Ethnicity Results Inaccuracy

Dear MyHeritage Team, I am writing to provide honest feedback regarding my recent DNA ethnicity results because the outcome is extremely disappointing and frankly not credible when compared with other major testing companies. My results currently show 81% Nigerian, with a total of about 85% African ancestry. This is not consistent with my genetic profile as confirmed by multiple independent DNA testing platforms. Both AncestryDNA and 23andMe place my African ancestry around 70–72%, and both companies detect Indigenous American ancestry in my genome as well. Your model failed to detect that ancestry entirely. When two of the largest and most well established autosomal DNA companies produce nearly identical results, but a third company produces numbers that are dramatically inflated and missing entire ancestry components, it raises serious concerns about the reliability of the algorithm. The result suggesting that I am 81% Nigerian is particularly unrealistic. Nigeria itself contains hundreds of ethnic groups and even individuals born in Nigeria typically show mixed West African regional signals in their DNA results. Reducing such a complex West African genetic background into a single extremely high Nigerian percentage suggests that the model is oversimplifying or misclassifying African ancestry rather than accurately interpreting it. This issue appears to affect people with admixed backgrounds, particularly Black Americans and other populations with diverse ancestry. Many users have reported similar experiences where West African ancestry is heavily collapsed into a single Nigerian category while other regions are ignored. Additionally, the complete absence of Indigenous American ancestry in my report contradicts consistent findings from other companies and from chromosome-level analysis. I understand that ethnicity estimates are statistical models, but the current results do not reflect the level of accuracy expected from a modern DNA testing service. At the moment, the ethnicity model appears to struggle significantly with mixed ancestry profiles. I am sharing this feedback in the hope that MyHeritage will improve its ethnicity models, particularly for individuals with admixed ancestry backgrounds because as of now it’s not where it needs to be, and I can’t recommend a company like yours who just doesn’t get it right.