I grew up knowing I was Jewish but now my Parents can rest assured

Playing devil's advocate a little. I know Ancestry has admitted to using AI smoothing and some other opaque processes for their new estimates. BUT a lot of the discussions feel like people are saying 'Well I thought I was that and now it says i'm this'.

My changes, personally, feel like they're probably accurate. (Half Mexican, Half Polish - it previously had 1% ashkenazi on my Mexican side, west midlands seemed random on that side too. Plus Azores is random, but so is Canary Islands)

I think the skepticism is very healthy. And in reality, I assume it's a mix of overly-smoothing using AI and people's preconceived notions being uprooted. But I'm curious what people think that ratio is.

Overall I'm happy with the results

I’m Romanian, we always guessed my grandad had Roma roots but he hid it 🤷🏻‍♀️ Any Ungureanu/Dodu Roma from Romania?

My husband (22M) and I (22F) have been married since December of last year. He’s the light of my life and I adore him.

I’ve been told all my life that I’m half Russian and half Ashkenazi Jewish. My husband is fully Chinese, or so we thought.

Earlier this Fall, we both took Ancestry DNA tests. I got pretty much what I expected, I’m mostly Eastern European on my mom’s side and Ashkenazi Jewish and German on my dad’s side, with other miscellaneous European ethnicities sprinkled in. I’m 100% European. My husband’s results were also pretty much what he expected, showing almost exclusively Han Chinese ancestry, but to both of our surprise, we learned that he is 6.2% Russian. He had a great-great-grandfather on his mom’s side who was from Russia. This distant ancestor also happened to be from the same region in Russia that my own family originated from.

I think y’all know where this is going.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve dug deeper, and this morning we discovered, in complete shock and horror, that we have THE SAME great-great-grandfather. Obviously this was COMPLETELY out of left field, because we’re not even close to being the same race (I’m aware that there’s only the human race but y’all get my point).

To make a long story short, our great-great-grandfather first had children in Russia (my great grandfather being one of them). His first wife died, and years later, he abandoned his children from his first marriage, went to China, remarried a Chinese woman in the same region of China that my husband’s family is from, and had a daughter with her (my husband’s great grandmother).

To say that we’re both shocked and appalled would be a severe understatement. I don’t know whether I want to throw up or put the song “Sweet Home Alabama” on our sexy time playlist as a joke. I’m currently in treatment for an eating disorder, so there’s not really much we can do about it until I finish treatment and come home.

I absolutely do not want to divorce him in a million years. Is being married to your third cousin really that bad?? Or can we just wipe this bullshit from our memory, forget this ever happened, and move on? I swear to God this is unfortunately not a shitpost. We REALLY need some advice. Thank you.

Hi, I was wondering if anyone who is British will be willing to share their result please.

My original results from June ‘26 (left) and this week’s update (right). Feels like they’re making stuff up.

Black British – Nigerian (Igbo) and Equatorial Guinean mother, Haitian father :)

A few years ago someone on ancestry contacted me because we shared 25% DNA. They asked if I was also conceived by a sperm donor. I said no. They apologized for opening a can of worms and I stopped talking to them. I didn't want to know. But my parents were and still are married.

Now 4 other people are showing 22-25% match with me. Did my parents use a donor and not tell me? The thing is physically and genetically I share a lot of traits with my dad. So did he donate sperm in the early 80s?

For reasons I don't want to explain I'm not bringing this up to my parents at this point but I really don't know what to think.

I have a grandmother who is half Venetian and half German. My other three grandparents are deeply Brazilian in their lineage upwards, I couldn't find any other European immigrant ancestors through records, so they must be people who arrived in Brazil during the colonial period. Very interesting.

They are starting to even out.

So, every time my DNA regions are refined, they reflect less and less of my geophysical origins as traced through my family tree.

This makes perfect sense because (for my example) Germans in Germany in (say) 1870 had the DNA of their ancestors who settled in that region but who came many generations prior from (in my family’s case) the Scottish Lowlands region. So rather than reflect the fact that my maternal side spent 400 years in Germany, my own very distilled DNA profile shows no German region DNA, rather the earlier DNA origins of this branch of my tree (Scottish Lowlands). My Ancestry DNA profile 6 years ago did show Germany quite predominantly, but now that their results are getting more and more sophisticated, I am getting results from my ancestors many, MANY years ago.

Likewise, on my paternal side, no longer am I French, I am nearly exclusively Northern and NE England, even though his paternal side was absent from England for well over 800 years (in France).

Ultimately, we are all originated from Africa. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Ancestry to show the halfway point of migration, and then the original DNA pool.

Right now, my maternal DNA profile is pretty ridiculous. There is not one region with more than 5% input, and about 10 with 1%.

I see it like this: this type of “true origin” DNA analysis is interesting, but in a very abstract way. What customers are typically looking for is their DNA profile from (at most) 200 years ago. Maybe 300. We identify with our nearer historic antecedents than with those off in the mists of time. It is also most helpful to get strong regional identification from 100-200 years ago to reveal errors, lies, or omissions in one’s family history (like finding out you are adopted, or your grandfather wasn’t who everyone thought he was).

Anyway, my 2c … Ancestry is delving too deep for relevant results and should at least give layered result levels of “origin.”

Thoughts??

What is enticing about having your family’s ancestry line documented…? I am just getting started with researching my own, but curious what others have come to appreciate about knowing their lineages. Has it helped you with your own identity? Sense of belonging?

Hello guys,

I am part of the Oghuz Turkish (not Pomak) minority in Greece (Western Thrace / Batı Trakya region). My family is from the villages around Komotini (or Gümülcine in Turkish).

I took the DNA test a few years ago and received multiple updates. My results got updated again a few days ago and they were narrowed down a lot.

Below I will share the current results and those from the last update. My Greek results were completely removed and they added Turkey for the first time (although I always had Turkey as a result in Journeys).
The first screenshot is the current result and the others from the previous update.

Overall not that happy with the change?

The old versions have long had me at roughly 30% Scottish (sometimes minor amounts of English and Welsh popping up also) and 70% Irish- which matched up well with my family tree. I am from the Irish Catholic community in Ulster but have a very admixed family historically with a lot of ancestors that were part of Ulster Protestant/Ulster Scots community.

This new update seemingly used a “broad sample” including both Ulster Protestants and Ulster Catholics in reference panel (even though these two groups are pretty genetically different on a regional scale- with Ulster Protestants clustering with British groups rather than Irish) which made the old detail of my results completely disappear.
Before the update Ulster Protestants tended to have >80% Scottish and Ulster Catholics >80% Irish (I’ve done extensive research with my matches). Now after this new update- all my matches from both communities have very high percentages of the Ulster region, despite before having very different results. And for those with more mixed ancestry- we’re essentially now almost 100% Ulster.

I think now I prefer MyHeritage results as they are more relevant to my ancestry as someone with deep roots in Northern Ireland- who is interested in knowing where my ancestors actually came from prior to plantation (ie. Irish, Scottish, English etc…). I guess the update may be more beneficial for Americans who have distant Ulster ancestry? But for us locals it completely hides the complexities of the regions genetics.

I know that overall this doesn’t really matter and I’m much more interested in my paper trail genealogy- but it’s always nice to have your results reflect what you know. And I think with the dna estiamte being a product in and of itself- this new update has made northern Irish people’s results a lot less informative.

Hi all! First time posting here. I received my first DNA results about 2 years ago and after today's update I'm itching to know more about my Indigenous roots.

Does anyone have and tips/experience tracing ancestry from this region? My heart has always felt called to my indigenous roots, and I would love to narrow down a tribe so I can do more research on culture and traditions. Reconnection is so important to the indigenous community, and I would love to know more.

An important side note – I was born east of Phoenix, AZ and I don't know my bio father's name. I know he is not on my birth certificate, but I have chosen not to seek his identity out of respect for my mom. However, I can see that my indigenous roots come from my paternal side. So far this has caused a hard stop in my research. If you have any tips on navigating that, I would love to hear them!

TLDR: I'm a part-indigenous woman looking for help in finding her tribe🪶. TIA!