I am back
with the mystery of commercial ancestry tests (while still preparing ancient
Scandinavian samples), but I promise that this is the last time if don’t see amazing
things happening, like FamilyTreeDna correcting
their ideology. I believe it will never happen. Comparing two tests I have had possibility to
check the 23andme's Ancestry Composition and it is after the last
spring’s revision better than what FtDna now can offer. FtDna's results
are so bad for Finns that I can't even make any reasonable review.
Let's look
at some basics. There are three things which have a great impact to the
quality of genetic ancestry analyses, reference sampling, method and authors
understanding about history. Authors
must make compromises regarding reference samples, locations and amount of them
and, what is even harder, they have to own some reasonable opinion about the
timeline which they are looking for the ancestral idea. Are they searching 500 or 5000 years back. The big question is how the
reference pack of each ethnic group can be connected to the desired time
frame.
In the case of Finnish and Scandinavian reference samples 23andme has not managed quite well. My opinion is that in both cases they have found a unique sample set, but not an ancestral one. Any sample set being unique enough can give unambiguous results, but not right ancestry in a desired time frame or in any time frame. In the case of Ancestry Composition version two it is however possible to make some tricks to estimate real relations between national or ethnic groups by calculating all overlapping groupings and comparing three or more national/ethnic groups. It is necessary to use comparison of several ethnic groups to form a big view instead of classifications made straight of reference samples. This is necessary because the original grouping “Finnish” doesn’t mean Finnish in all cases, for example in Sweden, and in the same way “Scandinavian” doesn’t always mean Scandinavian in Finland and Estonia, for example those two cases. I am going to do a test by using Scandinavian, Estonian and Western Finnish samples.
Sample set definitions
Scandinavians are a selected group of Ancestry Composition results from Southern Sweden, excluding Scandia, to Western Bothnia (Västerbotten). They have published genealogical ancestries in their 23andme profiles without known Finnish ancestry.
Estonian group includes all for me now available results, excluding close relatives. There are samples from the north to the southeast and also from the west.
Western Finnish group includes Finns from Finland Proper, Satakunta and Ostrobothnia without genealogically known Swedish ancestry.
In the case of Finnish and Scandinavian reference samples 23andme has not managed quite well. My opinion is that in both cases they have found a unique sample set, but not an ancestral one. Any sample set being unique enough can give unambiguous results, but not right ancestry in a desired time frame or in any time frame. In the case of Ancestry Composition version two it is however possible to make some tricks to estimate real relations between national or ethnic groups by calculating all overlapping groupings and comparing three or more national/ethnic groups. It is necessary to use comparison of several ethnic groups to form a big view instead of classifications made straight of reference samples. This is necessary because the original grouping “Finnish” doesn’t mean Finnish in all cases, for example in Sweden, and in the same way “Scandinavian” doesn’t always mean Scandinavian in Finland and Estonia, for example those two cases. I am going to do a test by using Scandinavian, Estonian and Western Finnish samples.
Sample set definitions
Scandinavians are a selected group of Ancestry Composition results from Southern Sweden, excluding Scandia, to Western Bothnia (Västerbotten). They have published genealogical ancestries in their 23andme profiles without known Finnish ancestry.
Estonian group includes all for me now available results, excluding close relatives. There are samples from the north to the southeast and also from the west.
Western Finnish group includes Finns from Finland Proper, Satakunta and Ostrobothnia without genealogically known Swedish ancestry.
Some basic
statistics first.
Swedish
samples
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly
North-E
|
East
European
|
Broadly
European
|
East
Asian-Natvive Am.
|
|
Average
|
6,66
|
58,96
|
7,03
|
22,81
|
2,21
|
2,54
|
0,06
|
Median
|
7,3
|
55,8
|
6,25
|
22,9
|
1,45
|
1,65
|
0,05
|
Min
|
1,3
|
45,2
|
0,1
|
12,3
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Max
|
9,9
|
75,1
|
16,3
|
38,5
|
7,7
|
9,8
|
0,2
|
Estonian samples
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly
North-E
|
East
European
|
Broadly
European
|
East
Asian-Natvive Am.
|
|
Average
|
21,07
|
4,94
|
0,31
|
8,66
|
60,78
|
3,91
|
0,04
|
Median
|
19,9
|
3,8
|
0,3
|
8,6
|
49,7
|
3,9
|
0
|
Min
|
2,5
|
1,3
|
0
|
2,2
|
42,6
|
1,7
|
0
|
Max
|
43,5
|
10,4
|
0,9
|
16,7
|
90,6
|
5,9
|
0,2
|
Finnish
samples
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly
North-E
|
East
European
|
Broadly
European
|
East
Asian-Natvive Am.
|
|
Average
|
81,18
|
6,11
|
0,78
|
8,53
|
1,89
|
1,26
|
0,03
|
Median
|
81,4
|
5,7
|
0,5
|
8,3
|
1,3
|
0,7
|
0
|
Min
|
60,7
|
4,1
|
0
|
3,3
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Max
|
90,4
|
9,8
|
2,4
|
15,9
|
4,9
|
3,8
|
0,1
|
Estonian
samples look more heterogeneous than Finnish and Swedish samples, but it is
only an illusion caused by the fact that they have not own reference pack. They are split between Finnish and East
European groupings.
Results,
shared ancestry between Swedes, Estonians
and Western Finns.
Numbers are calculated by comparing individuals, not by ethnic averages.
Shared
between Swedes and Finns:
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly North-E
|
East European
|
Broadly European
|
East Asian-Natvive Am.
|
||||||||||
Shared ancestry
|
6,66
|
6,11
|
0,70
|
8,46
|
0,99
|
0,83
|
0,01
|
23,75
|
||||||||
Total shared ancestry between Swedes and Western Finns
is 23,75%
Shared between Estonians and Swedes:
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly North-E
|
East European
|
Broadly European
|
East Asian-Natvive Am.
|
Shared ancestry
|
5,99
|
4,94
|
0,28
|
8,58
|
2,21
|
1,76
|
0,02
|
23,79
|
Total shared ancestry between Swedes and Estonians is
23,79%
Shared between Estonians and Finns:
Finnish
|
Scandinavian
|
British&Irish-French&German
|
Broadly North-E
|
East European
|
Broadly European
|
East Asian-Natvive Am.
|
Shared ancestry
|
21,07
|
3,82
|
0,22
|
6,20
|
1,89
|
1,21
|
0,01
|
34,40
|
Total shared ancestry between Estonians and Western
Finns is 34,40%
Those shared ancestries don't prove that Swedes, Estonians and Finns have just same named ancestors, only that they come from similar European ethnicities to the shared numbers.
There is
only a small difference in the shared ancestry between Estonians and Swedes
compared to the shared ancestry between Swedes and Western Finns, and both
shared ancestries show similar figures for Finnish, Scandinavian and British&Irish-French&German
ancestries. It looks plausible that almost the
whole shared ancestry with Swedes is inherited from a deeper history than
23andme assumes.
