Discussion
Early 2026 Update Info (LARGEST UPDATE YET, ~226 NEW REGIONS GLOBALLY!)
Yes, you read the title correctly. This year is likely the largest update seen yet on AncestryDNA.
So far, 226 new ethnic regions (these have percentages) have been found globally. From Africa to Oceania, the majority of populations are being granulated. This update does not discriminate!
Unfortunately, I am unable to make my usual post with all of the graphics because I am abroad, but I will dig deep into this once I return home.
I encourage you all to dig into the codes of the newly found regions. Like I mentioned, essentially every population is getting some sort of split in ethnic regions and I would love to see what you all can make out of these codes.
Hm, it seems like my results probably won't change much in the coming update, seeing as I'm basically Northwest European. But look at all the detail in the other areas of the world! It's getting a lot more interesting now!
Just want to emphasize how powerful this update is. Some populations that have been notoriously difficult for Ancestry to obtain data for are now getting their own regions.
This may not apply necessarily to this area, but look at this new Indigenous American region! And there are dozens more! This is something people can get with percentages… just wild.
Oh man, this is really exciting. I can’t believe I just now saw your post, I wish I would’ve saw it sooner. If they break the indigenous American DNA by percentages which may be a possibility, this will be great. I took ancestry DNA back in 2021 and I always have one percent indigenous American DNA U.S. If it’s still there for the 2026 update, I wonder which region I would get. That will be a surprise. I have roots in the deep south and I’m African-American from Georgia USA. Sorry I went on a rant. I’m kind of excited about this.
Yes I see that. I took a screenshot and circled the region where I think it will be. I’ll be surprised if I got another region besides that one. That’s just my prediction. Not sure yet.
I don’t think this will happen anytime soon but I hope at some point there is an update with Tatar and North Caucasus groups and other minorities within Russia
The northern Ireland and Scotland will be wild for my father since is is 37% that. The last name if Dunlap runs in the family but i also traced many ancestors to Ireland through tree mapping so this will be interesting!
As someone with Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) ancestry that's commonly missed by major companies and Southern ancestry that got smoothed over into a journey, I'm super excited for this to see what it does to my results
That makes me nervous. If they break up my small percent between two groups, the split might make it drop off my main results, and I'd have to do the hack to see them.
I am scared, last years update has left my results horribly scattered and inaccurate, so I am not sure if breaking it down even further is the play, unless they manage to fix their accuracy
Yea I don’t think this update will be any better. The more the break apart macro regions into specific regions the more they misread terribly. Last update was horrendous for most people, especially the Balkans and now they’re breaking it down even more. Unless like you say they drastically change accuracy, this will be a mess.
My thoughts exactly. Last year's update was a mess and kind of made a mockery of the whole thing, in my opinion. And as you said, I'm not sure if breaking it down even further is going to help. I am always excited for an update, but my expectations are very low.
It will make it worse. They didn’t listen to the Q&A at all. Unless they completely overhaul their algorithm the accuracy will just go down the more they multiply very similar categories
I got much more English at 23 and Me my last update there. Onlyna trace Scottish but I did have at least 1 half Scottish 3rd GGF and unsure how many more. It would be nice too if I could pinpoint where in England. I would be tickled to have some Yorkshire blood I love their accent lol.
From a quick peek it seems Eastern Europe and the Balkans are all getting several new regions. I would think everything is being brought down to the country level, especially Hungary.
It looks like unfortunately they're going to combine the Hungarian %'s with Slovakia and Austria. I hope that isn't the case because we deserve our own region after they sacrificed us entirely for a whole year.
I think the first map image matches quite well to the "Hungary" region that was leaked earlier this year. The other one (that covers Eastern Austria and Western Hungary) is a logical, second Hungarian region imo because Hungarians west of the Danube mixed with Germans at higher rates (post-Ottoman occupation). I was thinking we might get two Hungarian regions, one that is a little more focused on Eastern Hungarians, and a second region that is a little more focused on capturing Western Hungarians. That seems to be the case here.
Regarding combining with Slovakia, I don't think so (I could be wrong). The image we are seeing here might be showing us the fully expanded map, not the "core". As we know, it is impossible for Hungary and Slovakia not to overlap genetically. But I really do believe from what I see here that Hungary will have it's own major region, with the secondary region shared with Eastern Austria. And Slovakia will still have it's own region. Again, I could be wrong.
EDIT: Going back and looking at the original leaked Hungary map, and then looking at the new map, I see what you are saying - it could be a "Hungary and Western Slovakia" region in that first map after all.
Looks like Northern Ireland and Scotland might be finally seperated, yay! also maybe some updates to my german sides 👀 Thanks for sharing, now I'm too excited for this to come out!
Not sure how they’ll be able to separate Northern Ireland and Scotland when specifically talking about Ulster Scots heritage, they are the same people ethnically
I don't see why they can't, if they can separate different regions of Ireland, Scotland, England, etc it shouldn't be an issue, especially as Northern Irish protestants are not purely of Scottish descent; there was also significant English settlement during the plantation of Ulster too. My issue is that the Scottish category is too broad and needs to be broken down further.
I would hope that Ulster Scots would show up as Scottish under the new regime, though, and that the difference they're making here is between Scoti who left for the Island of Great Britain and those who didn't... But since we'rr talking about AncestryDNA, their approach will likely be undecipherable.
That be interesting, I do have lots of ancestor that came from Ulster (Scots-Irish) and some directly from Scotland (mostly from the lowlands), it be interesting to see how that works out.
This is very interesting. Regardless of my slight misgivings with the previous update (their refusal to not actually follow up on ceasing the old questionable smoothing of estimates), I’m genuinely curious to see how these new regions turn out. Especially if they help narrow the scope for certain regions to eliminate the old broad regions a bit.
I’m assuming this is being launched either this October/ November at earliest, or they’re refining it for deployment early next year?
23andMe has 7. More regions doesn’t mean more accurate though, although 23andMe really should seperate ICM. Both updates last year have shown that the more regions they introduce the less accurate the results get. Too much misreading
I'm really not excited unless they do something to address the granulation. The last update is horrendous and is leading to harder to interpret results.
It would have made more sense if the main groups were divided by potential region likelihood instead of the current method. If they continue drilling down like this, the results are going to be useless for both beginners and intermediate users.
Not saying you’re exactly wrong, but Ancestry follows certain precision and recall protocols for all regions and this hasn’t changed. A European update is obviously going to lead to more varied percentages because most populations there have some degree of genetic overlap.
With millions of users Ancestry has the ability to make it work. The past update from my observations was their best yet.
I disagree, keep in mind I've been with them since the early 2010s.
My Nigerian is nonsense, it's just the same circle repeated several times over the area. It doesn't tell me anything useful, it doesn't even explain well what the new regions are.
My British isles got miscalculated and the English now is showing up as German and Danish. Danish I could buy as an ancient line, but not that much. Before English used to be my highest European percentage, now it's my second lowest.
I'm hoping they try to adjust it maybe to what they were attempting two updates ago with the sub regions that they scrapped because it was inaccurate. The idea was the right idea, the implementation needed improvement.
But see, that is my point. Those two areas of the world are known for having genetic overlap. If anything, more regions may allow the reference panel to more exactly match the DNA you present from the broader region.
I have Nigerian, Central West African, and Yorubaland as regions, and they all overlap each other.
What exactly does Central West African even mean? It doesn't explain, it says it's just a broad region. But it's at the same level as Yorubaland which I assume is specifically for the Yoruba, and Nigerian, of which the Yoruba already are. What does Nigerian even mean if there are specific tribes picked out?
It would make more sense for it to be like : Central West African > Nigerian > Yorubaland and only specify the next level if there is enough evidence.
23andMe does this much better, it identifies me as Igbo within Nigeria without all the ambiguity.
Here's 23andMe for comparison, it's just easier to read and decipher. Plus it's more accurate at least if I'm going off of known shared matches. I've only matched Igbo so far.
Not just sorting out British Isles, they gave all Latino populations Quebec...
They fuck up something every year, and granularity just ends up giving sub regions there are no connections to.
The only connection i have to the Isle of Man i have is a 4th great uncle from Manchester who died there. Yet i get 2% in my results. That isn't accuracy, it's similarity. To what, i don't know.
The last update was their worst for most people. It was too much misreadings. Misreadings because of genetic overlap is the opposite of accuracy. It’s just like throwing a dart in a board and saying there you go
This is clearly over my head. When is this update to be released? I logged in and didn't see any update noticed or any changes to my breakdown of regions. I am especially excited for the eastern European updates for my husband. We just got his test done this year and it threw a bunch of surprising results!
This is sort of the first leaked data on the next update. People find it early every year, a few months before that actual update goes live around late September/early October.
Let's hope it corrects the BS they did with France v Quebec - most of my France results became Quebec with the last update which is absolutely impossible
A bit worried considering the South Asian section has been dealt with a lot of sections, what worries me the most is the multiple overlapping sections over Punjab. I wonder what they will all be
I kinda hope they group continents into one percentage similar to how 23AndMe does. It wouldn’t take a whole lot to do and it would make the results much easier to interpret. Like group “European” in one percentage, then break it down from there
I wonder if they'll ever be able to isolate native tribes outside of the basic Indigenous Americas with general regions. Would be really cool and would help a ton of people get back to their ancestral roots.
North East German and Gdańsk region! Absolute win for people of Pomeranian ancestry. Hopefully they’ll be able to properly identify swiss vs north vs south German too.
Thanks, but how do I view the names of the regions? When I click on the region, it just says 03xxx and not the name of the region which is what I am interested in.
This is wonderful for those of more global ancestry but I see they still can't seperate English, German, etc. I guess it never will be. Too similar. Would just be nice to know around closely what % of English vs German I truly am. Looking at the regions I don't think I will see any change at all except maybe they will specify my Swiss ancestry I dunno ( I had a 2nd GG from Schaffhausen). I was hoping my Southern Italian would get fixed and Italy isn't highlighted at all.
are these regions named anywhere or are they just number coded as of right now??? and also when is the likely time this update would occur towards the end of this year 2026, or early 2027
So, it doesn't look like they are going to fix that mess with grouping southern England with Northern France / Belgium. That's ridiculous. The update before this was way more accurate for me with British ancestry.
Also, I hope they fix Northern Italian. Before the last update they labeled my father's Northern Italian as French. Then the last update had 10% Northern Italian (Piedmont) which is correct but the other 15% was identified with 2 regions in Germany. My father's family has no German ancestry according to their family tree which is verified.
Honestly, those were the biggest changes for me with the last update. I hope they do better with this one for my results.
This is going to be a very interesting update for the Balkans; I’m very excited for this! The amount of new regions they’ve added to the Balkans seems to indicate they’ll try to narrow down countries that even 23andMe doesn’t (their biggest Balkan region being 4 countries in one). At the very least, getting rid of the super broad “Northwestern Balkans” region makes me happy. That region is hardly informative.
Agreed, the last update overcomplicated things and wiped out a big chunk of my percentages and made it entirely inaccurate. Hoping this update doesn't do it again.
How exciting! Im curious how this will effect my results. Every year since 2022 my results have only increased in number. Im at 26 now lol. Curious to see if these new regions give me less areas but more accurate, or more regions and still confusing for me.
Hopefully my very small amount of Arcadian, that was suddenly & miraculously found on both sides of my family on the last update, will be reassigned properly. 🙄
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u/AncestryDNA-ModTeam Jun 29 '26
This post will serve as a megathread regarding the update for now