Middle Eastern on Ancestry Ethnicity

[jpb]

I am an American of German, Irish, English and Scottish descent. On Ancestry, I got 2% Middle Eastern. I was wondering where this comes from?

My Results are:
51% Europe West
24% Ireland
7% Scandinavian
5% Great Britain
6% Europe East
4% Italy/Greece
2% Middle East
<1% Iberian Peninsula

Any ideas?

[MatAust21]

You shouldn't take the results literally. Such small percentages probably don't mean anything.

Your results suggest northwestern European ancestry, from places such as Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, etc.

[lilac9]

I would take it seriously. Check the gedmatch calculators. If anything at 2% its probably something quite old. Could be related to the Greek/Italian score.

[Baltimore1937]

Maybe one of your Crusade ancestors brought back a sweetheart from the Levant. Well, it's just a guess. I mean, American GIs brought back such souvenirs from around the world.

[jpb]

Interesting. Do you guys think that this is indicative of real ancestry, or is it just a statistical fluke?

[dp]

I think it used to be called Caucasus.
an aunt (on the new chip [at Ancestry.DNA]) has 1%.

 West Asia 1%

    Trace Regions 

1%
Middle East 1%

A cousin (on the older chip) has:

 West Asia < 1%

    Trace Regions 

    < 1%
    Caucasus < 1%

dp :-)

[jpb]

Thank you dp
However, I believe Caucasus is a different category, as a relative gets both Caucasus and Middle East.

[dp]

Thank you dp
However, I believe Caucasus is a different category, as a relative gets both Caucasus and Middle East.

Yea, I just compared the graphics and noticed Middle East includes the Sinai and Caucasus doesn't :-)

@lilac9 may be on to something.
Here are the trace regions, for my aunt [at Ancestry.DNA].

Iberian Peninsula 4%
Italy/Greece 4%
Ireland 4%
Europe East < 1%
Scandinavia < 1% 

Middle East 1%

7% Scandinavian
5% Great Britain
6% Europe East
4% Italy/Greece
2% Middle East
<1% Iberian Peninsula

dp

[Kurd]

Interesting. Do you guys think that this is indicative of real ancestry, or is it just a statistical fluke?

It is real, if anything companies like Ancestry or 23andMe greatly underestimate minor components by breaking up genomes into segments (23andMe does this and I believe Ancestry may do something like this). So if someone has ME ancestry, unless the majority of the segment matches their ME reference, it is not assigned ME. So by doing this, they are in fact zeroing older smaller segments of ME ancestry, thus the underestimation of minor components.

For ex Powell's aunt using ADMIXTURE clusters with or close to W Asians, yet here he mentions she was only assigned 1% W Asian. ADMIXTURE, unlike Ancestry or 23andMe does not zero out small segments of distant ancestry.

So I would say one of your relatives' maybe not so distant relatives has contributed ME ancestry to you.

[Pegasusphm1]

You just have some ancestry related to the Mediterranean Sea.. Very common with Italians and Greeks to have ME. It can go way back