Last month, 23andMe announced improvements to their Ancestry features, and I can now get a more specific breakdown of my Sub-Saharan African ancestry than I was previously able.
With this update, I can see that 83.4% of my DNA is mapping to West African ancestry, with another .7% Central African and 1.4% coming up as non-specific Sub-Saharan African. Thus, my total Sub-Saharan African ancestry is 85.6%. This is a tad bit higher than the 84% shown in my update from February 2013. My European percentage is 12% (mostly Northern European) and my East-Asian/Native American is at 1%.
Nothing remarkable about the new map, but I do certainly appreciate the finer granularity in my Sub-Saharan African DNA. 23andMe has also begun a project to try and have more participants who are from Africa so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that their data will help them refine this even more!
My Chromosome Map is also updated and the same breakdown colors are shown. The refined breakdown may also be of potential help in cousin matches.
I’m glad to see 23andMe continue to work on providing us with more information. The more, the better. 🙂
My Ancestry Painting – African Percentages Updated
Hi,you doing,
Thanks for sharing. I have gone on Facebook over the last month and told as many West African U.S. residents as I could find about 23andme’s African Ancestry Project and only a small handful of folks showed any interest in it. Even if there is a large number of West African folks from as many west African countries that do agree to enrollment in the project,I’m not sure about it since 23andme has been having problems with the FDA along with the lawsuit and recent customers demanding refunds.
Hi Anthony – it will be interesting to see how 23andMe continues to evolve. I would hope that they do more direct marketing in West Africa directly in addition to what they are doing here in the states. I believe they will get through the FDA stuff. I have not done Ancestry DNA because they do not have a chromosome browser. I haven’t been able to get over that just yet as triangulation is so important. 🙂
Triangulation?
Triangulation is the process of finding more than one person who matches you on the same chromosomal segment. See http://randymajors.com/2011/05/how-i-use-family-tree-dna-and-23andme.html for a good explanation. In order to do it, you have to be able to see exactly where and on what chromosome you match with someone else and Ancestry does not allow you to do that. Triangulation can help you narrow down matches to specific branches of your tree.
I see now, thank you. still interested in Ancestry’s African breakdown as long as they are the only ones with one.I hope 23andme do eventually come through with their African Ancestry Project and enough West African folks care to do it.
But have you considered doing Ancestry.com’s Ancestry DNA for their West African breakdown,since they are the only ones currently that have one?