Results that don't match

I am in shock...

I just got my Living DNA results and they simply don't match a thing I know about my own family tree or anything I have received from my other DNA result done through Ancestry.

My Ancestry, I know, is mainly from the UK - my mother's side is primarily English and Welsh; my fathers primarily English and Scottish, with a dose of Jewish (from Holland, Germany and what is now the Czech Republic).

My Ancestry results mirror this. They currently give me 66% Great Britain, 18% Scandinavia (probably from Norman invaders?) and 9% European Jewish. With some low confidence regions of Ireland (in my father's ancestry), Eastern Europe (the Jewish portion), Italy/Greece and Finland (who knows!)

Ancestry also gives me two 'Genetic Communities' - English in the West Midlands/Welsh & English West Midlanders (my mother's side) and Scots in Central Scotland & Ulster Ireland (my Father's side).

So I tested with Living DNA because of their UK speciality as I wanted to know in more definition where my ancestry would come from within the UK.

My results are simply so confusing I can't understand how they could be mine.

According to Living DNA, I am:
29.6% Near East
21.9% African
15.8% East Asian
15.5% European
11.5% South Asian and
4.4% Central Asian.

Apparently, there is not a drop of British DNA in me!

To add to this, apparently my motherline is completely Asian... from mostly Tibet.

Other than the fact I was actually born in a South Asia country (Bangladesh), I have no knowledge of any blood beyond the UK in me. My skin is so pale, people's response to my birthplace is usually shock. (plus my father was born in Australia to Australian parents, and my mother was born in Wales to an Englishman and a Welshwoman).

So what should I do? Should I ask Living DNA if there is a possibility they have given me someone else's results?
Do I just think that they're that far out? (which considering their reputation, seems a little unlikely.)

What would your response have been to the results that I got?

 

I guess I would be contacting them. Since you already have DNA results which support what you know about your family history, ask them how these could be so different. If they cannot come up with any sensible explanation, then you will probably need to ask if a mix-up is possible.

 

As an update - I sent Living DNA a query in regards to my results, I will be awaiting what they say, hopefully by tomorrow morning.

 

jorghes, I would suggest you have been sent someone else's results. The offer of a free re test (if it cannot be resolved) should be forthcoming.

 

I would hope so! No response to my query as of yet. Perhaps they're investigating?

That's a good question. I would have queried these results with or without my previous DNA results simply because the person it's describing would someone of a very different ethnicity to me.

If it was closer, I'm not sure. I suppose it would have depended where it had focused. If it had told me I was from parts of England that don't already appear on my tree, perhaps I would have. I am such a mix, that I hope it would be obvious that it wasn't my results.
But then I was hoping it could clarify a few dimmer spots by pinpointing my English and Welsh ancestry, since, for example, I'm fairly sure one ancestor (currently the top of my paternal line) moved to Portsmouth for work, but I don't know where from, although I'm thinking southern England (probably Sussex or Kent). And I have a "Williams" in the family, but I'm not sure if they were Welsh, or more English imports!

 

Update:
Unfortunately received a "we had too many queries so we didn't get to yours before business hours shut" email from LivingDNA - which I'm sure I queried the results on my Thursday, which means they must have queries coming out of their ears. I now have to wait for Monday UK time (Monday night/Tuesday Australian time) to receive a response from them in regards to my results. (depending of course on their remaining number of queries)

 

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Makes you go off weekends! But I wonder if their initial reply might be a stock response anyway, quoting from their FAQ on the subject, and only after that will it get individual attention.

 

...oooh. Excuse me while I mentally unclench my hands.

I got a message which was along the lines of: Obviously we've found a piece of your ancestry that you didn't know about it (after all we look back 10 generations - perhaps you need to have another discussion with your family?), and they're different from other companies because we use a different algorithm, here's a link to a webpage that should explain how you get your DNA from your ancestors, and somehow my mtDNA comes from a group which is predominantly from Asia, but then it could be elsewhere...

They did also repeat themselves several times.

I'm now going to have to dig in my tree (to where I did get it past 10 generations) and attempt to compose a second email, this time with a bit more proof perhaps. Not sure they'll listen to me the second time, considering the response I got this time around.

Surely my DNA results can't be THAT different, regardless of their differing algorithms.

 

Jorghes, perhaps you HAVE found that THEIR algorithm is wrong! That wouldn't please Peter and a few other thousand customers.

I can understand their reaction if you only had a single analysis of your DNA but with another one matching your research it doesn't smell good.

Perhaps you need to ask for proof that you have been given the correct results.

This does need to be followed up as if you do have the results from someone else then they probably have yours as their ONLY analysis and will believe it to be true. The real trouble is that even if you had another test completed with them, they could send back the original results and you would be none the wiser. It sounds as if they wouldn't agree to pay for a third test to be conducted by another company especially if it confirmed results against what they have sent you.

Perhaps the only way to resolve this would be to submit a new sample from you as being from a friend/relative at another address and then compare the results. Unfortunately, this would not be a cheap option for you. Maybe it is worth asking your local Consumer's Association if they have done such an evaluation test and then offering yourself as a guinea pig with half of the cost already paid? [Provided that no other Forum member says that such a comparison could be invalid.]

 

It does seem like the initial reply is essentially a stock response. The trouble is, as struck me when I first read them, these FAQ, while being technically valid, also seem to preclude querying your results.

A paper trail, however competently researched, can only ever be as good as the knowledge - or honesty - of our forebears. Any of us could find legitimate surprises in our DNA, and that makes it very difficult to question surprising results.

However, as Bryman says, you have paper trail supported by a previous DNA test. I am no DNA expert, but surely it cannot be possible for a valid DNA test to indicate a wholly different ethnicity from that found by another?

Maybe this is what you need to focus on in getting them to take this seriously.

 

If some poor soul does have my DNA results, and I have theirs - they're possibly going to be in a state of confusion. Other than a small fraction of European blood, I am most not likely going to have the same sort of spread of ethnicity that the person whose results I have!

It doesn't please me either! I don't want to "take down" what should be a brilliant company, especially since the reason I tested with them was that they specialise (or intend to) in the British Isles!

I am definitely adding your point about proof into my mental composition of my email back to them, which is a little bit angry at the moment, which is why I have yet to send it. I need to be more reasonable than incensed!

Stock responses are slightly frustrating all the same. I probably would have been ok with it if I was the uninformed customer they probably get a lot of. Though I do agree, they do have a our way or highway type of approach, which when you're dealing with DNA newbies, probably works.

Very true about the paper trail, but considering I know of only one illegitimate ancestor - my maternal great-great grandfather (which was only discovered after his death), and that I know his mother, who worked in the collieries, lived and died in pretty much the same area of Staffordshire (see previous discussion about her and her 14 children in Genelogical Queries), then the chances that all of my foreign DNA are from that single spot are a little slim.
I have plumbed the relationship discussions as much as I can, especially since I have only one grandparent remaining (the others died before I was 13), but I have also accessed almost limitless research completed by various members of my extended tree which I have then gone back and checked. Nothing at this point in time is pointing at any kind of anomalies. - and for this DNA test to match, my tree would almost have to be a complete fabrication.

My question is yours - how can one DNA test say one thing, and the other something almost a complete 180 - I expected small differences, I can see those when looking at how two providers interpret the same set of results (I uploaded my Ancestry results to Family Tree DNA, and they both give me slightly different findings based on the same results, but they're within the same ball park.)
Similar when I run my results through GEDmatch's ethnicity results, but usually I'm doing that to see if my idea that my Jewish roots could have been Ashkenazi could be true (which is still up in the air).

I suppose the kicker could be that I have also tested the rest of my immediate family - it's very interesting to see the small variations, which includes both my brothers and my parents. Although none of them are really going to agree to get theirs tested again, they only did it the first time after I pestered them.

 

Yes, I agree, but I was thinking that, rather than viewing your tree as an indication that something is amiss with your results, LivingDNA might simply dismiss your research on the basis that your DNA (according to them) says otherwise.

 

You are right, provided that the rest of your family also tested with Living DNA. There would be no need for them to retest.

If there are only small variations between you all then your results are probably correct. If your results are significantly different then you have a strong case for having the wrong results. Regardless of what your 'paper' research indicates.

 

Being very new to DNA testing for genealogy, I'm not very well up on what can and cannot be done. But as well as comparing the results with those from other family members, is it possible to compare the raw data from an Ancestry test with that from the same person's LivingDNA test? The FAQ at LivingDNA seem to indicate that they do now give you access to your raw data which I understand initially they didn't.

Might this be a way forward?

 

Well, I have now emailed back to the person who replied to my initial query and have attempted to explain how much of a 180 these results are for me. I offered them access to my tree if they need it for "proof" that I might have the wrong results.

Hopefully they don't disregard it, because that is just irritating and doesn't reflect particularly well on them as a company. I also made a point of mentioning previous research, discussions with family members and research of other members of my extended family (which I have been particularly blessed with).

Unfortunately that's the kicker. I had them all test with Ancestry before I knew about LivingDNA, but it is most interesting even just to see how Ancestry gives me and my brothers slightly different combinations of the same theme.

Well, I definitely know there's no chance of me being "swopped at birth", DNA results aside - I was the only white baby in the hospital when I was born, so there was no need to even give me an identification bracelet. But on Ancestry, all of our results tailor in, with the typical slight variation, and our DNA results even confirm that my parents are my parents... shock horror. But I kind of doubt that LivingDNA will want another company's results as "proof".

That might be... good idea - I didn't add it into my latest email, but I'll keep it in mind, simply because their differing "algorithm", might make them unable to compare.

Although, I suppose if it's possible, I could upload my latest results to GEDmatch and see if they match with my Ancestry results that way? (though I'm not sure if GEDMatch takes LivingDNA results at this point in time).

 

I couldn't find anything about it on GEDmatch (I'm not a member yet) but the FAQ at LivingDNA suggest you can upload your raw data to GEDmatch.

Presumably you would have to upload the LivingDNA data under a different identity (if that's allowed), and then see if you get a match with yourself - if that makes sense!

 

If it did allow me to upload the data from LivingDNA, I could simply do a one to one comparison with both sets of data.

Or compare it to the DNA of both of my parents...

 

Being new to all this, I wasn't sure what was possible at GEDmatch. But I would guess either of the above comparisons would indicate if the two sets of raw data could have come from the same person or not.