This post has been sitting around for a while, waiting for an opportune time to be published. Given the recent news about 23andMe's decision to go Chapter 11 on us and seek someone to buy the company, now seems as good a time as any.
I'm inclined not to join the delete-my-data panic. It's concerning, but Ancestry.com changed hands back in 2020 without such fanfare. I'm not convinced that deleting our data is going to help anything. But it's worth being aware of.
In the meantime....
23andMe has updated my ancestry composition analysis. AncestryDNA does that periodically, but this is the first from 23andMe in a while—and it includes a surprise.
You have to take DNA ancestry results with a bit of a grain of salt, as is evident when you see the results change with each update. As more data become available, as the algorithms are refined, as the population areas are adjusted, the analysis changes somewhat. I'm okay with that; I never take what they tell me as gospel-accurate. Results also differ between services, as they each have their own data and their own algorithms to analyze that data. That said, the general pattern of my results remains the same: I'm about as Northern European as you can get, and most of that is from England and northern Ireland/southern Scotland. Here's 23andMe's latest estimate:
There are actually two surprises
According to their estimates, I actually have a stronger connection to the category, "Mayflower Descendants" than Porter does—and he has one proven Mayflower line and two more that are highly likely. I know of only one probable line for myself, and that is most difficult to prove. (Advancement in genetic genealogy seems to be my best hope for that. Mid-state New Yorkers were not nearly as good at keeping records as the New Englanders were.) Given that there are now some 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers, I don't give much credence to my supposed stronger connection.
The second surprise is hidden under the category "French & German—Muota Valley." For the first time, the results show significant numbers from that region; what's more, this is the Muota Valley! (Click to enlarge.)
In my research, I had seen hints of some Swiss ancestry on my mother's side, but nothing that I can prove, so finding a connection to the place where our overseas family now resides was cool. As I said, you have to hold genealogical DNA results somewhat lightly—but I'll happily embrace the fun stuff when I can!
