The Latest Updates at AncestryDNA – An Interview with Diahan Southard

Summary

Podcast Summary: Family Tree Magazine Podcast

Episode: The Latest Updates at AncestryDNA – An Interview with Diahan Southard

Host: Andrew Cook, Family Tree Editor
Guest: Diahan Southard, DNA Q&A Columnist & Founder of Your DNA Guide
Date: January 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the recent major updates to AncestryDNA's ethnicity estimates, which have been billed as the platform’s largest update ever. Host Andrew Cook is joined by DNA expert Diahan Southard, who breaks down what these updates mean for test-takers, why ethnicity estimates change over time, and how these advancements impact genealogical research. The episode also touches on similar updates from other major DNA companies and offers practical tips for getting more actionable insights from your DNA results.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scope and Significance of AncestryDNA’s Latest Update

• Largest Update Ever?
  • AncestryDNA added 60 new regions, impacting 90% of users ([02:23]).
  • “If you're measuring biggest update ever by who was affected, then probably, yes, this update did affect so many people.” — Diahan ([02:06]).
• Annual Updates as a Unique Value
  • Diahan highlights the unique nature of free, recurring updates:
    “Do you know of any other product that you own that like, you get an update every single year for free? It's actually a pretty good deal.” ([01:56])
• Driving User Engagement
  • These updates are both scientifically valuable and serve as a marketing tactic to entice users to revisit their results.

2. Introduction of Macro Regions and Granular Regions

• Dual Perspective:
  • Ancestry introduced both more refined regions and new broader “macro regions” ([03:38]).
  • Macro regions offer a high-confidence, broad-strokes look at ancestry, while the refined regions attempt to pinpoint more specific origins.
  • “It's almost like they're now giving you both views, both your 2016 view and your 2025 view.” — Diahan ([08:47])

3. Technological Advances in Reference Panels

• How Reference Panels Work:
  • Historically, only users with robust family trees could be included in reference panels ([05:02]).
  • The latest update leverages genetic clusters: individuals without family trees are now included by association with those who have well-documented trees ([07:14]):
    “It really just reflects the hugeness ... the massive amount of data that ancestry has.” — Diahan ([07:16])
• Result:
  • Enormous expansion in reference populations leads to more accurate, detailed regional assignments.

4. Interpreting Ethnicity Estimates: Then and Now

• From Coffee Table Ornament to Actionable Insights
  • “These ethnicity results, they're like a coffee table piece. They're beautiful to look at, but they're not going to teach you very much... And then, you know, I had to change my tune because that's just not the case anymore.” — Diahan ([10:45])
• Macro vs. Granular Regions:
  • Reminds listeners that the macro regions are highly accurate, while the granular ones offer developing, more detailed insights ([09:41]).
• What Should Test-Takers Do?
  • Embrace the increasing specificity but understand that broad estimates are the most dependable ([09:41]).
  • Use both the maps and the labels for regional assignments, as names can sometimes be misleading ([12:35]).

5. Updates from Other DNA Testing Companies

• MyHeritage and 23andMe:
  • Both rolled out significant updates, adding more specific regional data ([11:56]).
  • Challenge: As granularity increases, region names become more confusing.
    • “It's really important when you're looking at these results across all of these companies to not just read the, the name of the region, which might mislead you, but go look at the map...” — Diahan ([12:35])
  • Modern geographical names may not reflect historical population movements or genetic boundaries.

6. Practical Tips and Takeaways

• Look Beyond Labels:
  • Don’t get hung up on the specific words used to describe ethnic origins; always check the geographic maps ([13:00]).
• Awareness of Historical Realities:
  • Modern country borders rarely align perfectly with ancestral genetic boundaries ([13:45]).
• Continuous Evolution:
  • Both the science and the databases are actively evolving, so further improvements and changes should be expected ([11:56]).

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• “Do you know of any other product that you own that like, you get an update every single year for free? It's actually a pretty good deal.”
  — Diahan Southard ([01:56])

• “What scientifically made this update really important is that for the first time, they're creating reference panels in a different way.”
  — Diahan Southard ([03:50])

• “It's almost like they're now giving you both views, both your 2016 view and your 2025 view... And now we've just spent time drilling down and they want to bring us back to this really solid, confident, grounded place.”
  — Diahan Southard ([08:47])

• “I remember saying ... these ethnicity results, they're like a coffee table piece... And then, you know, I had to change my tune because that's just not the case anymore.”
  — Diahan Southard ([10:45])

• “It's really important... to not just read the... name of the region ... go look at the map because they're, they're doing their best to name something in a way that kind of reflects our modern geography. But these places are not based in modern anything. They're based in our ... genetic heritage.”
  — Diahan Southard ([12:35])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:55–01:27 — Intro to episode and guest
• 01:29–03:23 — The scale and intent of AncestryDNA’s update
• 03:23–06:03 — Macro regions and regions explained; science behind the updates
• 06:03–08:29 — Technology shift: using all users, not just tree-builders, in reference populations
• 08:29–10:45 — Then vs. now: How to interpret ethnicity estimates and macro regions
• 10:45–11:56 — Results becoming increasingly actionable; history of ethnicity features
• 11:56–13:45 — Updates at other companies & the challenge of region names
• 13:45–14:22 — The fluidity of European regions and challenges in mapping DNA to modern countries
• 14:28–15:00 — Where to find Diahan’s resources and further reading

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Additional Resources

• Diahan Southard’s website: yourdnaguide.com ([14:28])
• Related articles by Diahan: In Family Tree Magazine’s Nov/Dec issue and a web exclusive on the Ancestry Journeys feature ([14:40])

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Summary

This episode provides a highly accessible yet detailed look at how advances in DNA testing and analysis by AncestryDNA — and similar companies — are making ethnicity estimates both more accurate and more useful. Listeners are encouraged to revisit their results with fresh eyes, keep up with ongoing updates, and leverage new tools and insights in their family history research, with the expert advice to always “go look at the map” and take region names with a grain of salt.

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by VoiceGift. What if your family tree could speak? VoiceGift helps preserve the voices and stories that define your family so they're never lost to time. Record memories from parents and grandparents and link them to photos, albums and heirlooms. Inspired by museum audio guides and designed to last, VoiceGift Play is an audio time capsule for generations. Find your [e-mail]. that's www.voice gift. Welcome to the Family Tree Magazine podcast. I'm Andrew Cook, editor of Family Tree. In this episode of the Best Website series, we'll talk about the latest updates from Ancestry DNA, which have been billed the largest ever. So if you or a loved one received a DNA test kit over the holidays or you've test 10 years ago and are looking for a reason to come back to your results, I think you'll find our conversation with our resident DNA expert Diane Southard to be interesting and hopefully helpful as you try to parse out. What do these new updates mean? How do they affect my results? Why do my results change in the first place? And what can I do next with my DNA? Let's get into it. I'm here with Diane Southard. She's the columnist behind Family Tree's DNA Q&A, and she's founder and cell CEO of your DNA guide. Welcome, Diane.

[B]

Hi, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

[A]

Yeah, it's always good to talk to you. So last fall, Ancestry DNA released what it called its biggest update ever to its ethnicity estimate. So wanted to check in with you and see where we are. And how big were these updates really?

[B]

Yeah. So our testing companies, if you're watching carefully, especially Ancestry and myheritage, really try to update your ethnicity periodically, sometimes as often as once a year. And it's really meant to. I mean, obviously from a business and marketing perspective, it's to help you get back into some a product that you already purchased, which is actually, I mean, kind of unprecedented, actually. Do you know of any other product that you own that like, you get an update every single year for free? It's actually a pretty good deal. But it is important to understand, like, how and why they're updating. And I think every time they update, it generates a whole slew of questions like, wait a second, where did that ethnicity go? And I thought I was this and now I'm this. And it, it generates some confusion about even what's going on. So it's, it gives us a good opportunity yearly to review exactly what these ethnicity results are and what they do as Far as it being like the biggest update ever, I think that is in the eye of the beholder. So. So I think for this update specifically, they released some numbers, so they had 60 new regions added, and they said that 90% of their customers received updated results. So if you're measuring biggest update ever by who was affected, then probably, yes, this update did affect so many people. So maybe we could call that the biggest update ever.

[A]

Sure. Yeah. Well, that's one. One definition. Yeah, definitely. And I know in addition to introducing these more refined regions, additional regions, they also kind of took a step back and also introduced this macro regions idea. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[B]

Yeah. So it was an interesting release, right, where they're, like, yelling and telling us, oh, look how. How much better, how much more granular we got. And also, like, at the same time, oh, but we've. We've zoomed out as well. And so. But actually, those two things really go well together. So what scientifically made this update really important is that for the first time, they're creating reference panels in a different way. So at ancestry and at MyHeritage, anytime you get a region so it says you're 32% Italian, for example. And that's one kind of. Of statistics, one kind of analysis versus either it's called communities or journeys, and those are much more specific regions that have to do with usually migrations of people. So the journeys and communities are like hundreds of years ago, and typically the regions have been thousands of years ago. And so these two different kinds of technologies work together to give us this bigger picture of our heritage. So Ancestry's update this time was focused only on regions, not on journeys. So keep that in mind. Even though the regions got more specific and granular, it's still using the technology of regions, which is basically what we call reference populations. So in the past, for regions, both at Ancestry and MyHeritage, the technology is kind of the same. Essentially, they go into their large databases of people with family trees. Trees. So all of us as genealogists, and they say, okay, who has an ancestral branch that looks really homogeneous, so where all of your people are from the same place for a few generations, and they make you the reference population for that population. So then they go in and look at your DNA and they're like, oh, hey, what is it about all of these people who are all from Italy that looks the same? And they kind of stamp those pieces of DNA Italian, and then they can go into someone else who doesn't have a family tree, and they can look for those Italian regions and then assign you some percentage Italian based on how many of those regions you have.

[A]

Yeah. And the changes to the panels, that's what's really going on behind the scenes when the results change. Right. Your DNA doesn't change, but.

[B]

Right, exactly. So all they're doing is getting better reference panels. And so in the past, it just meant more people testing who had trees, because that's the key. Right. You can't or you couldn't in the past connect people to a region without them having a tree. And so our companies are really limited by those of us who have trees when, as we all know, by looking at our DNA test results, many of our matches don't have trees. And so previously, those people couldn't be used to as reference populations. And that's really the. The key point in this new ancestry update is for the first time, they've been able to use people without trees as part of their reference populations.

[A]

Yeah. And I know that's been such a brick wall for people is, okay, I've got this match. But they didn't. They haven't really updated anything else to the site. So where do I go from there? And so that this new technology is able to kind of wrap its arms around those people as well and provide more information about them.

[B]

Right. It's really awesome. And it really just reflects the hugeness. Is that a good word? Like, just the massive amount of data that ancestry has? Because essentially what they've done is they've said, okay, yes, we have all of these people in the reference panels who have trees, and we're confident in the assignments we've given them as far as the regions they belong to, but each of these people has clusters of DNA matches that match them really closely and that share their regions. So, like, you may have a group of people who all match you, and since you have a nice tree, ancestry says, oh, these people look like Andrew, and Andrew looks like this. Ergo, these people look like this. Right. And so it's like you and your tree have been able to bring in these matches without trees and make them part of the algorithm for these regional populations. So it's just exploded the number of people in the reference populations, which has then allowed them to be so much more specific and granular in the way that they're dissecting the world.

[A]

Yeah. And so with that in mind and that new update being rolled out, how would you say test takers should think differently about their ethnicity estimates than maybe they did in the past? I first tested in 2016. How do ethnicity estimates back then compare to today?

[B]

Yeah, so I love that. It's almost like they're now giving you both views, both your 2016 view and your 2025 view. So the 2016 view is now reflected in those MA macro regions. So it's like they, they are pulling out, like zooming out in the world and saying, yeah, we say you're from these specific places, but we can be really confident you're from this macro place. And so if you'll recall, I'm sure from 2016, really all you had were the macro places. And now we've just spent time drilling down and they want to bring us back to this really solid, confident, grounded place where. Yeah, okay, Andrew, maybe you're 22%, like this specific Norwegian type, but we know that you're Nordic.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah. And so it's, it's a really nice kind of side by side, if you will, reflection on what we used to get and this deeper dive into this more modern technology so that you can hold both of them at the same time and know that the macro region is very, very, very confident where some of these granular regions are still going to be developed.

[A]

Sure, yeah. And, you know, I was working on your article for, from the November December issue about revisiting your DNA test results and the amount of information that these companies are giving now compared to what they did even five years ago, let alone the almost 10 years since I took my first test, that there's that granularity and this sort of second set of results, those journeys, that they're a lot more actionable than. Oh, great. I'm like you said, 22% Nordic. Okay, that's nice, but like, what can I do with that? And so, you know, with that, with these updates, they, they get more refined and more actionable.

[B]

Absolutely. I used to say, I mean, I've been, you know, lecturing about DNA and family history for like, you know, 25 years. So like in the beginning, like in 2007, 2008, even up to 2010, when we were first getting these ethnicity results, I remember saying, as I taught people, hey, these ethnicity results, they're like a coffee table piece. They're beautiful to look at, but they're not going to teach you very much. And so I used to say that. And then, you know, I had to change my tune because that's just not the case anymore. There's so much you can learn from your ethnicity results about yourself, but also about your ancestors.

[A]

Yeah. And that's Great. And like you said, what other thing that you do in life gets updated that far after you made a purchase or, you know, bought into something. So that is pretty neat. Now, Ancestry DNA wasn't the only company to release updates last year. Can you very briefly talk about myheritage DNA I think is probably the next largest. They released their version 2.5 and I know 23andMe also, amidst all the chaos that happened with them last year, did release some, some new features. So can you talk about those a little bit?

[B]

Yeah. So it's, it's just really, it's really fun to think that this science is still evolving, that we are still in the middle of all of the development and so we get to go through all of these iterations with these companies. So. Yeah. So both 23andMe and MyHeritage did updates this year as well, both of them adding significantly more regions and significantly more granular regions. So very much helping you again, not just identify with a broad general area, but giving you much more specific locations that you can then identify with and be a part of though is it's important to say that every time a company does these updates and every time they try to get more granular, the harder the words are to understand. Meaning that they can see that there are say five different actual genetic populations in a very small geographic area and they have to give each of those names, but the names are geography based. And instead, because you can't like it, so it's really confusing sometimes. So it's really important when you're looking at these results across all of these companies to not just read the, the name of the region, which might mislead you, but go look at the map because they're, they're doing their best to name something in a way that kind of reflects our modern geography. But these places are not based in modern anything. They're based in our, our heritage, our genetic heritage. So don't, don't worry about what the name calls it. Go in and look at the region and you'll, I think, identify a lot stronger with it than you would if you just read the name.

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good point. When I saw my new, my new ethnicity estimates from ancestry, there was this, I think England and Northwest Europe is now a group. And so that was just it that skyrocketed from my English in the old version. And I think it's because, yeah, my German ancestors cheated a little bit on the side that northwest side. And it's really hard to kind of bifurcate that there was a lot of, you know, commingling that happened back then. And. Okay, Germany today versus Germany then and Belgium today. You know, like, there's a fluidity there that DNA doesn't recognize.

[B]

Absolutely. Yes. Well said.

[A]

Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Diane, where can our listeners find more of you?

[B]

Yeah, if you want to learn how to use your DNA in your family history, you want to DIY your DNA, we call it, you can find [e-mail] that's great.

[A]

And like I mentioned, Diane had a feature article run in the November December issue on why you should revisit your results. And she also has a web exclusive article on the new ancestry's journeys. So the latest on those, I'll link both those in the show notes. All right. Thanks, Diane. And hey, we're going to see you here coming up at rootstack, right?

[B]

Yeah. So exciting. Always, always a pleasure.

[A]

Yeah. All right. Take care, Diane. Thank you.

[B]

Bye, Andrew.

[A]

Bye. Thanks for joining me in this month's episode of the Family Tree Magazine podcast. You can find the show notes from this episode and all [e-mail] podcasts while on our website. You can also sign up for our free email newsletter where you'll receive free genealogy resources each weekday, including links to new podcast episodes as they're released. Until next time, have fun climbing your family tree.

[B]

Sam.