23andMe Expands Ancestry Composition - Adds 120 Regions

23andMe is in the process of making improvements to their Ancestry Composition report. The new update will be seen by customers of 23andMe in the coming months. They are adding 120 new regions to the existing Ancestry Composition report – for a total of more than 150 populations across the globe.

Traditionally, 23andMe’s Ancestry Composition Report compared customer’s data to 31 different populations. This allowed 23andMe to report the percentage of DNA that came from those regions. Doing so helped connect individuals to their ancestry back 500 years before the advent of modern migration.

23andMe explains the change this way:

“With this new update, we still make those estimates but add another layer of insights with clues to the location of much more recent ancestors. We can do this by looking for exact DNA matches between a customer and over 130,000 individuals of known ancestry from 120 regions across the globe.”

“If a person exactly matches with five or more individuals from one of those specific regions, that region is assigned as a “recent ancestor location.” We also report the “strength” of the match, which is determined by how much DNA a customer shares with people from that region, adjusted by how many people are in the reference population.”

In addition to increasing the number of regions, the update includes improvements to the map, and the experience of panning and zooming into the geographic regions you are linked to through your DNA. Some populations have been relabeled for accuracy and better understanding. The example 23andMe gives is that Yakut has been relabeled as Siberian.

List of Regions and Countries included in this Ancestry Composition Update:

Afghanistan, Albania, Egypt, American Samoa, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Austria, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Banglades, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Cambodia

Cameroon, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Algeria, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Georgia,

Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guam, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran – Islamic Republic of, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea – Democratic People’s Republic of, Korea – Republic of, Tunisia,

Kyrgyzstan, Lao – People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Yemen, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia – Republic of, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldovia – Republic of, Mongolia, Montenegro, Jordan, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands

Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, Kuwait, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia

Spain. Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan – Province of China, Thailand, Tonga, Libya, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Bahrain

Related Articles at FamilyTree.com:

* 23andMe Improves Their Ancestry Composition Feature

* 23andMe Improved Their Paternal Haplogroup Report

* 23andMe Updated Their Maternal Haplogroup Report