Methodology deep-dives, population spotlights, and engineering notes from the Ancestrify team — qpAdm modelling, ancient DNA panels, and how genetic ancestry analysis really works.
9 stories
Which GEDmatch admixture project to run for your background, what each calculator's components mean, why the projects disagree with each other, and what has aged since 2012–2016.
There is no single best admixture calculator — there is a best one per question. An honest decision guide across GEDmatch's classics, Global25 tools and formal methods, from someone who builds one of them.
The same genome scores 44% North European in one calculator and 51% in another. Component anchoring, reference panels, the calculator effect and K explain the spread — and none of the numbers is 'the real one'.
Oracle ranks reference populations by how closely their calculator percentages match yours — not by shared DNA. How the distance is computed, what single and mixed modes tell you, and the misreadings to avoid.
The thirteen K13 components, what North Atlantic, East Med and West Asian are anchored to, who the calculator works best for, how to read the Oracle — and the caveats that come with a 2012-era tool.
What the 36-component Eurogenes calculator can genuinely show, why its regional labels invite over-reading, what a K36 heat map is actually plotting, and when a distance ranking answers the question better.
The original admixture project's most-used calculator: what the twelve K12b components are anchored to, what Gedrosia and Caucasus mean in modern ancient-DNA terms, and how to read a K12b breakdown.
What HarappaWorld's S-Indian, Baloch and NE-Euro components are anchored to, why it remains the reference calculator for South Asian ancestry, and how its 2012 categories map onto what ancient DNA later proved.
GEDmatch's admixture calculators froze around 2012–2016. The free alternatives that run on current ancient reference panels — era-scoped calculators, distance rankings, PCA — and what each replaces.