23andme / MyHeritage / WeGene ancestry results

[jen]

For anyone wanting to do an Ancestry test, I did mine with 23andme. I thought I'd share the results. I used the raw data from 23andme and uploaded it to MyHeritage and WeGene. I did 23andme and not Ancestry because on Amazon the reviews all said don't do Ancestry if you're Asian because they'll just tell you you're Asian

There are small differences between the companies, but it's all estimates depending on their reference databases I guess.

23andMe:
Chinese 85.6%
  Guangdong, Mainland China
  Tainan City, Taiwan
  +9 regions
Vietnamese 3.6%
Chinese Dai 3.3%
Broadly Chinese & Southeast Asian 7.5%

MyHeritage:
Asia 98.4%
  East Asia 98.4%
   Chinese and Vietnamese 91.8%
   Filipino, Indonesian and Malay 6.6%
America 1.6%
  Central and South America 1.6%
   Mesoamerican and Andean 1.6%

WeGene
Chinese 91.97%

    Southern Han Chinese 41.80%

    Northern Han Chinese 32.72%

    Dai 8.20%

    Gaoshan 5.78%
    Hmong-Mien 3.44%
    Others 0.03%

Southeast Asian 5.21%

    kinh 5.28%

South Asian 2.13%

    Indian 2.13%

American 0.65%

    Inuit 0.65%

Others 0.04%

I've also uploaded to FamilyTreeDNA but didn't pay for the ancestry estimate.

DNA match results:

23andMe: 1026 matches - only about 6 "close" matches (2nd-3rd cousins)

MyHeritage: 12 matches - one close one also listed in 23andMe

WeGene: doesn't do DNA match date with uploads from other companies. You only get that if you test with them.

FamilyTreeDNA: 38 matches - 3 close matches

I have no idea who those people are I'm matching with

[Doug 周]

I have no idea who those people are I'm matching with

My experience of communicating with people who have a DNA matches with relatives whose profiles I manage is that the vast majority want to know: "who's my daddy?" Generally the participants neither know nor have not done their basic genealogy. The conversation is very limited and unrewarding

23&Me realized this and used to have a section where you post your family tree. Since the partnership with MyHeritage, you need an active account with the latter to view other’s family trees. This was a while ago and hopefully the site-sharing algorithms are more seamless.

The occasional DNA-matches that do have family trees, I found the genealogical relationships where at odds from the DNA relationships. ie, the DNA-match was maternal, but the genealogical-match is paternal. Of course villages were close to each other and siblings may have married other close relatives. Because females were infrequently listed in the genealogy books, you cannot confirm other relationships. That is why match-makers try to document at least 5 degree of separations in marriages. It's not like Daenerys and Jon in the HBO show ‘Game of Thrones’.

The results seem to validate the consensus of this 2009 article: Everyone Has Two Family Trees – A Genealogical Tree and a Genetic Tree

IMHO

[jen]

Hi Doug, thanks for the info and the article, it's interesting. I initially did 23andMe for the Ancestry because I was curious. I had no idea there was the DNA relatives part. I think that's why many people have a very limited conversation since they only did the test for their ancestry.

But seeing unknown cousins in my list led me to investigate and build a tree and (re)connect with my moms side of the family. I also got hold of my dad's zupu. I have no idea yet what to do with the closer DNA matches (one 2nd cousin) but I'd rather focus on my direct family and the zupu first. I find it very hard to research anyone further since names have totally changed and names have been romanized. I do suspect I'm closer to Daenerys and Jon tho because the legend behind my last name (Lau/Liu) is all about dragons...

[jen]

Hi Melange,

Sorry for the late reply.

Yes, I was able to upload my 23andme to all the different websites. I'm not sure why yours doesn't work? Did you upload the zip file that you got from 23andme? I'm happy to help you but not sure how to.

Jen