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I’ve been studying a lot about my DNA and ancestry lately. A Greek’s DNA typically seems to have higher levels of Italian and Middle Eastern ancestry, which were consistent with my 23andMe results, but what about specific ethnicity?
GEDmatch
Since DNA doesn’t necessarily indicate ancestry, I ran a few computer-generated analyses at GEDmatch.com on my own to get more answers.
The ethnicities were very consistent throughout all analyses, but the levels always changed. Depending on the analysis, I showed up anywhere between 77-93% Greek. I threw out the results with the lowest levels of accuracy.
For the rest, I’m all over the map. The most consistently highest levels usually were Mandean (Iraq), North Italian, Assyrian, Iraqi, Romanian, Bedouin, Druze, Kurdish, Lezgin (Dagestan), and Armenian. There were also traces of Samaritan, Iranian, Tuscan, Sicilian, Turkish, Basque, Azeri, Georgian, Ethiopian, Somali, groups from Pakistan (Brahui, Balochi, Kalash, Sindhi, and Burusho), and indigenous groups from Russia (Erzya and Udmurt). There is much more Middle Eastern in there than my original 23andMe results indicated.
Some examples:
Using 4 populations approximation:
1 Greek + Greek + Greek + Greek @ 2.809
2 Assyrian + Greek + Greek + North Italian @ 3.187
3 Greek + Greek + Mandean + North Italian @ 3.225
4 Greek + Greek + Greek + South Italian & Sicilian @ 3.556
5 Assyrian + Greek + Greek + Tuscan @ 3.659
1 Greek 89.91%
2 Iraqi 6.84%
3 Lezgin 1.56%
4 Romanian 1.50%
5 Northwest Russian 0.19%
1 Greek 80.59%
2 Iraqi 6.36%
3 Turkish 4.33%
4 Romanian 3.41%
5 Mandean 3.10%
6 North Italian 1.10%
7 Udmurt 1.10%
1 93.2% Greek + 6.8% Mandean @ 1.71
2 93.6% Greek + 6.4% Kurdish @ 1.74
3 93.5% Greek + 6.5% Iraqi @ 1.77
4 94% Greek + 6% Iranian @ 1.8
5 93% Greek + 7% Assyrian @ 1.81
1 Greek 77.84%
2 Armenian 6.77%
3 Romanian 6.16%
4 Druze 5.88%
5 Bedouin 1.36%
6 French Basque 1.18%
7 Erzya 0.52%
8 Lezgin 0.27%
9 West Russian 0.01%
10 Udmurt 0.01%
1 Greek 78.08%
2 Kurdish 4.70%
3 Lezgin 4.36%
4 Romanian 4.20%
5 Bedouin 4.18%
6 Druze 2.09%
7 Tuscan 1.29%
8 North Italian 1.10%
Different Analysis
An analysis offered by a different website had me at as low as 6% Greek, the majority being Moroccan Jew, with traces of Yemeni Jew, Yemeni, French, German, English, Irish, and Spanish. I had to discard those results because they make absolutely no sense based on my family history.
Dr. Doug
I sent my raw data off to a scientist, Dr. Doug McDonald, a former professor at the University of Illinois. If he gets back to me, he can give me more accurate results of the highest percentages. I also uploaded my raw data to GEDmatch. That will take about 6 weeks. I’m anxiously awaiting all these results.
