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Has anyone taken another test in addition to Ancestry? Do the results match? I read on Ancestry that there could be more updates as they refine their research. It is going to change again?
It probably will change again, but not for another couple of years, at least. They started offering autosomal tests in 2012 and the first update was in 2014. They had another update in the works in 2016 but they never went through with it for some reason. So it's been 4 years since the last update, but it sounds like they intended to do one every 2 years. Other companies do updates to their ethnicity reports too, and yes, they are offer different from what you see at Ancestry. I keep a spreadsheet of comparison here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...sW3Et4/pubhtml
My original AncestryDNA results were very similar to FTDNA's update (myOrigins 2.0), but most everything else is different, and with Ancestry's update they are now different.
That would be my husband with his dark brown hair and red beard. His Dad had brown hair, as did all his brothers but one red haired sister. They were all clean shaven so I don't know if they had red beards. His Mom and all her brothers and sisters were blondes. Our daughter's is kinda of a strawberry blonde, but looks redder depending on the light and time of year. My family from both sides ranges from light brown to very dark almost black hair. No blondes, or redheads. Would a "sandy" brown could as a blonde? That would be me.
Daughter read that having blue eyes and red hair is the rarest. More redheads have brown eyes? Sorry, if we are getting OT.
Here's an excellent article about the origins of red hair:
It doesn't show up on the top of your head unless you get 2 recessive copies, one from each parent, but a man can have brown hair on his head and a red bread or pubic hair, due to having only one copy of the mutation or a blonde haired female can have red pubic hair, due to having only one copy of the mutation.
The red hair itself is caused by a mutation in what researchers call the MC1R gene. Having two mutated genes gives someone all red hair, but having just one can give a person red hair in unexpected places. In non-Gattaca terms, that means even if a gene that signals brown hair is dominant in your family, another gene for red hair may still be present in your genetic code.
So if you've got a red beard, someone at some point in your family had red hair, but those genes can express themselves differently in different people across different generations. "It’s entirely possible that one distant ancestor had a hair color that suddenly appears again through a certain combination of genes—and that can be quite unexpected for parents,” Haak-Bloem says.
That's interesting because my husband has red in his beard but not on his head.
But it's also not as simple as having red hair or not having red hair on your head. I have dark brown hair, but in the sunlight you can see that it actually has natural red highlights in it. So that would mean I inherited two red copies, one from each parent, for there to be red on my head, right? Yet I am not considered a red head, I have brown hair and most people don't even ever notice the red highlights in my hair. Those matrices we learned in school are an over-simplification. We don't inherit only two SNPs that determine hair color (or eye color, for that matter), we inherit dozens, maybe even hundreds. If I open my Promethease report and search for hair color, I get 25 SNPs, and most of them actually seem to be saying I'm more likely to have light/blonde hair, which of course I don't.
I went through all 25 and from what I can determine:
8 variants associated with light/blonde hair
8 unknown (just said there's an association with hair color but didn't say how)
3 black
2 red
2 brown
2 "darker"
That's interesting because my husband has red in his beard but not on his head.
But it's also not as simple as having red hair or not having red hair on your head. I have dark brown hair, but in the sunlight you can see that it actually has natural red highlights in it. So that would mean I inherited two red copies, one from each parent, for there to be red on my head, right?
Maybe not, maybe you just have one copy of the mutation in the MC1R gene which causes you to have some red/auburn highlights when the sunlight hits it? I've seen numerous dark brown haired people look like they have red highlights in their hair in sunlight, especially during "magic hour" at sunrise and sunset.
Neither of my parents have red hair, but both were carriers of the MC1R gene mutation, so me and both of my sisters had a 1 in 4 chance to become gingers, and all three of us beat the odds and ended up with strawberry blond hair.
My hair was fairly red, when I was younger, but has progressively gotten "browner" as I got older, my beard and eyebrows are still fairly bright red. Hair color is determined by the amount melanin (eumelanin and pheomelanin), you have in your hair, and the ratio of these pigments guides hair color. The exact concentrations of eumelanin and pheomelanin in your hair depend on which genes are turned on or off. Importantly, the expressions of the genes responsible for hair color are not constant throughout your life, these shifts in gene expression give rise to the changes in hair color that some kids experience.
Pheomelanin regulates the redness of your hair, similar to the way eumelanin controls the darkness of your hair. Typically, children with dark hair will keep their dark hair into adulthood. But some children with light hair, strawberry blonds, blonds and redheads, see their hair go dark brown by their 10th birthday. The reason for this change is because the amount of eumelanin in your hair increases as you mature, according to some research. But just why eumelanin production ramps up (or why those specific gene expressions change) is not entirely clear.
Maybe not, maybe you just have one copy of the mutation in the MC1R gene which causes you to have some red/auburn highlights when the sunlight hits it?
It's not as simple as there only being two mutations/variants on the MC1R gene (a variant is the result of a mutation so they basically refer to the same thing in this context). My understanding is that within each gene there are many, many SNPs (hundreds or thousands, I'm not exactly sure) and each SNP has two variants (the result of a mutation) on the allele and depending what variant you get is what determines certain things.
And apparently there's another gene (Gs238) which has 3 SNPs associated with red hair, so it's not just the one gene. That means there's actually 12 SNPs in total, and 24 variants/mutations involved in determining red hair, that science even knows about yet - there might be more we haven't even discovered yet. So it's really not as simple as having only one or two copies of a mutation (variant). It's whether you have one or two copies of the right variants on 12 different SNPs.
Quote:
I've seen numerous dark brown haired people look like they have red highlights in their hair in sunlight, especially during "magic hour" at sunrise and sunset.
It actually shows up best in the middle of the day when the sun is brightest - it shows up in any very bright light, it's just that the sunlight is very bright and people don't really see it in lower light because my hair is too dark.
Quote:
Pheomelanin regulates the redness of your hair, similar to the way eumelanin controls the darkness of your hair. Typically, children with dark hair will keep their dark hair into adulthood. But some children with light hair, strawberry blonds, blonds and redheads, see their hair go dark brown by their 10th birthday. The reason for this change is because the amount of eumelanin in your hair increases as you mature, according to some research. But just why eumelanin production ramps up (or why those specific gene expressions change) is not entirely clear.
Yes, my brother had golden blonde hair until he turned about 5 years old and then it started going darker and he's had dark brown hair like mine for the rest of his life (I don't think he has red highlights though). If you looked at pictures of him before he turned 5, you'd never guess it was him because his hair color is so radically different.
I don't know about this update as things aren't adding up. My mother went from being 84% subsaharan African (roughly), 12% European, and 4% Persian to being 95% subsaharan African and 5% European.
My father went from being 100% subsaharan African to being 99% subsaharan African and 1% European.
I went from being 92% subsaharan African, 6% European, and 2% Persian to being 92% Subsaharan African and 8% European.
How in the world do I have more European ancestry than both my parents combined?? I also question my mother's results (she's a "fair skinned" woman, so her new results just don't match up, though to be fair your DNA makeup may not lineup with your physical appearance).
I don't know about this update as things aren't adding up. My mother went from being 84% subsaharan African (roughly), 12% European, and 4% Persian to being 95% subsaharan African and 5% European.
My father went from being 100% subsaharan African to being 99% subsaharan African and 1% European.
I went from being 92% subsaharan African, 6% European, and 2% Persian to being 92% Subsaharan African and 8% European.
How in the world do I have more European ancestry than both my parents combined?? I also question my mother's results (she's a "fair skinned" woman, so her new results just don't match up, though to be fair your DNA makeup may not lineup with your physical appearance).
If your mom is light skinned I think the 12% european is more accurate, that would mean that one of her great grandparents was european. Of course there could be other permutations but that's the most likely. I have no faith this the new Ancestry estimates, they are way off. My ancestry dna run through gedmatch has far more accurate estimates.
It's not as simple as there only being two mutations/variants on the MC1R gene (a variant is the result of a mutation so they basically refer to the same thing in this context). My understanding is that within each gene there are many, many SNPs (hundreds or thousands, I'm not exactly sure) and each SNP has two variants (the result of a mutation) on the allele and depending what variant you get is what determines certain things.
If you get your entire genome sequenced you will be able to see every mutation you have or don't have. The price for a full genome sequence has come down quite considerably over the last 5 years or so.
If your mom is light skinned I think the 12% european is more accurate, that would mean that one of her great grandparents was european. Of course there could be other permutations but that's the most likely. I have no faith this the new Ancestry estimates, they are way off. My ancestry dna run through gedmatch has far more accurate estimates.
My mom is African American. More probable (and I've found no recent European ancestry via my family tree research) is that my mom's European ancestry came from the pre-Civil War era when many enslaved Africans were taken advantage of by overseers and plantation owners. This is where the bulk of European ancestry among African Americans comes from today . . . and we just have a bunch of racially mixed African Americans reproducing with other racially mixed African Americans; this is why studies have shown that the average African American has between 15-20% European ancestry.
I don't know about this update as things aren't adding up. My mother went from being 84% subsaharan African (roughly), 12% European, and 4% Persian to being 95% subsaharan African and 5% European.
My father went from being 100% subsaharan African to being 99% subsaharan African and 1% European.
I went from being 92% subsaharan African, 6% European, and 2% Persian to being 92% Subsaharan African and 8% European.
How in the world do I have more European ancestry than both my parents combined?? I also question my mother's results (she's a "fair skinned" woman, so her new results just don't match up, though to be fair your DNA makeup may not lineup with your physical appearance).
Check your ranges, there might be overlap. The ranges show the possible range you may fall into, not just the final percentage. For example, I'm 18% Germanic but my dad is 3% Germanic and my Mom has none. But if I look at my range it says 0% - 39% and my Dad's range is 0% - 27%. So they're actually saying I could have no Germanic ancestry at all, or as high as 39%, and my Dad could have no Germanic ancestry at all, or as high as 27%. That means there's actually a 27% overlap in our ranges.
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