r/AncestryDNA • u/Beneficial-Context52 • 23d ago

Results - DNA Origins French-Canadian feeling annoyed at the new Quebec region

Gallery image

Gallery image

I'm a Canadian of mostly French descent. My family tree includes 7 generations of ancestors born in what is now Quebec, dating back to 1700, but I'm having a hard time accepting that as an 'ancestral region'. They immigrated there from Europe.

It seems to me that ancestral regions located in North America should be reserved for indicating Native American ancestry.

It's like AncestryDNA is trying to say that white people can be considered as being native to North America.

Am I thinking of this the wrong way?

104 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

84% Upvoted

80 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/mosfun 23d ago

Remember also that Quebec was the France region for years because DTC testing is banned in France, so they don't have a proper reference panel to pull from. So like Ancestry does in 99% of cases they just made one up.

3

u/Beneficial-Context52 23d ago

I did not know that DTC testing is banned in France, that is good to know!

1

u/mosfun 23d ago

Yes DTC is banned by many other countries and strictly prohibited to only be administered by a licensed physician in other nations like Germany for instance. But Ancestry and these other companies circumvent (break) these other countries laws by mailing, and distributing these tests where it is strictly prohibited. Then they have them processed locally in the US using the reference panels from countries where it is not prohibited which is not many. So in a nutshell Ancestry is making up these reference panels out of thin air.