Time for some more Genetic Communities!

[Loderingo]

Now that Ancestry has finally released the updated ethnicity estimate, they really need to think about revisiting Genetic Communities.

They originally had 300-odd Communities which were created based on 750k samples and they now have 10 million people in the database. Not only that but there has been a lot of growth of DNA testing outside the US.

Looking at my father's communities of South Wales and West Midlands, when they first appeared he had about 20-30 matches within these communities. He now has 700-800. So there has got to be room for creating another level of sub-communities. Not only that but it would be great if they could start picking up on some of the industrial revolution internal migrations within the UK.

When I went to a UK genealogy show in April 2017 an Ancestry rep said they expected to have 1,000 communities by the end of the year so they need to pull their finger out!

[Cofgene]

Statistical fabrications that end up with weaker and weaker basis in reality. In order to do communities correctly they need to be digging up the dead. They also need to provide error ranges on these fabrications. You can only go so far with this analysis using a set number of SNPs associated with conditions.

[Nqp15hhu]

The next step in Genetic Communities should be to improve accuracy and detect all Genetic Communities, for example, Americans should be able to pick up historical ancestry in Europe from 1800’s.

And improve probabilities.
(800 is small for Genetic Communities, I have 4404 matches in Ulster and 2300 in my Scottish community.)

[Kathlingram]

The next step in Genetic Communities should be to improve accuracy and detect all Genetic Communities, for example, Americans should be able to pick up historical ancestry in Europe from 1800’s.

And improve probabilities.
(800 is small for Genetic Communities, I have 4404 matches in Ulster and 2300 in my Scottish community.)

I have two Genetic Communities in Donegal and North Wales.. my sister has 3 West Cork is the extra one.. We also have MidAtlantic settlers as my Welsh ancestors were here c 1690-1700 ( and before that..

[MacUalraig]

My GCs are 100% accurate (and no obvious ones missing) but a few of my LDNA regions are dubious to say the least, and not just the 'trace' ones below 5%. We don't want to push the granularity too much...

[Sheridan]

I think the variables used to detect these communities need work before adding more communities. It should be about quality not quantity. That being said, once things are more accurate (they have not been for me) Ancestry should add communities for places such as Russia and for specific groups such as Bosnian Serbs, Rusyns, Tatars, and a host of others which it seems are being placed in either no community or the nearest approximation of one that is distantly related to them..

[Loderingo]

My GCs are 100% accurate (and no obvious ones missing) but a few of my LDNA regions are dubious to say the least, and not just the 'trace' ones below 5%. We don't want to push the granularity too much...

I agree that they need to be careful not to take communities too far but bear in mind that County Donegal currently has more Communities than the whole of the English East Midlands!

I have written to Ancestry UK to ask them for more Communities and will post their reply.

[czl]

Mine are accurate so far, but they’re all in Ireland and that’s it. None for any other of my ancestries! Including Russia where everybody except my gg grandfather was born

[PoxVoldius]

Mine are accurate so far, but they’re all in Ireland and that’s it. None for any other of my ancestries! Including Russia where everybody except my gg grandfather was born

If you start exploring in the "All Regions" screen (should be a link at the bottom of your ethnicity estimate), it shows lists of the genetic communities they have for each region. There's hardly any listed for Russia.

"Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine & Western Russia" under European Jewish, and "Germans from Russia" under European Migrations, appear to be the only ones.

[czl]

Yeah I’ve seen, I’ve scrounged for anything even near there. I looked for Belarus and Russia but all that was there were Jewish regions. I have no known Jewish ancestry from the Baltics or Belarus so Ancestry doesn’t pick any of it up at all. My Jewish ancestry is 1/8 from Russia, but more central so I’m not surprised that the Western Russia region didn’t catch it. And the other Jewish is West Yiddish, so that didn’t get registered either. It seems like gcs are more for colonial Americans to be honest, they have about 150 migrations I believe for them at the moment, if they wanted a Russian region they could’ve already made one.