23andMe Test Update – November 18, 2020

Here’s the last update for my 23andMe results; earlier update 23andMe Test Update – November 16, 2020. Had I known they were going to replace my v3 chip with the v5 chip results, I would have spent the extra $20 to order a new Health test. I may try to get them to let me have my old results from the v3 chip for comparison as the v5 chip compares so few SNPs with v3 chip sets that people who haven’t upgraded to the v5 chip will see me missing a lot by comparison. I still haven’t decided on upgrading to the 23andMe+ $29 yearly subscription. I went through all the tutorials so I could view the Health and Traits available that are free. I did e-mail 23andMe to see if I could my v3 chip results back. No word on if they will grant it.

For Y-DNA, they changed me from J1-M267 to J1-CTS5368 and for mtDNA C1b2 to C1. For J1-CTS5368, that’s better than M267, but worse than J1-P58 which is a bit down the tree from when I checked it today on the FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA) Y-DNA tree.

In terms of matching, I am restricted to 2,170 relatives at present. They will limit it to no more than 1,500 in the near future. If I subscribe to 23andMe+, it goes up to 5,000 matches.

Here’s the ethnicity estimate before the update and after the update:

Before update:

European 99.1%
Northwestern European 94.7%

British and Irish 44.9%

Greater London, United Kingdom + 9 regions

French and German 35.3%

Southern European 2.3%

Greek and Balkan 0.7%
Italian 0.2%
Broadly Southern European 1.4%

Ashkenazi Jewish 0.1%
Eastern European 0.5%

Broadly European 1.5%

East Asian and Native American 0.8%

Native American 0.8%

v5 chip
European 98.8%

French and German 35.5%

British and Irish 42.8%

Greater London, United Kingdom + 9 regions

Scandinavian 1.9%

Broadly Northwestern European 13.5%

Ashkenazi Jewish 0.1%

Broadly European 1.6%

East Asian and Native American 0.8%

Native American 0.8%
Unassigned 0.4%

As usual, I warn against taking the ethnicity, Health, and Traits results too seriously. With ethnicity, just because I have a lot of British/English in my line, are those ancestors British, Spanish, Italian, Scandinavian, French, or some other ethnic group that moved to England? As another example, with the v3 chip, they looked at 5 SNPs from Europeans in general for BRCA (breast cancer) markers and ignored over 1,000 variants that are known for BRCA. They even admit they know there are over 1,000 variants when I click on the BRCA results. With the v5 chip, they only went with 3 specific genetic markers specifically those with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, down from 5 in the v3 chip. If they plan on warning people about potential markers, how about 23andMe do the responsible thing and test all known markers? Same holds true for most other markers they check for. In my case, I know they got things wrong as they are relying on percentages on the Traits to estimate likelihood. As someone who knows cilantro tastes like soap, they did change from not likely to think cilantro tastes like soap from v3 chip to slightly higher odds of disliking cilantro.