AncestryDNA's New Arrangement of Ethnicity and Genetic Communities

An ethnicity report showing new arrangement of
Genetic Communities

You may have recently noticed your AncestryDNA Ethnicity Report and Genetic Communities look a little different and I've been seeing a lot of people who are confused about them so let me clear some things up. Ancestry posted on their blog about the changes, but didn't really address some of the confusion about it.

First, your ethnicity report hasn't changed. A couple of the category titles have change - for example, "Ireland" is now called "Ireland/Scotland/Wales" but in case you never noticed, that category always primarily included those countries. It has not changed to include more countries that it didn't before, only the title has changed to better reflect the areas it has always covered. Below you'll see a screenshot I took before the changes were made. You'll see the details for the category "Ireland" were always "Primarily located in: Ireland, Wales, Scotland" and "Also found in: France, England". If you look at the details for the newly named "Ireland/Scotland/Wales" you'll see it says the very same thing.

This is why it's so important to read all the details of each category, which they keep making harder and harder to find. Currently, you have to click on the category and at the bottom of "Overview" (you may have to scroll down and click "continue reading") there's a button that says "Read More". Make an effort to check this information for every category you have results in. If you haven't looked over it before, you may be surprised to see just how many countries or areas are included in that category, both primarily and "also found in", and just how much overlap that means it has with neighboring categories too.

"Ireland" always primarily included Scotland and Wales, too. The category
name has merely changed to better reflect these areas.

Additionally, your percentages haven't changed. You may now notice that some Genetic Communities are found as sub-groups of your ethnicity categories (see screenshot at top). Nothing about your results in either features has changed, they have just rearranged things so the layout and display is different. Some Genetic Communities are still found listed separately and these are now being called "Migrations" (see screenshot at top).

These numbers are merely how many sub-groups
(Genetic Communities) are found under that category.

Most importantly, I've seen people confusing the numbers found when clicking on "see all 150+ regions" with their results or percentages. I can't make this clear enough: these are not percentages and they have nothing to do with your personal results. They are merely the number of all sub-groups (Genetic Communities) which are available so they're the same for everyone. You will note that if you expand each category/sub-group, the numbers correlate to how many sub-groups there are, and once you can no longer expand to show more, the numbers disappear. Also note the screenshot I've provided (right) - compare it with your own and you'll see the numbers are the same. They are not a further break down of your results. When you click on "see all 150+ regions", the only indication of your personal results is that the categories and sub-groups (Genetic Communities) you have results in will have a colored dot to the left of them (and these are the very same categories and groups you've already seen on your personal results before you clicked on "all see 150+ regions" - there's nothing different here). Categories or sub-groups you have no results in will have a grey dot next to them instead. The only thing you get out of clicking on "see all 150+ regions" is seeing what other categories and Genetic Communities are available which you didn't get results in.

UPDATE Mar 20, 2018: AncestryDNA have recently updated the "See all 150+regions" section to better reflect what I explained above (shown left). Now, instead of just numbers on the right, they actually say "+13 regions" underneath the category title. Additionally, they added the words "No connection" for every group you don't have any results in, although the little grey dots versus colored dot are still there and remain another indication of whether you have results in that category (colored) or not (grey). So there definitely shouldn't be any more confusion. It's a wonder it took them this long to realize how confusing it was and make it clearer, but at least they have now.

(Also note, since I don't think I mentioned this previously, that Genetic Communities have a dotted line circling the little dot, whether colored or not, to distinguish them from the ethnicity percentages categories, which have no dotted line).