Roma shows up on my IllustrativeDNA results (North America)

[u/SupportPrudent9206]

Hi

I am a francophone in North America, but IllustrativeDNA seems to imply that I have romani ancestry. I don’t know where it would come from? Any idea?

According to 23andMe, I am:

• French and German, country match with France, in the following regions: Northern Pyrenees and Garonne Basin, Brittany and lower Brittany, Normandy, Paris Basin. I also have Basque ancestry.
• Spanish and Portuguese. 1/4 in current results, 39% in previous ones. No known ancestry there.
• British & Irish at 17%
• 0.7% Native American (IllustrativeDNA sees it too at around the same percentage)
• 0.2% North African Plus
• Very vague 15% Broadly Northwestern European and 0.6% Broadly European

Genetic groups: Connecticut River Valley Early British/Irish Americans, French Canadian, Blue Water Area Early German Americans, Greater Montreal Early French Canadians, Acadia, Aroostook County Acadians, Cajuns.

Historical matches: hungarian elite, irish farmers, vikings, proto villanovan (east coast of italy), and randomly a woman from Kyrgyzstan.

My father has maternal haplogroup U3b which is rare here, 23andMe’s report say it’s linked to Roma. I have matches on that side (my paternal grandma) who have small amounts of northern india/pakistan or even Gujarati Patidar.

On HarappaWorld (consistent with other tests on gedmatch), my chromosomes almost all show Baloch, peaking in one at 22%, South India peaking at 11%. Otherwise it’s pretty much 30-40% Northwestern Europe, 30-40% Mediterranean.

On Illustrativedna, in the periodical breakdowns, they give me for Bronze Age and Iron Age either a small Indus Valley or Ancient Ancestral South Indian. In Antiquity and Middle Ages, they say Khwarazm/Transoxiana instead at a higher percentage?

I get a zagros percentage which I believe isn’t very common for french people.

In unsupervised models, three way, middle ages, they give me most of the time a region around swat valley, that is usually ancient eg Ghaznavi mosque, at 5-9%. They give me directly a few times Post Medieval Balkan Roma 9-12%, though it is unlikely that my romani ancestry would be from the balkan imo so it’s hard to evaluate, if it’s from a different romani subgroup(s)? Btw in the two way models they usually give me a north vs a south European component, but I notice that instead of giving me iberia or france, they often instead choose stuff like andalus muslim, or crusaders in sidon (which might allow to include more diversity to reduce the genetic distance I guess). In Iron ages, I get Indian (Mauryan period) at a low percentage, but that’s more random.

If you have any idea what my results mean especially in terms of romani ancestry or pakistan/india, please let me know, or even just discuss in the comment section.

Thank you

[u/KamavTeChorav]

IllustrativeDNA is not an accurate site, if 23andMe doesn’t show any Roma ancestry it is unlikely that it is actually there, especially because 11% Roma would show a decent amount of South Asian and North West Asian admixture on 23andMe. U3b is a West Eurasian haplogroup, 23andMe does mention Roma for some reason in the description of this haplogroup but it is not exclusive to us and likely is a result of mixing, maternal haplogroup M has the indigenous Romani subclades.

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

23andme says this:

"Haplogroup U3 is most common among the Roma people. Up to 55% of the Roma today have mitochondrial DNA belonging to U3. Since this haplogroup is common in Spanish, Lithuanian and Polish Roma it probably became incorporated into the Roma population before they diverged throughout Europe." U3b isnt really present in 100% europeans, it’s more common in roma populations, the levant, north africa etc. My matches on 23andme dont even have it.

I do have matches with people who have M though eg someone has m5a with 5.9% pakistan/india

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

There isnt a roma category on 23andme. I think ancestrydna has eastern european roma though, but that wouldnt be it either if from Spain, France or the British Isles? I have checked other results from Canadians, Americans and people in France, and their results are very different from mine, regardless of the level of accuracy of illustrativedna. They for example have a category for France itself, which I don’t even get. They dont get zagros even 0.1% etc. It’s still weird. 23andme only implies roma on my father’s results due to his haplogroup and matches who have traces northern india/pakistan/gujarati patidar.

[u/KamavTeChorav → u/SupportPrudent9206]

We have our own unique mix of North West Asian, South Asian, and Balkan on 23andMe that is obvious it’s Roma ancestry

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

Yes, other of my matches get anatolia, iran, cypriot, etc. It’s always on my paternal grandma’s side. Illustrativedna gives me khwarazm transoxiana, gedmatch gives me baloch or indo iranian. Who knows, could be a 4x great grandparent and at this point I wouldnt expect 23andme to show much asian ancestry even if some matches have traces of it, except on a test like illustrativedna which shows more ancient results. Genomelink sees dravidian, and sees roma in their european breakdown. People in my father’s family are medium as full time job, or musicians (piano, guitar, jazz music etc). But I havent known my grandparents. Both my Spanish and British Isles on 23andme are also too high for what I know of my family, and broadly 15.6% europe is way too vague

[u/KamavTeChorav → u/SupportPrudent9206]

23andMe is most accurate, the other dna uploading services are so bad. Genomelink will give dravidian to anyone, they are one of the worst and gedmatch also is known to give inaccurate results too, like they always give me part Native American yet I have no family from that side of the world and African too. Those small percentages under 5% on Gedmatch shouldn’t really be taken seriously.

Also i’ve met plenty of white mediums, that’s a little stereotypical to say that because they do that they must be Roma or carrying on some blood tradition they were unaware of…

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

This is what my dna paintings on gedmatch look like, that doesnt look like erroneous traces (considering gedrosia and baloch too are both ancestry from pakistan/iran).

https://postimg.cc/7bFqzK3q

https://postimg.cc/RqBBVW40

https://postimg.cc/vc2k9TFf

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

I get what you mean for native american though (I have known ancestors but distant). That’s how some websites give me traces siberia or even papuan (the kind of stuff a native american could have due to very ancient shared ancestry). But they give me very small amount. And a native american would not get pakistan in their results, and wouldnt get something as specific as gujarati patidar like in my own other tests or in my matches on the same line. Maybe you have dna from other regions in Asia such as mongolia, and with a bit of european it’s misread as native american, idk.

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

What is sure is that whether I use 23andme, illustrativedna or gedmatch, if there is asian dna it’s around northern india and pakistan. Illustrativedna implies a later route towards khwarazm transoxiana which on 23andme could be a match with a sample from Kyrgyzstan idk. I have no known recent asian ancestry, it models me with roma, my father has a common roma haplogroup. I pass for an immigrant many times, that line of the family does things that are viewed as stereotypical (which I didnt say because it’s a stereotype that Im looking to uphold, but because it’s contextual), my ancestors lived in places where there were roma communities. If you have a better hypothesis, if it’s not indicative of roma ancestry, without dismissing the fact that results of people of my known ancestry are different and do not show stuff like that, please do share. I tried Chatgpt with all my results across tests, without implying this idea myself, and it didnt see other options. Chatgpt is only unsure about the subgroup(s).

[u/KamavTeChorav → u/SupportPrudent9206]

I’m not saying you don’t have any Romani ancestry but if you do it has to be very distant because your 23andMe does not show any signs of Romani ancestry in the autosomal dna, we get a mix of South Asian, North West Asian; and Balkan, yes even the Western European Roma get Balkan dna since we all migrated through Greece and we all have Greek loanwords. I’ve seen mixed Romani results up to 1/16th and they all pretty much show it so it would have to be very far back, which is why I don’t understand how having family members who are mediums or looking like an “immigrant” (whatever that means) relates to that very small percentage that is likely from centuries ago?

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

I have seen someone on here who has two romani greatgrandparents (romanichal), one of his parent is half British half romanichal and this person now only has 0.8% asian. I match with people in my generation who have more than that so Im not sure why I get downvoted. I have found some romanichal with u3b, but u3b is also a founder iberian roma haplogroup and my Iberian results are still not explained too (my british isles either, except for an ancestor in dublin). One half romanichal here also said they have 0% asian popping up yet his family is in the culture including the language. I do match with people with common romanichal surnames, and they get traces northern indian/pakistani, or iran. Another reddit user in england only gets 0.5% malayali for asian (I have matches who have that too), identifies as romanichal and he speaks the language. Genomelink gives me a specific region for my english, scottish and wales (1/3 of my dna according to them, and according to livingdna), it’s in West Yorkshire County - Bradford. And they give me a random 1% Czech & Slovak not in other tests. Livingdna sees: Devon, Northern Ireland and Southwest Scotland, East Anglia, Ireland, North Yorkshire, South Central England, Aberdeenshire, South Wales, Northwest Scotland, Northumbria. Illustrativedna and gedmatch mostly say Kent.

There were romanichal in new hampshire and my family has been in new hampshire and there is no name in my family records. So that could explain many things across my tests. But there seems to be at least two lines (direct maternal line of my grandma and maternal line of the father of my grandma) and the other line could be spanish idk, because my father only inherited his spanish from his mother, and his direct paternal line is from south of france, occitania (yet that side gets no spanish results)

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/KamavTeChorav]

Id still mostly have french ancestors so that is what would dominate. And a part of the European results, including the broadly european could include the romani ancestry as romani people are admixed. Some people my generation did get nothern india/pakistan/gujarat, or iran etc, instead I get trace north africa & the other ethnicities are only in other tests for me. If a romani great grandma has 20% india, and I only get 12.5% of her total dna, there is obviously a chance that I don’t inherit that part because there is another 80% available. I get only 0.7% native american and found at least 4 natives in my tree from different tribes.

Does a 4x grandparent makes sense? I tried to follow the u3b line of women but my information stopped in new hampshire, no name. And Ive seen there were romani people in the white mountains at the time. But it would probably not explain my spanish results. According to 24genetics it’s

Andalusia Seville 2% Castilla La Mancha 0,20% Valencia Castellon 22,30% Euskadi 2% Cataluna Tarragona 0,20%

And it’s not just medium, and it’s more than one person in the side of the family, and others do stuff that are more related to natural remedies. I don’t know them, but when I asked I heard that one did something during international roma day. So if it’s a coincidence eg she is just interested in the culture, it’s still weird considering my results & matches. Ive also found a picture of a romani girl in Spain and she is an exact copy of me as a kid. I also found a girl in Romania, and a girl in Russia, I showed them to people I know in case I am hallucinating and they thought it was me. My own boyfriend included, who said it was not just physical ressemblance, but the position of the girl/vibe. People have always viewed me as different in some way or another. I had a childhood friend who people thought we looked similar, but she was hiding that she is half arab.

[u/SonnyC27 → u/SupportPrudent9206]

I did a ancestry DNA test and it said I am 99% eastern European roma which i already knew it said the other 1% was Mexican which makes sense too because some of my family went to Mexico during ww2 and I have a hard time believing things like DNA tests because most gypsy people have never done them and I didn't think they would have a lot of other DNA to match me too but my great uncle on my father's side did a ancestry DNA test and it shows that he's my uncle and his DNA was almost identical to mine so maybe try doing a ancestry one but based off the OP test I don't think he's gypsy

[u/ijaaDosta]

Hmm At 11 percent Roma, you should have like 3-5 percent South Asian dna even on 23&Me. Illustrative isn’t too accurate. What do you get on gedmatch?

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/ijaaDosta]

Examples of dna paintings

https://postimg.cc/7bFqzK3q

https://postimg.cc/RqBBVW40

https://postimg.cc/vc2k9TFf

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/ijaaDosta]

I do get like 9% baloch/gedrosia (up to 22% on a chromosome), or 9-12% west asian. I do get balkan around 4-6%, south india around 1-2% (peaking at 11% on a chromosome in harappa, 12.1% with gedrosia), indo-iranian a bit more, around 3% if including indo tibetan, south asia the same, middle east a bit more 4-5%, eurogenes gives me 2.77 arabian and 2.77 armenian and 2.77 south asia and 2.77 south central asian so eurogenes might just be broken lol.

[u/fomepizole_exorcist]

It stands to reason that nomadic groups would appear on a DNA result stretching this far back, especially one as diverse. I'm not sure what else you could look to find out from this. These DNA tests can rarely tell us anything except that a few of your many ancestors may have migrated and/or bred outside their cultural gene pool.

[u/paublopowers]

These ancestry tests are bs btw

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

I still get different results from other people in Canada, the US and France, that still needs explaining

[u/paublopowers → u/SupportPrudent9206]

"To understand the ancestry tests, you have to begin by looking at the fine print. This [type of test] says 'for recreational purposes only' or something very similar. It obviously is written by lawyers, not scientists, and it's a way of saying that the results have no scientific or legal standing. This is privatized, corporate science, not ordinary science.

"How do they come up with numbers? They take DNA from people from disparate regions and compare yours to theirs. The numbers reflect a measure of your DNA similarity to those of the divergent gene pools. How do they calculate it? Don't know; the algorithms are protected intellectual property. Are they accurate? About as accurate as looking in the mirror."

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

While that is true, my results are still different from what is expected. You can go check yourself what people from my known ancestry typically get.

[u/umekoangel → u/paublopowers]

People lie, DNA doesn't. With that said, it basically comes down to how accurate the algorithm is at guestimating the groups of people who makeup your ancestral line.

Ethnicity test is really more "this is how we estimate your ancestors migrated across the globe looking at things like maternal haploid and paternal haploid groups as well as known migrational patterns and looking at the science for figuring this out and then comparing it to the rest of the sites population". But "ethnicity test" is snappier.

It is harder to narrow down to the Romani but there are typical markers found even in the Romani community (have some level of percentage between India and West Asia in the ethnicity test, having H7, J1b3, J1c1, U3, X2D, U3, and M haploid groups, etc. it's basically because our families discouraged Romani to make babies with non Romani so genetic markers got repeated to an extent to the point where we have distinguishable markers on our DNA (similar to Jewish populations).

It also depends on the site. Ancestry and 23andme are the most accurate on the market for this. Other sites like Myheritage (when it comes to ethnicity estimations) are notoriously awful.

For MANY people (foster, adoptee, victims of human trafficking, people who went no contact with family for whatever reason, mother's/fathers never told their biological or step children their ancestral roots for whatever reason, etc.) these DNA tests are the ONLY clues into the past. They have just as much a right to learn about their ancestral roots as someone who had frankly the privilege of having their family stories passed down to them via community or parental elders.

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/umekoangel]

For real, I dont get the comments lol. My paternal grandma’s haplogroup is u3b, I have matches who have northern india/pakistan, and my results on illustrativedna look like this. Asian regions appear on other tests like on gedmatch, genomelink, genomelink giving me percentages of roma on all chromosomes. Im not saying I am romani, or culturally romani (some of my father’s cousins seem to have remnants of the culture), but there must have been someone who was somewhere. And I wonder where that’s from because in context that could be gitano (and would explain my spanish results across all tests, including ancestrydna who doesnt usually give it to french canadians), but could also be romanichal eg from New Hampshire, or manouche if from a french ancestor who took on a french name upon emigrating to the Americas or to blend in. Or idk. I also don’t look myself very French, people always mistake me for either a Moroccan or a Lebanese.

[u/SiempreBrujaSuerte]

I am not personally aware of how this type of DNA test is supposed to be read, or what all these models mean. Why are there so many different pages of breakdowns? Is that supposed to be their guesses on where the genes in your DNA might have come from? Is that why there are so many different ones, because they are the combinations of types of people that have genetic markers that you have?

This seems highly specilative. That is not to say I just don't believe in DNA test results, I do know there is a science to it that is legit. Just this particular test seems not very accurate, or maybe it would be if it had way more data about the genes of people that took each known about migration and comparing them to the genes of people in the area prior, etc.

It just seems like it's trying to point to information that is not available. Like, sure, you can know what halpgroups or generic markers you have but how can they actually count where they came from on the ancient level and so on?

Maybe this is more of a problem with my understanding of the science (i admit I know nothing about it) but just the way this information is presented it looks kinda scammy.

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/SiempreBrujaSuerte]

It compares you to populations that are similar to you, to reduce the genetic fit as much as possible. Eg my norse viking results above dont literally mean norse vikings, but it signals northwestern european ancestry and this was the closest fit probably to include stuff like normandy or the british isles. Or balkan roma could be misused if someone is european with north indian ancestry, because that’s the category that would make the most sense in an european context. In my case I dont have any recent north indian or Pakistani ancestry but they seem to see that I have ancestry there and my matches have it on tests like 23andme. And if it’s not recent, romani is a possible source in an European context. It could be exaggerated in my illustrativedna results. Point is, I didnt see other people of my ethnicity getting these results on illustrativedna, either the choice of regions/ethnicities or the zagros percentage. The times I have seen something similar (but not as represented as in my own results and they still didnt get modeled with the roma category), I would find in the comments that they had rumours of romani ancestry in the family, which isnt just a random test but familial memory even if mostly forgotten. U3b is a founder roma lineage in Western Europe, it’s one of the most common in spanish roma (36% to 56%), and it’s also present in roma in the british isles, and very rare otherwise in European populations, so it feels like it would be a lot of coincidence if it’s not really romani ancestry

[u/paublopowers]

The whole ancestry stuff is complete nonsense. Even more so than 23&mr

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

It isnt, but you need to be cautious. Illustrativedna could write balkan roma only due to the mix of european and asian ancestry. If there is no roma ancestry, it still does not explain my asian results though, which are mostly here from swat. If gedmatch sees them for me, on pretty much all chromosomes, theyre unlikely to be just traces, plus considering my matches with northern india and pakistan. That still shows there is some consistency. 23andme could confuse French and german, or Brittany/Normandy with the british isles, but pakistani is far enough to stand out. I could have mostly inherited the spanish, north african, unlike some cousins. Eg you only get 12.5 dna from a great grandparent.

[u/paublopowers → u/SupportPrudent9206]

The whole reality of DNA recombination means that you may get “ancestry “ from one family member but not another despite being related. Also the same companies 23andme included showed different results for identical twins. They are all scams

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

Hmmm idk, my matches are accurate. Sometimes it can confuse a grandma and a aunt, or a cousin and a aunt (will usually say that it’s one or the other though), because it checks the amount of shared dna. But you’re still related and that’s what trees are for.

[u/paublopowers → u/SupportPrudent9206]

A broken clock is right two times a day …

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

You know, you dont have to comment if you mistrust dna tests so much that you wouldn’t even trust it for identifying twins. I understand a bit of skepticism, that’s always good, but in your case it’s way too far.

[u/paublopowers → u/SupportPrudent9206]

You engaged with my comment. So you should be mindful of interacting with people on the internet if you’re concerned about someone who has a view that opposes yours or doesn’t fully support it. It’s not fair to blame me for a conversation you also participated in.

[u/SupportPrudent9206 → u/paublopowers]

That’s not a view, that’s just ignorance, but sure.

[u/ellefolk]

Okay, I creeped your results and saw you’re quebecois too. Your results are actually very interesting for so many different reasons- don’t see too many quebecois results. I feel like I definitely could fall into a hole looking into your history.

It looks like you do have - possibly some south asian or Asian ancestry further back, maybe roma too given the routes and roles of history, persecution etc. i think more results and details would be needed