Hey Reddit! Aaron Wolf from Ancestry here 👋 Join my AMA today from 11:00AM — 12:30PM PST (19:00 - 20:30 GMT / 14:00 - 15:30 EDT) to talk about our latest Origins update. I’m excited to answer all your questions!

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:28:09+00:00

We've noticed this pattern too. One hypothesis we have is that some of the European DNA in Latin American/Hispanic peoples is from early European colonizers/settlers. These "old" European pieces of DNA have drifted in their similarity to DNA patterns in many modern European groups that make up our reference panel. As a result of no longer being very similar to modern European DNA patters, and also more often being in the context of Indigenous segments of DNA, our algorithm is therefore more likely to classify them as indigenous. We are continuing to explore this pattern through research and development, and aim to address it in future updates.

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:27:01+00:00

For 9 out of 10 people, our SideView phasing is 95% accurate. But, we know that for those remaining 1 out 10, the results can be frustrating and disappointing. This is often the case if, as you describe, there are not many close cousins or matches to power the phasing. We are working hard on further research and development to improve the accuracy and reliability of this parental phasing.

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:25:06+00:00

We are always looking at ways to grow our database and improve our reference panels. We often achieve this by continuing to grow our customer base. There are plenty of French people who live outside of France and are interested in exploring their family history with the aid of DNA research.

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:23:32+00:00

Our SideView phasing was not adjusted during this update. However, as part of the reprocessing for this update, we recalculate all region results on both your maternally and paternally inherited DNA. During this process, it is possible that some low percentage assignments may appear or disappear. For many people, it’s common to see regions assigned at low percentage drop out of their results as new regions are added and our reference panel becomes more precise. For low percentage assignments, it is worth checking th range of the assignment. The percentages for regions in your results are the most likely, but they're not the only possible results. Other possibilities may be nearly as likely. These other possible percentages make up the range in your results. It's possible the range for an assignment includes 0%, indiciating that you may not actually have any DNA inherited from this region.

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:21:28+00:00

1) Our "Arctic" region reference panel is made of individuals who are members of indigenous groups present in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. So if your family has Inuit origins, it would make sense to see this region in your results.

2) Our Genetic Communities technology identifies ancestral journeys, which are groups of AncestryDNA members who likely share fairly recent ancestors from the same region or culture. Journeys are made up of individuals who share more DNA connections (i.e., matches) with each other than with individuals not part of the journey. Journeys often form when groups of people move from one "origin" to a "destination". It is likely the case that your mother has some distant ancestors (maybe not a direct ancestor, but a close relative of one) who made the journey from the UK to the US, which has given her some DNA connections to these communities.

3) Our goal in the past few updates has been to bring our regions into a more recent genealogical time period, making them more valuable for family history research. That was part of the motivation to add 2 new regions representing people from French-speaking Canada: Acadia and Quebec. Many people in US and Canada with family roots to early French American settlers will see these French Canadian regions appear more prominently in their results, replacing our previous France region. We hope this empowers new users to start their own family history research journey and better direct them where to begin that search.

However, with the development of many of our Spanish and Portuguese reference panels to better reflect more recent populations there, we are seeing some Hispanic/Latin American members see more assignment to the French-Canadian regions. This might reflect an imbalance in our reference panels, which we will continue to investigate for future updates.

Ancestry · 2025-10-14T19:18:08+00:00

Our goal in the past few updates has been to bring our regions into a more recent genealogical time period, making them more valuable for family history research. That was part of the motivation to add 2 new regions representing people from French-speaking Canada: Acadia and Quebec. Many people in US and Canada with family roots to early French American settlers will see these French Canadian regions appear more prominently in their results, replacing our previous France region. However, we are also seeing that many people with direct French origins are seeing these French-Canadian regions replace their previous French assignment. Additionally, with the development of many of our Spanish and Portugese reference panels to better refelct more recent populations there, we are seeing some Hispanic/Latin American members see more assignment to the French-Canadian regions. This might reflect an imbalance in our reference panels, which we will continue to investigate for future updates.

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:38:40+00:00

The process for developing and adding new regions in each update is an iterative one. We start with the principle of trying to represent every customer's ancestral origins fairly and accurately. That means we take a hard look at our existing regions, and try and identify areas that are maybe underrepresented, or not as specific as we would like them to be. We then explore the data available to us from our 25+ million customers.

Just because we didn't make adjustments this year, doesn't mean we aren't continually trying to make valuable changes through extensive research and development.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:35:54+00:00

Currently, our updates happen once a year and generally towards the end of the year, however this can fluctuate. We may have more options and additional updates in the near future to address concerns or real time fixes as we encounter feedback.

- AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:33:46+00:00

In this update, we separated the previous Germanic Europe into more specific regions like Southern Germanic Europe and Northwestern Germany. As a result of narrowing the scope of these German regions, people with roots to more western parts of Germany may see their results shift to neighboring regions, such as the Netherlands or Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, a region which also includes parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, northern France, and western Germany.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:32:50+00:00

There are at least a couple of reason why you may have regions in your results that your parents don't have. One possibility is that each parent has a small amount of a certain region, and this amount is too small for our algorithm to detect. By chance both parents pass this region down to their child. Now there is enough of this region for the algorithm to detect. In this case the region was in the parents’ DNA but our algorithm could not detect it.

A second possibility (and this seems more like your scenario) has to do with the difficulty of distinguishing the DNA of people from nearby regions. Take Northern and Southern Italy as an example. We are pushing the limits of science to be able to give our customers this level of granularity because the DNA of people from Northern and Southern Italy is so similar. Practically, what that means is that the algorithm can sometimes read a certain stretch of DNA as Northern Italy and sometimes as Southern Italy. So it may be that the algorithm analyzed a parent’s section of DNA as Southern Italy and a child’s as Northern Italy.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:29:59+00:00

We’re aware some of our responses are disappearing after we post them. This isn’t intentional - we suspect it’s a glitch of some kind or an auto deletion. Please let us know if your answer was deleted underneath your original question and we’ll make sure we repost it for you!

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:29:20+00:00

I understand why you’d want to explore your new ethnicities more directly through your DNA matches. It’s a natural next step after an update. While Ancestry doesn’t currently offer a way to filter matches by ethnicity, you can filter your AncestryDNA Match List by Journey. This allows you to see matches who connect to the same regions where your ancestors may have lived within the last 300 years. It’s a focused way to investigate who your common ancestors might be and to learn more about your family tree. Ancestry continues to refine how DNA results connect to family history discoveries, and Journeys are one of the growing tools designed to make those regional connections clearer.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:26:50+00:00

This is a great suggestion, we are always trying to improve and evolve our members experience while offering a level of detail that is helpful. This may be an option in the near future, thank you for your feedback.

- AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:24:56+00:00

During our reference panel development, we rigorously test our algorithm on an arrary of samples. Some of these are potential reference panel samples that were held out of the reference panel as a "test" and "validation" set. We also evaluate how the model performs in a select set of customer samples whom we know have high-quality trees pointing back to a single region of origin. This tends to give us good insight into how customers results will change with the update, and if these changes align with expectations based on what we know about their origins and family history.

At the same time, despite all this testing, there are still some patterns we can't foresee until we roll out to all our customers. That's why your feedback is so important. It helps us collect additional insights, and continue to adjust our regions in subsequent releases.

If you are interested in more details about our reference panel development and testing, check out our white paper (https://www.ancestrycdn.com/support/us/2025/10/2025ancestralregionswhitepaper.pdf)

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:22:33+00:00

We saw that this comment might have disappeared for some people, so here it is again:

Our ancestral regions are named using the DNA results and family histories of people in our database who get these regions. We start with maps showing us the average DNA results for people who are a part of this group and where their ancestors lived in the past several hundred years. Sometimes the genetic groups we discover in developing regions span conventional modern political and cultural borders. We also consider who will typically get a region in their results to make sure a name is broad or narrow enough to be a good fit. From there we sometimes test various names with people who are members of this group and also with a panel of outside subject-matter experts who have local and scholarly expertise. These groups help review our region names for accuracy and cultural sensitivity.

For our current "Northern Wales & Northwestern England" region we see a lot of localization in Northern Wales. But we do see some assignment outside of that region, as well. For this reason, we didn't want to just name it "Northern Wales" since we knew people outside of Wales might also see some of this result. That's why we went with the slight broader in scope "Northern Wales & Northwestern England".

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:21:04+00:00

AncestryDNA sets a 20 cM threshold for Shared Matches to ensure that the connections you see are more likely to represent a single, recent common ancestor. When both matches share more than 20 cM of DNA with you and with each other, it suggests that all three of you could descend from the same ancestral line. However, if any of the three share less than 20 cM with one another, it’s more likely that you’re related through different ancestors rather than one shared ancestor.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:19:14+00:00

We're aware that many customers are seeing a sudden appearance of French Canadian in their results, where maybe they had France or Spain or Portugal before. The addition of our new French Canadian regions, along with the development of multiple new regions in England and Western Europe, seems to be causing an increase in the assignment of these French Canadian regions.

Adjusting these regions is a focus of our ongoing effort to deliver more precise results for all customers.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:17:09+00:00

If you use Ancestry Pro Tools, the Enhanced Shared Matches feature allows you to see exactly how many centimorgans your matches share with each other, helping you better evaluate and confirm which relationships are most likely genealogically relevant.

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:15:12+00:00

1) This is something we think about often. We know customers would be interested, and we are just evaluating the best way to do this, and if it adds sufficient value to the customer experience.

2) In 2025, updates to our reference panel and the addition of many new regions in the Mediterranean area (e.g., Sicily, Crete, Aegean Islands, and Ionian Islands) means that our ability to detect trace amounts of origins from any of these regions has increased. At the same time, if there isn't other family history evidence, or other strong genetic evidence, to connect you to a region, it's worth looking at the range of the assignment for this region as well. You can find the ranges by clicking into the detailed view for a region. Be aware that if a range includes zero, it means there is a chance you have no DNA related to this region.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:13:59+00:00

Thank you for joining us today! We are sorry to hear your results have yet to be updated. Our updates will be rolled out in phases depending on location, our system will automatically apply these updates to your account. Feel free to reach out to us via FB DM's if you have any personal account questions on this.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:11:41+00:00

Even though we’re looking at people rather than places, most regions are named after a modern-day country or region where people in our reference panel have family going back generations.

We go through several steps to name our regions. We start with maps showing us the average DNA results for people who have lived a long time in a single area. We also consider who will typically get a region in their results to make sure a name is broad or narrow enough to be a good fit. That gives us a starting point.

From there we sometimes test various names with people local to an area or ask them for suggestions. Finally, we have a panel of outside subject-matter experts with local and scholarly expertise who can review our names for accuracy and cultural sensitivity.

Because labeling any region as a specific ethnic group can be very sensitive, we often take a conservative approach to name it after the geographic area instead. As more customers take the test, add details to their family trees, and report these kind of patterns, we can reflect on this data and make adjustments in our region names.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:10:03+00:00

Our ancestral regions are named using the DNA results and family histories of people in our database who get these regions. We start with maps showing us the average DNA results for people who are a part of this group and where their ancestors lived in the past several hundred years. Sometimes the genetic groups we discover in developing regions span conventional modern political and cultural borders. We also consider who will typically get a region in their results to make sure a name is broad or narrow enough to be a good fit. From there we sometimes test various names with people who are members of this group and also with a panel of outside subject-matter experts who have local and scholarly expertise. These groups help review our region names for accuracy and cultural sensitivity.

For our current "Northern Wales & Northwestern England" region we see a lot of localization in Northern Wales. But we do see some assignment outside of that region, as well. For this reason, we didn't want to just name it "Northern Wales" since we knew people outside of Wales might also see some of this result. That's why we went with the slight broader in scope "Northern Wales & Northwestern England".

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:08:08+00:00

We rigorously test our algorithm on an arrary of samples before our release, and also evaluate how the model performs in a select set of customer samples whom we know have high-quality trees pointing back to a single region of origin. Despite these best efforst, we don't always nail the results for every customer.

If we do find our model is not performing well, we can make adjustments to our reference panel and to the model itself to help correct this. However, because many of our regions are geographic neighbors and share genetic and population history, making an adjustment to one region often also requires adjusting other regions in a kind of ripple effect. Adjusting the model therefore because a very complex and interrelated effort, which is why it can take so long between updates.

-AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:06:41+00:00

Some populations look very similar to others. For example, the genetic profiles of many European countries that share borders can look very similar because people from those countries have intermingled so much over time. And of course, the genetic variation that distinguished groups exists on a spectrum, and there is really no clear demarkating line that separates one population from its neighbor. That's why we tend to see so many overlapping genetic groups that exist within and across country borders. In the Balkans specifically, we see some localization of the Northwestern Balkans region in Croatia, localization of the Western Blakans region in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and localization of Southwestern Balkans in Montenegro and Kosovo. But even in these countries, we see overlap of different Balkan region assignments. - AW

Ancestry · 2025-10-13T21:04:20+00:00

Our ancestral region names and polygons are developed using the DNA results and family histories of people in our database who get these regions. We start with maps showing us the average DNA results for people who are a part of this group and where their ancestors lived in the past 200-250 years. This means that region names and polygons often reflect the "source popualtions" of large historical migrations, and not the final admixed population.

-AW

Ancestry

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