Explore your Central European Autosomal DNA - Euro DNA 2.0

The paper resolved 5 fundamental and ancient types of European ancestry - Southeastern European (Armenian, Jewish, Greek, some Italians), Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese), Basque, Continental European (German, Irish, English, Polish, some French and Italian, and North Eastern European (Finnish)). Many ethnogeographic populations show interesting mixes as a function of their history and geography.

In collaboration with the Shriver lab, which published the Bauchet et al., 2007 paper, DNA Worldwide partners mined the chip marker used to create the Bauchet et al., 2007 paper, looking for the SNPs that provided most of the European Ancestry Information.

We found that 1,349 of the 11,071 chips SNPs, provided most of the within-Europe ancestry information.

Figure 1.  Results from DNA Worldwides' laboratory which studied the same 12 European populations as Bauchet et al., 2007, but using only 1,349 specially selected SNPs from Bauchet's set of 11,071 SNPs.  Results were obtained using the STRUCTURE program.  Bars represent individuals and the color mix of each bar represents the proportions of each of 5 possible ancestry in this analysis.  Black lines separate sample sets derived from different regions of Europe as indicated in the legend below.  Providing results that are similar to those obtained using all 11,071 SNPs in Bauchet et al., 2007, this marker set was chosen to constitute the EuroDNA 2.0 marker panel.

EuroDNA 2.0 measures each of these 1,349 European Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) for each customer, and using a Bayesian algorithm, reports a customer's proportional Southeastern European, Iberian, Basque, Continental European and Northeastern European ancestry.

EuroDNA 2.0 is by far the most advanced genetic ancestry test yet to be offered to the public. It has taken us 4 years in the field, since the introduction of EuroDNA 1.0, to produce a product of this power and quality.

Because EuroDNA 2.0 is based on published, peer-reviewed work, and because appropriate marker types and numbers are used, customers for EuroDNA 2.0 have access to valuable precision data from validation experiments. Competing tests for European ancestry, based on work that is not published, cannot provide this important data.

EuroDNA 2.0 focuses on Continental European sub-ancestry, whereas EuroDNA 1.0 is used for both European and Eurasian sub-ancestry. Thus, EuroDNA 2.0 is for customers who expect little or no Asian or other non-European ancestry.

The idea to develop EuroDNA 2.0 was based on customer feedback. DNA Worldwide learned that many of its are genealogists with European ancestry who desire more detailed and recent information than that provided with its EuroDNA 1.0 product.  

Who Can Take the Test?

The Euro-DNA 2.0  test is only available to participants whose AncestryByDNA test results reveal greater than 50% for European ancestry, less than 15% for African ancestry, less than 40% for East Asian ancestry, and less than 15% for Native American ancestry.

If someone believes that they have >50% European ancestry and have not yet been tested using the AncestryByDNA product, then they can purchase the Euro-DNA 2.0.

How to Use Euro DNA 2.0

Since EuroDNA 2.0 assumes a continental population model, it is useful only for individuals who are primarily continental European.  How might a person know this?   EuroDNA 2.0 is the latest release of a continuum of other products that are useful for making this type of decision.  A customer without any knowledge of their ancestry might take these tests in a logical order, such as:

1. Take the AncestryBydna 2.5 test and learn that they are primarily European, with little sub-Saharan African, East Asian or Native American admixture.
2. Then take the EuroDNA 1.0 test and learn that most of their grandparents were likely to be of continental European origin.
3. And then, take the new EuroDNA 2.0 test to learn from where in Europe these ancestors derived.

Step 2 may be considered optional for most customers - some customers might skip this step based on a written genealogical record, or some other evidence. However step 1) is generally required - since we need to make sure the results we disseminate meet basic quality control criteria (that is, we would not want to test an East Asian, Native American or African individual with EuroDNA 2.0.  Since the 2.0 test assumes primarily continental European ancestry - the semantic meaning of the results would be lost, and a proper interpretation of the results would be very difficult, and meaningful only in terms of genetic distance and shared ancestry rather than derived ancestry).

EuroDNA 2.0 can be used as a second opinion for EuroDNA 1.0 results

Since the power and resolution with which we can infer genetic ancestry is proportional to the number of populations and markers studied, the Bauchet paper provided us an opportunity to develop a more advanced test for those who desire to pinpoint their European ancestry with more precision and resolution.  For example, a typical EuroDNA 1.0 customer may have obtained results of equally mixed NOR1 and NOR2 ancestry.  Both types are found throughout Europe, and the ratios differ from population to population but not by a lot, so this customer most likely would only be able to conclude that their European ancestry was predominantly Continental European, as opposed to Southeastern European, Middle Eastern or South Asian.  However, with the enhanced resolution and power of EuroDNA 2.0, this customer would likely be able to pinpoint their ancestry with more precision.  EuroDNA 1.0 and 2.0 use different sets of genetic markers.  Since EuroDNA 2.0 is designed for a more detailed look at sub-European ancestry, it uses many more markers (1,349 versus 333 for EuroDNA 1.0).

EuroDNA 2.0 Accuracy and Precision

Since our AIMs(Ancestry Informative Markers) are not linked to one another, we can easily create simulated samples in a computer, and measure the mathematical error encountered in assessing admixture with EuroDNA 2.0 by comparing the results for these simulated samples with their expected results. Inspection of the results from simulated 100% Continental European (CE), for instance, shows that the average simulated 100% CE sample registers with about 91.3% CE ancestry and about 2.5% NEE error, 1.5% IB error, 2.0% BA error and 2.8% SEE error (total error = 8.7%)

Individual Results

For primarily European individuals (no significant African, East Asian or Native American admixture), sub-European ancestry mix can be determined by typing the individual with the 1,349 EuroDNA 2.0 markers and comparison to the reference European "parental" samples. This comparison enables us to determine an individual's percentage of "Southeastern European", "Iberian", "Basque", "Continental European" and "Northeastern European" ancestry and infer from where the individual's European ancestors most likely derived. For example, a person with half "red" ("Southeastern European") and half "light blue" ("Iberian"), with no "green", "dark blue" or "brown" ancestry would most likely be someone of mixed European ancestry, with ancestors who were from or contributed to Armenian, Jewish, Greek and/or other Southeastern European populations (e.g. - Italy) as well as ancestors who were from or contributed to the Spanish population. Such a person would most likely be of mixed Armenian, Jewish, Greek and/or Spanish heritage and less likely to be of German, English, Irish, French, Polish or Finnish heritage.