It was just shy of four months ago that AncestryDNA® added new communities (you can read that article HERE), and on Monday, some of you just might have had a few more. AncestryDNA gave us fifty-three new communities to potentially learn more about where our ancestors came from and why.
Communities are about where your ancestors came from and the people they may have come in contact with. So the system looks at your DNA and at that of a DNA match and compares your tree and the tree of your matches and the tree of others that you may have in common and draws conclusions. You can read more HERE. It’s about artificial intelligence and science, so to me, the accuracy of your research and your own tree is essential.
AncestryDNA has added fifty-three new communities in four areas. Those areas are; Balkans, Mediterranean, Western Asia, and East Africa. Below you’ll see the before and after the updates so you can see what’s been added in each of the areas.
Mediterranean
Twenty eight new communities added to the Mediterranean region at AncestryDNA
Balkans
In the Balkans, where there were no communities before, there are now ten. That would be so exciting.
Western Asia
For the Western Asia region, there are fourteen new communities. That’s a huge increase over the one that was only available previously.
East Africa
East Africa now has one community where there was nothing before.
It’s great news for anyone that had these areas but especially if you had no communities before. Even just one new one would be so interesting. So be sure to check your AncestryDNA results, and if you haven’t taken a DNA test yet, you might consider doing so because who doesn’t want to know more about yourself?
I don’t have any of these new communities, so I can’t give you specific details about what you’ll learn. So I’m hoping you can tell me if you have any. I’m looking forward to learning what you might have found out.
Have you seen the newest rollout on the matches page that asks if you recognize the match? If so, does it belong on you maternal or paternal side (there is also an option for both sides) & you can also mark exactly what relationship the match is to you. This is not the same as actually placing the match on your tree as this only labels the match as maternal/paternal & the relationship you choose. However, I am seeing some complaints from those who have it saying that not all possible relationships are listed & the ones that are available to choose from also do not account for pedigree collapse or endogamy which would make a match have a higher cM level than expected for the relationship. I’m hopeful that Ancestry will adjust this as time goes on but it seems like it could be another helpful tool for sorting matches, especially for less experienced users who may not be familiar with other methods such as clustering or Leeds color coding.
I’ve heard that this is available but I don’t actually have it. I’m not sure if they are just testing it or slowly rolling this feature out.