r/AfricanDNAresults

Which tribe do I resemble the most?

I finally got my FTDNA autosomal raw data converted and merged with the AADR 1240K dataset, then ran ADMIXTOOLS 2 / qpAdm models against ancient and modern proxy populations.

Basic workflow:

1. Converted FTDNA raw CSV into PLINK PED/MAP, then BED/BIM/FAM.
2. Converted AADR v66 1240K EIGENSTRAT/TGENO into PLINK using PLINK2.
3. Merged my sample with AADR.
4. Fixed the .fam population labels so ADMIXTOOLS could recognize the AADR groups.
5. Extracted precomputed f2 stats with ADMIXTOOLS 2.
6. Tested qpAdm models using different combinations of European, North African, Levantine, Punic, Horn/East African, Nile Valley, Swahili, and Pastoral Neolithic proxies.

The early North African / Levantine / Punic models failed badly. They produced impossible weights like huge positive North African ancestry paired with huge negative Levantine or Roman ancestry, so I treated those as invalid.

The models became more sensible once I added northwest European proxies like English, CEU, and GBR, plus East African / Horn / Nile-related proxies like Kenya_Somali, Sudan_Kulubnarti, Tanzania_Swahili, and Kenya_PastoralN_Nderit.

The best broad signal was consistently:

Northwest European + East African / Nile-Horn / Swahili-Pastoral-like

The most useful feasible proxy models were roughly:

• English + Tanzania_Swahili-oNearEast: ~47.5% English / ~52.5% Tanzania Swahili-oNearEast
• English + Kenya_PastoralN_Nderit: ~41.4% English / ~58.6% Kenya Pastoral Neolithic Nderit
• English + Kenya_Somali: ~57.4% English / ~42.6% Kenya Somali

Important caveat: none of these were formally accepted qpAdm models. The p-values were still extremely low, so I’m treating them as exploratory proxy positions rather than final ancestry proportions.

My takeaway is that with the AADR references I had available, qpAdm could place the broad axis pretty clearly, but it could not find a clean formally accepted source model for a modern mixed individual. Better Ethiopian/Eritrean/Somali/Afar/Oromo/Tigray/Amhara references would probably improve the modeling a lot.