DNA Musings no. 25:  AncestryDNA – What’s new 2023?

By Betty Hagberg. AncestryDNA now has 23 million tested people in their database! Although Ancestry’s DNA testers are currently predominantly from the United States, the recent expansion of countries where kits are sold may increase the number of international testers moving forward. Ancestry still has more testers in their database than all the other major DNA testing companies combined. More people in the database increases your chance of finding genetic relatives and making discoveries about your family history.

Ancestry updates your ethnicity estimate once a year aiming to improve the precision of their estimate by increasing their reference panel and by using new scientific techniques to analyze your DNA data. They now have 84 Regions that identify where your ancestors might have lived 500 – 1000 years ago. New Regions have been created in Asia, Africa, and Oceana as well as a more specific breakdown of Indigenous America. They have increased the number of Communities to over 2,000. Communities are smaller, more specific areas that show where your ancestors might have lived in the last 200 years. In general, users have found that Communities match their own knowledge of where their ancestors lived.

Over the last year Ancestry has applied their SideView™ technology to your Ethnicity, Communities, and your DNA match list. SideView™ splits your DNA results by parent allowing you to see which ethnicities and communities you received from each parent. Although they don’t tell you which parent is which, now that they have applied the technology to your DNA match list it is usually easy for you to differentiate your mother from your father.

A new tool under your DNA Story lets you compare your DNA Regions or Communities with up to 10 of your DNA matches.  I have used this tool to compare my results with those of my siblings, giving a more complete view of my parents’ DNA.  Also new is a Chromosome Browser that gives a first look at your ethnicities at the chromosome level.

Finally, family trees are an important resource in identifying your DNA matches.  Ancestry now has over 125 million trees, many attached to DNA.  Take some time to review your DNA Story on Ancestry and see if there are new tools and information that you can use to add to your understanding of your family’s story.