Parents’ admixture without parents tested
NOTE as of noon EDT: The Ancestry press release says “Ethnicity inheritance, powered by SideView™ technology, is available now for all AncestryDNA customers.” Um… from what’s being said everywhere online, apparently not yet. But keep checking back if yours isn’t on yet…
Ancestry has launched a new feature today that gives DNA testers information about their parents — without having tested their parents.
Called SideView, the feature gives testers a view of what Ancestry calls “ethnicity inheritance” — the estimated portions of each geopolitical region included in its admixture percentages that were inherited from each side of the family, whether paternal or maternal, without having tested either parent.
The first step in a system that will eventually help identify matches by parental side automatically, it’s a kind of cool tool. It uses only the power of the tester’s matches to split the estimates into two sides, though of course it can’t determine which is the paternal side and which is the maternal side. The ability for us to designate which is which is coming and, as we provide that information, separating matches will be even easier.1
And — at least in The Legal Genealogist‘s case — well… let’s take a look.
My parents have fairly distinct geopolitical ancestry: my mother’s people were pretty much from the British Isles, with — we think — a little French tossed in way back; my father was born in Germany and his ancestry is solidly from the areas that today are Germany and north Germany as far back as we can find records. Only one geopolitical area in my DNA makeup has much of a potential overlap: some of my mother’s England and Northwest Europe may be that French, and some of my father’s German heritage may show up as Northwest Europe and get lumped into that same area.
So how does it look? Here’s the initial presentation, and you’ll find it under the DNA menu, then DNA Story, then Ethnicity inheritance.
Let’s break this down a little better in a custom graphic I put together:
Yep, it’s pretty much spot on. A bit of an overlap on the England and Northwestern Europe and then a clear division. The Parent 1 side is clearly my father’s side; the Parent 2 side clearly mother’s side.2
The presentation of the information is both visual (as in the first version above) and in a table that tells me numerically that every last bit of the Germanic Europe and Sweden and Denmark came from Parent 1 (which has to be my father), and every bit of the Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Norway came from Parent 2 (which has to be my mother). The only overlap is the England and Northwestern Europe, where — of the estimated 32% I have from that geopolitical region in my DNA — 6% came from Parent 1 and 26% from Parent 2.
So… what’s it good for?
Assuming this holds up in the long run, if I get a match I can’t otherwise identify whose admixture is Germanic Europe, Greece & Albania and Northern Italy, it’s a pretty safe bet that match won’t be on my mother’s side. If I get a match I can’t otherwise identify whose admixture is Scotland, Ireland and Wales, it’s a pretty safe bet that match won’t be on my father’s side. Of course, not everyone will share only one region with me or only regions from one parental side: if I get a match with Germanic Europe and England and Northwestern Europe, for example, it’ll be a toss-up.
And Ancestry candidly admits it won’t be this good for everyone: SideView will group matches “with a precision rate of 95% for 90% of Ancestry customers”3 — which4 means that about 15% of the estimates may not be all that good. The reasons are issues like endogamy (too many people intermarrying for too many generations in too small a community creating pedigree collapse on steroids) or too few testers in an area to produce reliable results.
But it’s a start. And remember: we will get the ability, down the road, to designate which is Parent 1 and which is Parent 2, and — again down the road — that will help trigger some automatic division of our matches between paternal and maternal (a feature 23andMe offers if we’ve also tested a parent5 and that Family Tree DNA provides even without a parent tested if we’ve uploaded a tree and identify enough of our matches to allow its system to function6).
Now this new feature also drove yet another update in our individual admixture estimates. So, for example, I have lost some of my Germanic Europe — again — and some of my Scottish — again — and gained more Sweden and Denmark — again:
I’m not even going to bother with my usual warnings here. Just look at the changes in this one chart for one person in just two years, and remember that these estimates are called estimates for a reason.7
So… go check out your SideView… and have some fun.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Ancestry launches SideView,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 13 Apr 2022).
SOURCES
- See generally “Ancestry Introduces SideView, a First-Of-Its-Kind Technology That Gives Individuals Greater DNA Insights,” Ancestry press release, 13 April 2022, Ancestry Corporate Newsroom (https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/newsroom/ : accessed 13 Apr 2022). ↩
- And, yes, I am absolutely confident everyone on my mother’s side will look at that 1% Norway as Viking. Skål! ↩
- “Ancestry Introduces SideView, a First-Of-Its-Kind Technology That Gives Individuals Greater DNA Insights,” Ancestry press release, 13 April 2022. ↩
- If my math is correct, and that’s never a safe bet… ↩
- See “DNA Relatives: Mother’s And Father’s Side Labels,” 23andMe Customer Care (https://customercare.23andme.com/ : accessed 13 Apr 2022). ↩
- See “Family Matching Overview,” FamilyTreeDNA Help Center (https://help.familytreedna.com/ : accessed 13 Apr 2022). ↩
- See generally Judy G. Russell, “Not soup in 2021 either,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 19 Sep 2021 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 13 Apr 2022), and all the earlier posts referenced there. ↩
Interesting.
One thing I’ve often pondered, since I have not only my own DNA test, but also have mom’s and dad’s, if there was a way in using the tests together for deeper analysis, to look further back into the past with more precision, to tighten up estimates. I don’t know of any such yet, but I keep my eye open for such to eventually come about. Maybe.
Combining the parents’ results with a child’s results is called phasing, this SideView is a form of phasing, and yes that does improve things.
Hmmm. Maybe you’re a beta tester? Or else it’s going to take a while for them to get the new tool out. But, the sideview feature does not show up for any of the kits I manage.
Sigh… I just added a note to the post and on Facebook and am about to add one on Twitter that this HAS NOT been rolled out across the entire database yet. All I can tell you is that the press release SAYS it’s available (“Ethnicity inheritance, powered by SideView™ technology, is available now for all AncestryDNA customers.”) — but it ain’t so yet. So keep checking back. My guess is, the switch flipping didn’t work quite the way it was planned…
I see my testers are starting to have their data loaded. yay!
Hi Judy, I was wondering if you think this tool would be better if we were able to upload our siblings results to it. I have tested directly at Ancestry but my two siblings, including my deceased sister tested for me at FTDNA? I would love to be able to upload their results to Ancestry and would even pay for the privelege willingly!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what I think about that — there isn’t and I expect won’t ever be a way to upload results from other companies into Ancestry.
I am not sure why you answered this way. Ancestry seeks to monetize almost everything on their sites, surely this is not something that is beyond their capabilities to do from a tech standpoint. I know they won’t ever do a chromosome browser but this isn’t that.
There are many reasons why Ancestry has chosen not to permit uploads of data from other companies. Privacy and quality control are among them. I could say flatly it’s not going to happen; I’ll hedge and say (as I did before) I don’t expect it ever to happen.
No. It will never happen. It is fundamentally linked to their privacy assurances that the person who dribbles into the cup also gives their permission online. And deceased people can’t do that. There’s more to it as well, but Ancestry are the people to argue with. There is no point discussing it on forums and blogs other than their company ones.
Hi, Judy… I was able to access the tool, and it looks like it might be spot on for my parents. Of course, there is a huge overlap with England/Northwestern Europe, but the smaller groups seems to fit what I have surmised. My mother’s side has Germanic Europe, the Scandinavian area, and Northern Italy while my dad’s is straight-up England/Scotland/Wales with just a tad of indigenous North America thrown in for good measure. It works for me. Thanks for the heads-up on the tool!
Thanks for posting this. I was hoping it would tell me which side my 1% sub-Saharan African DNA came from, but since both parents are mostly England, Scotland and Ireland, with bits from Wales and Norway, it’s not helping all that much. At least it confirmed that it’s all on one side. Now I just have to figure out which side is which. Maybe DNA Painter can help with that.
Kay
I have a 1% Ivory Coast that is persistent on my paternal grandfathers side. About 10 of 30 people related on that line share it, all with English ancestry.
Can’t figure it out because I have that line back to the 1640’s in the North East and there’s no sign of an African ancestor. At first I thought it was a possible legacy from Roman soldiers of African descent, but a relationship that far back wouldn’t be anywhere close to 1%.
I just checked mine and it is spot on based on what my research has uncovered. Neither parent could be tested.
Great explanation. How can the descendants of enslaved people use this tool? My Side View draws from two regions, both located in the U.S. The bulk of my parents’ ethnicity estimates are in Africa, divided among the areas that were the source of people who were taken to America to be enslaved. There are some lesser percentages in Scotland, Ireland and notably 1% Swedish. The 1% Swedish is part of the ethnicity of 1 Parent. I was thinking that I could look at my Shared Matches for Swedish ancestry and that would help me figure out immediately which parent is which, because I do know the Mother’s Side and Father’s Side matches. Is this a good strategy?
Keeping in mind that this has JUST been rolled out and that there’s room for error, AND that there’s always a chance that your matches didn’t inherit the same things you did, it’s certainly one thing to do. But keep in mind always that it’s not impossible for all of your matches who have Swedish in their mix to have gotten it from some other ancestor than the one you have.
This is spot on as I have already known based on matches and other DNA tests for my family members. Both of my parents are gone and so I cannot test them.
I am impressed that they split the ethnicities correctly, even though my parents are from quite different origins, that’s not bad. Would like to see how they go on someone with two parents who are both UK, or both Irish.
BUT their original ethnicity estimates on me are wrong. They get Cornish in the Communities, but still have not worked out that they have split my Cornish into Irish and Scottish. And I still don’t have Communities for my Eastern European even though they form distinct communities in Australia. Maybe they were not together long enough in one place in their homeland. Although it has been possible for their siblings from the same places who went to USA.
Sideview is a very exciting additon to Ancestry. Thank you!