Video: My mom's DNA results

This video is from a YouTuber and he's sharing 23andMe results with his mom.

This site has some criticisms of 23andMe. You may wish to read that first before reading the rest of this post.

I didn't watch the entire video but I don't know how you can have 1.6 percent Italian ancestry. My gut reaction is to balk at such a claim.

Early forms of genetic testing which began in the 1950s involved counting the number of chromosomes per cell.

That's super recent and our ability to do the kind of testing 23andMe does is even more recent. I have absolutely no doubt that it's feasible to code up what genes you have. I have substantial doubts that we can confidently assert "That means you are 1.6 percent Italian."

Because that requires information we don't really have. We don't have genetic profiles going back 150+ years that can be traced to your Italian ancestors.

7-8 generations

If you have 1.6% Italian DNA, it is estimated that your ancestor with this ethnicity entered the family tree approximately 7-8 generations ago. This means that the DNA associated with this ethnicity could be traced back to a great-great-great-great-great grandparent or earlier.

I would guestimate that's around 150 years. But it will depend on how old people were when they gave birth to your ancestors.

My impression was 23andMe used to say more confidently "X percentage of DNA will come from your Grandpa." And now they have like a range listed.

So either the science is still rapidly evolving or they are covering their butts and establishing plausible deniability for not really having the data necessary to decide what ethnicity your ancestors were.

Regardless of which scenario is true, they both mean 23andMe can't really tell you what they claim they can.

I don't know enough about ANY of this, but my White passing family talked about stuff and you may have some means to check if the tribe intermarried with Europeans around that time.

I'm still trying to learn. But I don't trust 23andMe data and I think you should see if there's any means to verify any of it via family tree, tribal history records, etc.

I don't think 23andMe really has adequate data to say the stuff they say. Especially about Native Americans.

Additionally, my understanding is Native Americans crossed a land bridge from Asia. So I would wonder if "Mongolian" is really Native American and can be traced to Asia.

I've never done 23andMe. I don't know what their reports look like.

IF 23andMe is providing people with the genetic information -- the list of alleles they have -- and Native Americans want to develop a database, I would start crowd sourcing the reports and pairing it with things like family trees to try to sort this out.

Currently, 23andMe is probably scamming Native Americans because it makes them money and they expect you to be too stupid to figure out how ridiculous their claims are.

Footnote

Some math:

100/2 = 50

50/2 = 25

25/2 = 12.5

12.5/2 = 6.25

6.25/2 = 3.125

3.125/2 = 1.5625

That's 6 iterations and they are probably rounding up to 1.6 percent and it assumes exactly one Italian ancestor.

Meanwhile, they say stuff like "Your grandfather can be French and it can result in anywhere from one percent French DNA to 50 percent."

I don't understand that. At best, that sounds like they got sued by someone outing Mom's illicit affair and they began adding padding to their figures to make it easier to say "Genetics! Who understands this stuff! NO, we aren't calling your mom a HO! We would never do that!"

But you cannot have it both ways. EITHER we can confidently say six generations back, one of them was Italian, OR we have no idea how much French DNA you inherited from the grandfather who probably bounced you on his knee.