Your Ancestry Composition Results

At the heart of your Ancestry Composition report is your ancestral breakdown: a list of your population percentages arranged in a hierarchy from the continental level to the regional level. You may notice another layer of insights about the likely origins of more recent ancestors; these specific recent ancestor locations are listed beneath each regional population percentage.

How we calculate your ancestral breakdown

To determine your ancestral breakdown, we use an algorithm that individually looks at short pieces of DNA across your genome. We compare each piece to DNA from reference populations from around the world (i.e. thousands of individuals with known ancestry). When a piece of your DNA resembles the DNA from a specific reference population with a high degree of confidence, it is assigned to that population. Sometimes a piece of DNA resembles reference DNA from several populations, in which case it is assigned to a "broad" ancestry (e.g. Northwestern European). If a piece of DNA does not closely resemble reference DNA from any populations, then that piece of DNA shows up in your results as Unassigned ancestry. These assignments are tallied across your genome to determine your final results. By default, your results are calculated at a 50% confidence level; you can see how your results change with different confidence levels in the Chromosome Painting section.

Read our Ancestry Composition Guide or our white paper for more details about how we assign your DNA to different ancestries.

Current Ancestry Populations

How we determine your recent ancestor locations

Recent ancestor locations (found in your Ancestry Detail reports) are intended to complement your ancestral breakdown and provide a more recent and granular view of your ancestry. To determine these results, we look for identical pieces of DNA that you have in common with individuals of known ancestry from around the world. Reference populations for recent ancestor locations are comprised of over 400,000 customers, and this number will continue to grow as our customer database expands. Each recent ancestor location has its own unique demographic history, so we've calibrated our algorithm to better reflect these differences. For a given recent ancestor location, we indicate our confidence in the result, reported as "possible match," "likely match," or "highly likely match." If we are not able to detect recent ancestry from a location with confidence, we report this to you as "not detected."

The maps on your Ancestry Detail Reports are a visual representation of your recent ancestor locations down to the state and county level. A map is generated by aggregating the ancestral origins of individuals who share a minimum amount of DNA with you. Your results are a living analysis and will improve over time as more people with known ancestry join our gene pool.

Have more questions? Check out the Frequently Asked Questions section.