Earlier this year, I took the
National Geographic (Geno 2.0) test. It was one of the ones I had wanted to take a while back when I first heard about genetic genealogical testing, but it was still pretty pricey. With a recent drop in prices around Christmas time, I decided to get a Geno 2.0 and after a few months of waiting, I ended up getting my results. The results did take a bit to come back and with the idea of a “deep analysis” I sat down and waited… and waited… but finally the results came in! So here’s a glimpse into the various different information provided to me by Geno 2.0. All in all, everything was pretty straight forward and similar to other DNA exams. Only one part was interesting which I’ll get to in a bit.
There are various parts into the results: your genius matches, regional ancestry, deep ancestry, and Hominin ancestry. I’ll quickly go through genius matches and Hominin ancestry before covering regional and deep ancestry. I’m placing the images below however how they show up on the website.
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| Genius Matches [Geno 2.0] |
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| Regional Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
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| Deep Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
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| Hominin Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
Genius Matches
This feature is actually pretty cool because I haven’t really come across it on other DNA websites, 23andme had a version of this but dunno where it is now… haven’t seen it on the haplogroups part of the website in a while. Though it’s cool to look at and explore, it doesn’t really hold much genealogical value. Most of these people are probably related through off branches of your haplogroup and as you can see the ranges of years are pretty high. Nonetheless, it was a cool first thing to see when I logged into Geno 2.0. Here are two of my matches, Nikola Tesla and Martin Luther!
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| Nikola Tesla [Geno 2.0] |
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| Martin Luther [Geno 2.0] |
Hominin Ancestry
This is another feature that’s cool to look at but again, to me, it doesn’t hold much genealogical value. As you can see below I score a 1.2% on my Neanderthal ancestry, which is a tiny bit lower than the average which is 2.1%. Truth be told, I didn’t really explore this much but again, just posting it here because it’s part of the analysis.
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| Hominin Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
Regional Ancestry
Here is the most interesting part of the Geno 2.0 analysis, the regional and deep ancestry! First, you get a heat map of sorts that shows you the different parts of the globe where your regional ancestry can be found. By clicking on the map you are able to see the different percentages of your ancestry, which are also provided below the map. Equally, there is a continents break down as well! Check it out below!
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| Map View [Geno 2.0] |
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| Continental Average [Geno 2.0] |
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| Regional Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
Most of the results match what I have seen on other sites, with a few variations here and there. For example, “Eastern Europe” is at 15% and “Jewish Diaspora” at 9% which I think is the highest I’ve seen it on any site. What’s cool is that each region provides an explanation as well. I’ve screen shotted some of the explanations, check them out! I’ve provided some for “Western Africa”, “Jewish Diaspora”, “Eastern Europe”, “South America & Amazon”, and “North America & Andes”.
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| West Africa [Geno 2.0] |
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| Jewish Diaspora [Geno 2.0] |
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| Eastern Europe [Geno 2.0] |
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| South America & Andes [Geno 2.0] |
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| North America & Amazon [Geno 2.0] |
One thing that is kind of tripping me up is the low value I have in “South America & Amazon” and higher percentage in “North America & Andes”. Mainly because in the description is says that South America & Amazon consists of the Taíno and Caribs which should be the main groups in my ancestry seeing as how my family is from Puerto Rico where these two tribes could be found. I have not compared with other Puerto Ricans, so I’m not sure if this is common/typical in the results or if I am a sort of outlier from the group. Being that I’ve done a ton of research into my family and know that we’ve been on the island since at least the early 1600-1700s through paper trial and obviously even earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that my ancestry is made up of native Caribbean tribes but it does make me wonder!
What’s also interesting that they provide you with reference populations which are close to you. My first reference population was actually Colombian and my second, ironically, Puerto Rican. Maybe my high percentage of “North American & Andes” makes Geno 2.0 think that I’m potentially Colombian since they average at about 9% which the Puerto Rican reference population has a lower 3%. Despite having Colombia first, I know that I’m Puerto Rican 😉. I was also pretty surprised that I didn’t get any northern African here, which I usually always score a bit of. Interesting seeing the similarities and differences between their reference population and my own results.
Deep Ancestry
Lastly, there is the deep ancestry part which is basically the paternal and maternal haplogroups. As you saw above these two groups for me are C1b4 (Maternal), and I-F1295 (Paternal). This is the first time I’ve gotten a deeper “subclade” (if you can call it that) of my paternal haplogroup. For many years I knew it only as 12a1* and recently on 23andme it has gone to I-M26, I imagine I-F1295 is the same but I will have to do some more research into this group. There is also an explanation of the group provided, a timeline throughout the years to its current grouping, and a heat map of where it can be found around the world today. Interestingly enough my paternal haplogroup still seems to be under investigation as it hasn’t really been directly pinpointed geographically as my maternal haplogroup. It is however good to see that it can be found in Portugal and Spain which is where I would imagine it to go back to due to my ancestry.
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| Deep Ancestry [Geno 2.0] |
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| C1b4 Heat Map [Geno 2.0] |
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| C1b Branch Explanation [Geno 2.0] |
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I-F1295 [Geno 2.0]
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| I-M26 Branch Explanation [Geno 2.0] |
Conclusion
Overall, I think it was interesting having this DNA test done. I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone who wants to do more genealogical and genetic work with their testing as there is no chromosome browser or relative finder you can use to continue working on your tree, but it is nice to have it to compare to other DNA test out there.
I’ll have to keep exploring my DNA and especially my paternal branch. My goal is to hopefully have it one day traced back to a town in Europe (probably Spain) where it originated from. Being Rivera/de Rivera/de Ribera I imagine is a pretty common name and probably not tied to a region in Spain like how other surnames are. Therefore, the search continues!
