The Briefing Room

General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Topic started by: 240B on April 29, 2019, 08:23:58 pm

Title: Ancestry.com under fire as update to its database drastically changes the ethnicity of many users ov
Post by: 240B on April 29, 2019, 08:23:58 pm

DailyMail
By JAMES PERO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:44 EDT, 29 April 2019

Ongoing updates to popular genealogy company Ancestry.com have sent some users into a full-blown identity crisis.

Ancestry.com is beginning to roll out changes to its users' ethnic backgrounds which will continue throughout the course of the next month, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

As a result, some patrons are seeing their prior genetic and ethnic histories undergo an entire transformation, leading users to somewhat jarring realizations.

(more)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6972711/Ancestry-com-fire-update-database-drastically-changes-ethnicity-users.html

Title: Re: Ancestry.com under fire as update to its database drastically changes the ethnicity of many user
Post by: mountaineer on April 29, 2019, 08:43:11 pm

What's the big deal? The more data, the more precise the calculations re ethnicity. My own estimate, based on new info, deleted the following:

Scandinavia 9%
Iberian Peninsula 4%
Europe East 3%
Europe South 2%

and left me with
 Great Britain 84%  (Increased by 68%)
Ireland/Scotland/Wales 14% (Decreased by 12%)
Germanic Europe 2%

"Great Britain" and "Germanic Europe" overlap, however, which matches what I know of my family history: Mostly British on my mother's side, very much German on my father's side (including the Alsace region of France, which was Germanic at the time my ancestors lived there).

From what I've found, ancestry.com's DNA results are becoming more accurate.

Title: Re: Ancestry.com under fire as update to its database drastically changes the ethnicity of many user
Post by: dfwgator on April 29, 2019, 08:57:18 pm

(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/63594749/im-completely-surprised-this-is-my-shocked-face.jpg)

Title: Re: Ancestry.com under fire as update to its database drastically changes the ethnicity of many user
Post by: Snarknado on May 01, 2019, 11:46:54 pm

I never did trust Ancestry. I had mine tested at that new place I Can't Believe It's Not Brother.