I’ll try to keep this brief, as I tend to ramble. I knew that my mother had a child years before she had me and that she gave that child up for adoption. I know it was extremely difficult for her to do so and its a pain that never truly left her, and I also knew that by signing up for any DNA testing site(s)/kit(s) there was a possibility I would find a half-sibling. I did my ancestryDNA kit over 10 years ago and, to my disappointment, never had any hits. It’s always been in the back of my mind that I have a half-sibling out there, wondering if I ever have ran into them without even knowing, etc.

Last week I received an email from ancestry, as I do whenever I receive a match with some distant 3rd/4th cousin, and basically spit my drink out when it casually stated I had a new match and that it was a half-sibling. I couldn’t believe it, as I had pretty much given up hope that our paths would ever cross.

I sat on it for a few days and finally decided to send just a quick message saying hey, I see we have this connection and would love to chat if you’re open to it. I know that everyone will tell (me) to not go into it with any expectations, and I think I naively thought that I wasn’t. But now I’m unexpectedly embarrassed that I may have been overeager and sent the message because I can see that it was read and now this person hasn’t been active since. I also completely can understand a scenario where they did not know that they were adopted/have any idea that I existed and this could be a lot to process. I’m just worried that I was too pushy even by just reaching out and maybe it wasn’t my place. My hope is that some day I will hear from them, even with baby steps. I know they do not owe anything to myself or my family.

As a side note, I had a half sister (from my dads side) that I grew up knowing and she passed away about 12 years ago, and that was a really terrible time in my life, so maybe I have some unprocessed grief that even comes with the word “sibling”, because other than that, it’s just me.

I guess there’s no end point to me putting this out other than to just get it off my chest. I just didn’t expect it to stir up the emotion(s) that it has, some that maybe I can’t even put a finger on yet.

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.

Went from being listed as Germany, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, France.

To 100% Northeastern German lol

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 I'm happy with the results

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.

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

Pre-update, I had 2% in northern Spain, something like 5% Volga German, and 1% South Indian (🤷‍♂️). The new results are centered entirely in Western and central Europe, which is both less surprising and less interesting.

Switzerland has the largest claim to my genome at 38%, at least until the next update comes. I can actually trace my line back to a Swiss immigrant who was a veteran of the US war of independence.

It's ironic that I qualify for Hungarian citizenship thanks to the fact that my Danube Swabian GGF was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, but the lab didn't detect even a single nucleotide from the area! Oh well, it's civil status that matters, not ethnicity. Those Swabians must have not married outside their community very often.

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

Went from Moslawi to Basrawi lol. Southern Iraq seems to be a catch all category for iraqi arabs.

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

edit:

does anyone still get German, Danish and Swedish?

They are starting to even out.

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.

My 1% Arabian Peninsula changed to 1% Northern Iraq after the last update

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

I knew they said there’s usually multiple places but I didn’t expect to see this many tbh. Feels kind of disconnecting surprisingly.

I think having 1-3 ancestral cultures you can point to and learn more about is pretty cool. Everything here is so scattered though.

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?

Thoughts??

Proud to be a "diverse-ish" white American! My family has simultaneously been here for thousands and hundreds of years, and also just a few decades-- all equally American. My mom's family is from Canada, originally. (Yay, Canada! 🇨🇦) Lucky enough to trace my family back hundreds of years on both sides. My super "Old Stock" family members' journeys aren’t shown because they immigrated to MA and CT in the 1600s, but I do have a general affinity for New England. Also, I’m a white person who never thought that they were part Indigenous.

Always cool to see others' results. Thanks for checking out mine.