Ancestry DNA's 2024 Update Explained: Interview with Senior Geneticist Aaron Wolf

DESCRIPTION:
Join me for an in-depth interview with Aaron Wolf, Senior Population Geneticist at Ancestry®, as we discuss the dramatic changes in their 2024 DNA update. Learn why your ethnicity estimates (now called Origins) might look different, understand the science behind the updates, and discover how Ancestry® added 24 new regions to increase result accuracy. Aaron explains the differences between Regions and Journeys, shares insights about DNA inheritance, and addresses community concerns about result changes. Whether you're seeing major shifts in your results or just curious about the updates, this interview provides clear answers about how Ancestry® is improving their DNA testing technology.

Poll Results Mentioned: 58% found results more accurate 25% found results less accurate 17% unsure

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TIMING
00:00 Introduction
00:04 Purpose of the Interview
00:46 Audience Reactions and Poll Results
03:18 Ancestry's DNA Database and New Regions
05:32 Impact of Historical Context on DNA Results
07:35 Reference Panels and Family Trees
09:02 Personal Anecdotes and Recommendations
09:36 Inherited DNA and Family Testing
10:15 Rebuilding Ancestral DNA
11:55 Understanding Ancestry Journeys
14:11 ThruLines and DNA Matches
16:39 Future of DNA Technology
17:50 Ancestry's Next Steps
19:04 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Music Credit:

I’m Connie Knox, a professional genealogist with over 47 years of experience. I teach beginner to advanced genealogy research skills, DNA research, and how to build and organize family trees. My passion is helping you uncover your ancestors through free genealogy videos and resources.

Top genealogy channels I recommend include The History Guy, Ancestral Findings, Family History Fanatics, Geneavlogger, Legacy Tree Genealogy, and of course, Genealogy TV!

[martast.john-anders]

I'm so glad you were able to do this interview. It's still not really clear to me. I feel much more confident with records that show where my ancestors were than with identifying ethnicity from DNA. Aaron mentioned using family trees as part of the algorithm but didn't address accuracy (or lack thereof) in those trees.

[kathyl]

Thanks for reaching out to Ancestry about this update. I did not realize Ancestry used family trees as much as they do for the Journeys and Regions. Good to know.

[lonniekay]

So this explains how I suddenly show dna from the Netherlands and Germanic Europe? I can’t trace my genealogy to either. Some of my relatives show this same result change. I like the previous updates more than this latest one.

[oneofthemelons]

I missed your poll. My DNA estimates have gotten a great deal more accurate over the years. This latest update had a little change and is the most accurate. In general, the communities/journeys have been more helpful to me than the general ethnic breakdowns.

[mattpotter]

For anyone who is thinking their Ethnicity Estimates are wrong or have moved in the wrong direction, like some of mine have, go and look at the ranges because using these might mean that they haven't moved at all.

[veegeebrew]

I don't have a problem with this update. I am glad to see they have separated France to it's own DNA region. Before half of the country was including in the England DNA region. My DNA now balances out to what I know of my family ancestry.

[joelwolski]

Connie, you rock. I so much appreciate you going through the extra effort to respond to viewers comments in this way.
And I must confess, I'm one of those commentors to the previous video who unfortunately put my negative comment before my positive one.

[mattpotter]

Hi Connie, amazing the you got to someone from Ancestry working at the coalface of what's being developed at Ancestry. I have a number of comments so i hope that's ok.

1. Firstly, when you mentioned about your Danish grandmother and that your estimate has gone down quite a bit to 9%. I've had something similar happen to my Irish estimate, which at first i was disappointed at, but then i looked closer and if you take into account the range and not just the value given front and centre it could be the same, i personally think for me it's being underestimated, which brings me into my second point.

2. I think using user trees, whilst it could be helpful is a mistake (unless it's only used for refinement, so fit example 90% DNA matches and actually known locations of you and maybe your parents - if this is being done then fine, but it didn't sound like the to me from this interview).

3. I was thinking you were going to answer the question i thought you were going to ask when you started talking about family DNA kits and using them in combination which was not what you asked, although it would be cool to try and rebuild your grandma's DNA from matches (i don't think Ancestry will ever do this, not released to the public anyway), but refining your matches, especially distant ones based on having a parent or grandparent test after you've been tested. I am pretty sure this isn't being done and if you can get both your parents tested, maybe even a grandparent as well, it should remove some of the guesswork into clarifying which segment of DNA came from which parent. This i think would incentivise sales of more DNA kits.

3. Your guest, and to a certain extent you as well, talked about how far back some it the regions you are said to have come from and the Anglo Saxons and Vikings came up, which I am sure is true, but as far as I'm aware the reference groups used are based on people and their grandparents living in quite a small area in that region and so the oldest person alive today will only be able to verify back to around the early 1800s at best, parents of them could have come from other areas/regions so surely unless DNA segments are unidentified from reference groups they wouldn't go this far back. I have often wondered what happens if the same segment appears in 2 different reference groups, maybe then you try and use member trees (I hope this makes sense).

4. This isn't a huge thing, but I'd like to have kept the weird estimate in what is now called Origins because too many people already believe this to be an accurate reading whereas it's a range (as i mentioned before).

5. I'm not sure I like Journeys as a name either because whilst I can understand why they weren't with this nomenclature some of the areas these identify, which I love, are from direct ancestors journey to where my parents and grandparents came from, others are from cousins and distant cousins and where they migrated to. I also don't think it makes it very clear the distinctions between Origins and Journey because from what I previously said some of the "journey" regions are actually "origin" regions.

6. Lastly, and this has never been explained to me, but why are both of these different to the communities on the Matches By Parent page (not completely, but there are some extra ones on there that I would have expected to see on either Origins or Journeys. I wonder how many people this happens for, did this happen for you? When you get the chance to talk to someone from Ancestry could you query this and why it's the case.

Apologies for such a long message. Great video again, keep up the amazing work you do. Love from the UK!!!

[Scdudley]

Connie, Thanks for the interview and Ancestry's explanation of the new DNA results. I didn't realize that Ancestry used the family trees also to determine the ethnic regions.

[siobhan]

Great interview which provided great insight into the new update. So the new results represents our recent heritage! That makes sense.

[MrKenRury]

Thank you for this interview, which really helped clear up some of the dramatic changes I saw. So rather than be disappointed that I am less Scandinavian I can herald the fact that tree more accurately reflects a more recent period that I might see in my tree and not that my much older ancestors may well be Scandinavian based on migration patterns, but not on the period reflects by Ancestry.

This is what I got out of this interview. Ancestry updated their ethnicities recently to be called regions which I like, and they have dramatically increased the number of regions. They have also made journeys more granular. On the other hand, I found that some or the regions matched less what I found in my trees based on well documented sources. Today we hear from the Senior Genetics on how it works and what to expect. He says regions are based on where your DNA snippets were clustered 500 -1000 years ago.

If you are multi-race and the other race was introduced in 1850 the origins doesn't indicate where that person lived at the time or when they immigrated to the U.S., but 500-1000 years ago or 1000 CE - 1500 CE, rather than 400 CE.

Prior to these changes people with ancestors from SE England often showed up with Scandinavian origins, which was a more distant past for that DNA. So many saw their Scandinavian reduced and other regions increased.

Ancestry is able to use the largest set of trees and DNA to map out these regions.

Your DNA inheritance is random with roughly 50% from each parent, so your siblings may show a considerable difference even though the DNA shows you share the same parents.

Ancestry has a comparison tool so I can see my siblings and mom or distant relatives side by side. So, your origins might be more fully described by the combination of your siblings origins rather than thinking of them in isolation. My ancestors are not more Scottish than my siblings as they are the same ancestors.

Journeys rely more on a community of trees in combination with DNA. For example, African Americans can now see the migration of their ancestors down to the county level in the 1850s.

Thrulines is not impacted by these changes, which cuts off matches at 8 cm due to false positives.

[djones]

Excellent job Connie. Great guest. I learned a lot.

[juliehenthorne]

Excellent interview. As someone with ancestry in the Netherlands, it was nice to see most of my Scandinavian ancestry changed and matches the names in my tree. Certainly, that can't be easy considering how closely those groups lived.

[MikeDial]

Thanks to Ancestry for their focus on family historians and to you for having this interview.

[glendastaples]

Thank you for this new information and explanations.

[advancedloiterer]

Thank you for the interview. It still doesn't change my opinion about the inaccuracy of my last origins update. I think it was because I live in the Oceania region and not in USA. From the region/journey details included in the last update, our region was sadly missing any advancement. I was surprised that "journeys" are based on 50-300 years re our ancestral movements. I only have one journey, and from DNA matching it is totally insignificant of my ancestors' movements. Being an Aussie, you can imagine that my ancestors moved quite dramatically in a 50-300 year time-frame, which wasn't reflected at all in the last update that I was given. Oh well, in the past five years, I have learnt to adjust my focus onto the research of the actual DNA matches and ignore the "origins", "journeys" and "traits" features. Re accuracy by testing more of your immediate family. I come from a small immediate family. I only have one uncle (who was adopted into my family) and one half-aunt, and 2 half-cousins; thankfully one of them tested last year. Many of us don't come from either large families or have family members that are willing to DNA test. So, ancestry won't be able to rely on all family units having large DNA coverage. Re a chromosome browser, I wouldn't mind if it was just a table with chromosome segment details in it. They should think about including this segment detailed table in Pro-Home Tools for "the more serious researchers"; wasn't that the phrase he used? I would love to see a table included in the drop-down menu re DNA segment summary on a match's screen. Then those who don't want to use it, won't be bothered by it's appearance. You don't need a chromosome browser for every match, just the segment details. I'm sure that Jonny Perl would fix his chromosome painter to include a copy/paste function for a table from ancestry, then you can gain build your own chromosome browser. Overall, it was an interesting interview and thank you for arranging it, Connie.

[sraalvarado]

Love when you geek out... things that your are thinking about that have not even crossed my mine. Great interview... Sra. A

[alvree]

For me I think it would be a game changer if they develop the ability to divide cousin matches by grandparents. I have some brick walls especially concerning my paternal grandparents that I think it would help. They are from the same small community in KY and base on some confusing cousin matches on that side I am wondering if my grandparents are distantly related.

[sandyr]

Connie: thank you for doing the DNA poll and then following that up with an Ancestry representative. I disagree with DNA results being twisted into our ancestors journeys. With Anestry database of about 25B tests need to be based on the actual DNA of the person paying for their DNA test.

[carokat]

Thank you so much Connie. I understand it much better now.