Unzipping My Raw DNA, Part Two

I don't believe that most people are prepared to make the jump in amateur genealogy to that of the intermediate especially with the inclusion of genetics. When the veil is lifted and you see who you are deep in your cells and atoms it can be either encouraging or feel as though all your work has been through colored glasses. Genetic testing is probably a positive for those whose ancestors were static and the acculturated generations match those that actually make up your being. I'm having the rather mirror-house experience where the recent does not match not only who I am as a person, but also is a falsification or at best over-simplification of the real genetic source.

The time it's taken to run the simulators and compile them into a single excel document however has given me enough pause to collect most of my thoughts. I have to remember that the exotic is mostly deep ancestry so it would not be relevant necessarily except for some quirks. Yet the mirror house experience is that, everything is exotic, at least in comparison to the records and beliefs of those still living today. Working first with admixtures there is a varying degree of interpretation still to the amount of 'white' that I am. Ancestry's estimate was 52% British isles/34% Scandinavian, on the whole roughly 80-90% carbon white.

Harrapaworld, Asia map, disputes this number with only a maximum of 48.5% European. 'Africa 9' on Dodecad echo's a similar opinion that I am 67.5% or less European (including Indo-European as strictly white). Dodecad World version 3 places this number closer to 52% with the rest highly africanized Iberian or west/southwest asian. Eurogenes perhaps gave the most honest admixture result due to it's definitive sub sects. North Sea, which includes water bound parts of Scandinavia as well as the British isles rests at only 20%. JTest states that of these European groups only 25.4% is wholly white and inadmissible as Jewish. I am only 3% however above the noise level (2.5%) for Azkenazi Jewish heritage so the direct line there is remote. Yet the large chucks of central and eastern European do echo the ancestry given my fathers genetic test.

Southern heritage is much more pronounced than Ancestry claimed with some rare alleles coming from Cyprus, Lithuania, and East Asia. Spain and Northern Italy are the founders of my southern heritage with only one so far found in the genealogical record. Dodecad World 9, for example places me at 72.5% Atlantic_Baltic, 25.5% Caucusus/Southern European and around 1.5% Amerindian. 1.5 is interpreted over and over as either Asiatic or Amerindian, notably however it is inferred as Mexican/Central American Indian when addressed. It also increases as high as 3-8% given the presence of oceanic, papuan, beringian and east asian derivatives. If this was a test I don't believe that 20-53% is ever a passing grade so why would I ignore the beautiful multicultural heritage I have.

So what about the estimations given by Ancestry.com? Well I think I figured that out partially inspired by a comment by the authors of GEDMatch's algorithms. "It not just the presence of a unique factor but also the presence of that percentage compared to like individuals." Thus unique factors on chromosomes could be viewed as noise and with strict interpretation ignored completely as genetic drift for known populaces. With the wars over centuries of the Germanic tribes then it would be easy to assume a known factor level of 'noise' and thus exclude it altogether. I believe this is how Ancestry.com applies their ethnicity predictor so it is most simplified and accurate for Europeans, no doubt their largest consumer at whole.

So what am I? Very roughly estimated in admixture...

• 26-40% Southern European (Spanish, Italian, Iberian, Sardinian) 
• 18-24% British Isles/North Seas (Great Britain, France, Scandinavia) 
• 12-26% Middle Eastern (Persian, Near East, West Asia)
• 8-10% Eastern European (West Germany, Balkan, Slav)
• 3-8% Asian/Amerindian (Mezoamerican, Beringian; East-South Asia, Oceania)
• 3-5% North African (Mozabite, Morroccan, Byaka)