This is the fifth blog post in the Top Five Things To Do With Your Ancestry DNA series. No matter what your goals are, follow the posts in this series to get the biggest family-history bang from your DNA buck.

Family History is, in a nutshell, about figuring out where you’re from. While there are lots of different ways to interpret the “where” in this sentence, ethnicity is all about the place where your ancestors came from.

By finding people whose DNA is similar to yours, Ancestry uses amazing science to estimate where your ancestors came from, as well as when they were there. Ancestry, and all the big testing sites for that matter, do a great job with these estimates, especially if you’re comfortable with the word “estimate.“

How To See Ethnicity Estimates

1. Click on the “DNA” menu
2. Click on the “DNA Story” submenu

You will then be rewarded with a colorful world map that shows the regions Ancestry estimates that your ancestors came from. Your estimates could range from amazingly precise to frustratingly vague. Regardless, they are always interesting.

While your mileage may vary, my Ancestry estimates show:
A. Very precise estimates for where my Irish Ancestors came from. Amazingly, this precision extends all the way down to specific counties.
B. Frustratingly vague estimates for where my Eastern European ancestors came from.

Now let’s add time to the conversation. In order to see Ancestry’s estimates for when your ancestors, and the people that they shared their communities with, lived in certain regions:

1. Click on the “DNA” menu
2. Click on the “DNA Story” submenu

3. Click on the scroll bar on the side of the window and drag down to get to the lower sections on this page. You can also use cursor key to scroll the window down if you prefer.

4. Keep scrolling past “Ethnicity estimate” and “Ethnicity inheritance” until you get to the “DNA Communities” section.

If you are lucky enough to have DNA that Ancestry recognizes as belonging to one of their DNA Communities, you will see them here. These communities describe groups of people that Ancestry estimates lived in a specific region at certain points in time and frequently migrated to other regions.

You can see that Ancestry shows that I am a member of three of their DNA communities, two of which are in Ireland and one of which is in Ontario, Canada. My research indicates that these estimates are spot on, especially if I’m generous with the word “estimate.” As with all things genealogy, and especially genetic genealogy, your mileage may vary.

Now it’s your turn to explore. Take a look at your ethnicity estimates at Ancestry to see what you can learn about where, and when, your ancestors are from.

If you think this Top 5 Tip will be useful for your family and friends to use, please forward it to them as well.

Let's Make History!

Improve your family history with free tips and tutorials

SUBSCRIBE!

You have Successfully Subscribed!