23andme is quite accurate in the past 500 yrs. Now, if you upload the data to GedMatch (probably have to use their https://genesis.gedmatch.com site if newer V5 chip), their calculators are mostly focused on much older periods. But as one person explained, it’s like soup: Lots of ways to make similar tasting soup and likewise the gedmatch calculators give you lots of possibilities.
Now if you depend on 23andme to go back beyond 1600AD or so, it gets fuzzy.
They’ve recently expanded their populations list so it might have improved though. They do try to stay up on things.
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For medical, use http://codegen.eu Anonymous, fast, free. Nobody can beat it although you’re on your own to interpret all the matches.
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Gedmatch is a MUST btw. They offer phasing and true triangulation. With phasing, you can clean up mom and dad DNA from yours to know which is which if you have theirs done, and even create a DNA profile for your OTHER parent if you have only mom or dad.
I had just mom’s and it created a dad DNA profile based on what “wasn’t her” in me and filled in the rest with imputation (which they all do).
True triangulation is: You take 3 relatives and you and it triangulates who is definitely all related to one another.
Lots of things offer a matching service but true triangulation isn’t as common.
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aw poo. Lost my Confucius connection. I use geni.com and as I’m constantly revising my family tree as I find more info, other people work on other trees. I’m not sure where I found the 1.5% Chinese though, although one of my genetic flaws (for ADHD I think) (found on codegen) is VERY common among Han Chinese and uncommon in European and Middle Eastern populations, which added credence to whatever little chinese I might have.
Then again, 1.5% isn’t small — that’s a lot of DNA.
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I get … into things sometimes. Can’t find that Chinese again though. But I’d ALSO uploaded my 23andme to http://wegene.com which is a CHINA based DNA site. There’s a little US flag on the bottom right that translates everything to English.
That provides another perspective (what I might be if from China).
It shows for example:
Indian3.89%
Somali0.40%
Saudi3.16%
Iranian2.91%
and the rest a boring (to me) European breakdown.
It also nails j2a1a1a as mtDNA, which another site (I forgot which) also did, although 23andme shows j2a1a1 – which is also accurate but a tiny bit less specific. Still, j2a1a1 is easier to find stuff on so it’s more useful.
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I did learn not to get TOO hung up on mtDNA and YDNA though. Why? The amount of code that’s specific to a traceable maternal or paternal line is VERY small and mostly contributes to your sex organs.
Most of your DNA comes at you the Punnet square way: Mendalian. More or less 50% mom/dad, 25% 4 grandparents, etc.
[not precisely 50/25/12.5/7.25 though… otherwise all siblings would be identical… 🙂 ]
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So why do boys have both mtDNA and YDNA and girls have only mtDNA?
Best I can figure? The female reproductive system is “all woman” and the male reproductive system is a weird inverted thing using 1/2 female and 1/2 inversion. Food for thought.
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