S/SC ASIAN Results :: 23andMe

[Azbuzz]

23andMe's SVM algorithm senses some West Eurasian ancestry in my family, but isn't able to consistently classify it one way. My mother gets Coptic Egyptian, I get Levantine, my brother gets Iranian/Caucasian/Mesopotamian.

If it is a small percent, do you think it could be noise? Does it stay at 90 percent confidence?

[Jatt1]

I know; you do have a point. But many people actually are 100 percent South Asian (from the last 500 years). I've seen tons of South Asians on the 23andme subreddit who aren't 100% as well.

You said 23andme guesses your ancestry composition whilst strongly being influenced by the place of birth of your grandparents. For me that's totally not true, since I got 0 percent Pakistani, and all my grandparents were born in Karachi except for one. So in my case that totally wasn't true. Was it that way for you?

I shall email 23andme customer support and ask them about this. I'll see how they respond.

South Asians may have same components but those components vary to a degree from one person to another, we are not all clones of one kind.

23andme have many kits of your community and also from Iran and based on that information they are able to tell better about your ancestry.

[Bbgum]

I know; you do have a point. But many people actually are 100 percent South Asian (from the last 500 years). I've seen tons of South Asians on the 23andme subreddit who aren't 100% as well.

You said 23andme guesses your ancestry composition whilst strongly being influenced by the place of birth of your grandparents. For me that's totally not true, since I got 0 percent Pakistani, and all my grandparents were born in Karachi except for one. So in my case that totally wasn't true. Was it that way for you?

I shall email 23andme customer support and ask them about this. I'll see how they respond.

Now that I think about it, it was pretty accurate for me too. Maybe 500 years is enough time to go back in for breakdowns.. I wonder if the results for fiji indians or indo guyanese would also be accurate

[Azbuzz]

South Asians may have same components but those components vary to a degree from one person to another, we are not all clones of one kind.

23andme have many kits of your community and also from Iran and based on that information they are able to tell better about your ancestry.

All Parsis have origins in India for the past 500 years. For all their grandparents, their birth places would have been Karachi, Gujarat or Mumbai. There was no way for 23andme to know I was Iranian or at least more Iranian than Indian.

[Jatt1]

All Parsis have origins in India for the past 500 years. For all their grandparents, their birth places would have been Karachi, Gujarat or Mumbai. There was no way for 23andme to know I was Iranian or at least more Iranian than Indian.

Really?????

[Azbuzz]

Really?????

Yes, they most likely figured it out by my genetics and not external 'clues' like birthplace, name etc.

I made no mention that I was Parsi, neither did most of my DNA matches, and all their grandparent's birthplaces' were obviously South Asian. 23andme also asks for last names of your ancestors and all Parsis have Indianized last names and not Persian last names.

This is just my opinion anyways.

[Jatt1]

Yes, they most likely figured it out by my genetics and not external 'clues' like birthplace, name etc.

I made no mention that I was Parsi, neither did most of my DNA matches, and all their grandparent's birthplaces' were obviously South Asian. 23andme also asks for last names of your ancestors and all Parsis have Indianized last names and not Persian last names.

This is just my opinion anyways.

I think they lump all southasians together and when they find kits with odd admixtures they make simple minimum adjustments else they will show everyone's' ancestry akin to G25.

[Bbgum]

I don't know if I'm allowed to reference this, but there was someone on reddit recently who is aboriginal and posted their 23andme results, and they had a huge % of south asian despite not having any known relatives (in addition to their melanesian %). Apparently the reference population for melanesians is papuans. Is this common for aboriginal australians to score south asian on it??

[Azbuzz]

I don't know if I'm allowed to reference this, but there was someone on reddit recently who is aboriginal and posted their 23andme results, and they had a huge % of south asian despite not having any known relatives (in addition to their melanesian %). Apparently the reference population for melanesians is papuans. Is this common for aboriginal australians to score south asian on it??

I saw another Aboriginal on 23andme subreddit with very little South Asian.

[Azbuzz]

I think they lump all southasians together and when they find kits with odd admixtures they make simple minimum adjustments else they will show everyone's' ancestry akin to G25.

G25 goes more far back in time than 23andme. Some South Asians with foreign ancestry have really old foreign ancestry and often it's very diluted and hardly affects autosomal results.

Of course I do sorta agree with you. 23andme has obvious limitations and improvements it needs to make. The good thing is they'll keep updating your results and keep getting new samples and this should improve 23andme.