I'm barely even Middle Eastern. WTF?

[onodera]

What was your answer to question 9 on the 2010 census form, GC?

[Giancarlo]

Why does it matter?

Ming said move on. So let's just drop it.

[Al B. Sure!]

So rather than me having a South European ancestor, it's also likely that the same genetic signals exist in both South European and Arab populations and that the test, likely because it has a smaller sample of Arab genes, is assigning them to South European?

[Giancarlo]

Um.. Well I wouldn't much stock into the test. You can't determine ethnic background through DNA testing.

[Al B. Sure!]

Um.. Well I wouldn't much stock into the test. You can't determine ethnic background through DNA testing.

That can't be right. It successfully identified my mother's Eastern European origins. It doesn't make sense to dismiss it entirely. How did it get that right if there isn't some basis for this? It also identified that my father has at least some Middle Eastern ancestry.

It's gotten enough right that there's just no way it's a scam.

Maybe assigning 9.6% to Italian is too granular but there's apparently a big chunk of the genes I inherited from my father which exist in Southern European populations. I'm inclined to think that is more likely than that the whole result is bunk!


I can also set it to a more conservative confidence level (which they describe as 90%).

In this case, my numbers look like this:
European: 55.9%
Middle Eastern: 0.6%
East Asian: 0.1%
Unassigned: 43.4%

And these more confidently identified European genes appear on both chromosomes for 21/22 chromosome pairs; meaning that there's likely European ancestry on both sides of my family.

[Dinner]

Mant of the genes around the med are going to be shared just from ancient times. The divergence didn't start happening until the Islamic conquests and even then there was a fair amount of gene exchange from slaving, wars, and what not. So, yes, some of the southern European genes are probably common in the mideast. The Ottoman Empire enjoyed taking male slaves from Christian areas and raising them as muslims so you probably also get a fair amount of gene flow from that.

[Giancarlo]

Yea thats really the main problem with this type of test. You can't isolate a set of genes to one region.

[Al B. Sure!]

Mant of the genes around the med are going to be shared just from ancient times. The divergence didn't start happening until the Islamic conquests and even then there was a fair amount of gene exchange from slaving, wars, and what not. So, yes, some of the southern European genes are probably common in the mideast. The Ottoman Empire enjoyed taking male slaves from Christian areas and raising them as muslims so you probably also get a fair amount of gene flow from that.

Yea thats really the main problem with this type of test. You can't isolate a set of genes to one region.

So what you're saying is my ancestors could have come from Southern Europe?

I'm really not understanding why I should disbelieve this test.

[ZEE]

That can't be right. It successfully identified my mother's Eastern European origins. It doesn't make sense to dismiss it entirely. How did it get that right if there isn't some basis for this? It also identified that my father has at least some Middle Eastern ancestry.

It's gotten enough right that there's just no way it's a scam.

Maybe assigning 9.6% to Italian is too granular but there's apparently a big chunk of the genes I inherited from my father which exist in Southern European populations. I'm inclined to think that is more likely than that the whole result is bunk!


I can also set it to a more conservative confidence level (which they describe as 90%).

In this case, my numbers look like this:
European: 55.9%
Middle Eastern: 0.6%
East Asian: 0.1%
Unassigned: 43.4%

And these more confidently identified European genes appear on both chromosomes for 21/22 chromosome pairs; meaning that there's likely European ancestry on both sides of my family.

Alby, can you record this poast in Vocaroo and share it with us, for old times sake?

[onodera]

Alby, can you record this poast in Vocaroo and share it with us, for old times sake?

Breferably sboken with a heavy Arabic accent, blease?

[giblets]

Giancarlo is whiter than Alby

[Bereta_Eder]

American rootless agony and nazi stratification never ceases to be both hilarious as well as educational

[Giancarlo]

Giancarlo is whiter than Alby

[Dinner]

American rootless agony and nazi stratification never ceases to be both hilarious as well as educational

Don't get all pissy just because you are half Turkish.

[Bereta_Eder]

Point proven.