that is those of us who are classified as human, 23 pairs of chromosomes.

There are now publicly available and continuing to evolve, Autosomal testing which attempts to determine the “genetic percentage” of one’s ancestry. This is sort of like trying to determine from which continent/region/country/people or tribe my ancestry may have originated. There are quite a number of detailed descriptions, both elementary and extremely detailed at various and many sites on the Internet. (And if you do not trust the Internet check out your local library.)

Well anyway, I had my first Autosomal DNA test done in 2005 by a firm called Ancestry By DNA. Their results of my autosomes were presented to me as 93% - European; 7% - Native or Indigenous American; 0% - East Asian; and 0% Sub-Saharan African. Okay, not a problem, pretty straight forward, for the time.

Most recently, I decided to purchase the Family Finder product from Family Tree DNA which includes as a part of the testing package an autosomal test under the subtitle of Family Finder Illumina OmniExpress Population Finder - Beta. My results have been returned. According to Family Tree DNA results, I am 95.9% - European (Western European); 4.1% - African; 0% - Central or South American; 0% - East Asian; 0% - Middle Eastern; 0% - Oceania, that is, Melanesian or of New Guinea; and 0% - South Asian.

Well, what happened?  Why are the test results different?  Why are their differences in my ethnic ancestry?

I am waiting for the third set of results of a different company 23andMe. Once they are received I will include them in my image.

Confused? Stay tuned for further discussions and Postings.

Hear's to a Happy Celebration tomorrow... and a very speedy recovery for AB.

Enjoy,

Jim