Your parents each gave you half of your DNA. Together, their DNA makes up your DNA, including your ancestral regions. With regions by parent, you can see which ancestral regions you inherited from each parent—even if they haven’t taken AncestryDNA tests.

Diagram showing that each parent contributes 50% of your DNA, and together their DNA makes up 100% of your DNA, including the ancestral regions you inherited.

And now, you can see which regions you inherited from each grandparent as well.

Viewing your regions by parent and grandparent

From any Ancestry page, click the DNA tab and select Origins.
Click the By parent tab.
Choose View regions by parent and grandparent.

How we split up regions by parent

Because you get half of your DNA from each parent, each region could have come from one or both parents. We use SideView technology to compare your DNA to your close matches’ DNA and figure out which half comes from each parent and which portions came from each grandparent. Once we know that, we compare this with the regions we have determined across your DNA to show you what was passed down from each parent and grandparent. However, we can’t tell which parent is parent 1 or parent 2. For help figuring this out, see Strategies for Labeling Your Parents in DNA by parent.

Why your regions may differ from your parents'

You only inherit half of their DNA

Because you only inherit half of your parents’ DNA, looking at your regions only shows half of what makes up their regions rather than the whole picture.

Diagram showing a parent’s half set of ancestral regions with the half of those regions inherited by their child.

If your parents take AncestryDNA tests, they’ll get a full summary of their regions. This could also give you a glimpse into 50% of your grandparents' regions.

Inheritance is random

Likewise, your parents and grandparents could have regions that weren’t passed down to you. This happens because inheritance is random. Getting half of a parent’s DNA doesn’t mean you get half of each of their regions, and getting about 25% of a grandparent’s DNA doesn’t mean you get a quarter of each of their regions. (Read more about how DNA is passed down and inherited.)

Diagram showing that you inherit some ancestral regions from a parent while other regions are not inherited.

DNA from nearby regions can look similar

You can't inherit a region neither parent has, so how can some people have regions that aren’t in their parents' results?

Ancestral regions show the percentage of a person's DNA that matches people with known origins around the world (called a reference panel). And because other results could be just as likely, we include ranges. If a range includes 0%, the DNA for that region might be from a nearby region with DNA so similar it’s hard to tell apart. Your DNA may have been labeled one way, while your parents’ DNA was assigned differently.

If your results show a region your parents don't have, check neighboring regions. For example, if you have 10% France with a 0-20% range and neither parent has France, your France may actually be from Germanic Europe.

As we get more data and science improves, your results might change.

How we split out grandparent regions

Using your matches, we can split your DNA into four groups—the parts of your DNA you inherited from each grandparent.

The first step is discovering where a match’s DNA overlaps with yours. After this, we bring in lots more matches and do the same thing with each of them. By comparing the shared DNA of many matches, we’re able to figure out the parts of your DNA that were inherited from one parent or the other.

We can do this even if your grandparents haven't taken AncestryDNA tests.

Why your grandparent regions may not equal 25% each

You inherit half of your DNA from each parent, but the percentages aren’t as “neat” when you get back to your parents’ parents. On average, people inherit about 25% of their DNA from each grandparent. But because each of your parent’s DNA is shuffled before being passed to you, how much DNA you inherit from each grandparent can vary. For example, you might inherit 30% from one maternal grandparent and 20% from the other. You’re still inheriting 50% of your mother’s DNA, but that 50% won’t always be an equal amount of the DNA she inherited from each of her parents.

Your grandparents may have more regions than you're seeing

You only inherited around 25% of each grandparent's DNA, so the rest of their DNA may include regions that weren't passed down to you. For example, if your paternal grandfather is 5% Irish, it’s possible you didn’t inherit any of his Irish DNA—either because he didn’t pass it on to your father, or because your father didn’t pass it on to you.

Frequently asked questions

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How can I tell who Parent 1 and Parent 2 are?

We can split your DNA by parent, but we don’t know which parent is parent 1 and which is parent 2. For help figuring this out, see Strategies for Labeling Your Parents in DNA by Parent.

Why don’t some percentages add up to 25%, 50%, or 100%?

When calculating percentages, we round results to whole numbers and report some smaller regions as <1%. This means totals might be less than 25% (for grandparents) or 50% (for parents) or 100% if some regions are under 1%. Additionally, we rely on your matches to identify the parts of your DNA you inherited from each grandparent. Having only a few or very distant matches can mean that we aren’t able to assign all of your DNA to each of your grandparents. In these cases, you might see grandparental percentages that add up to less than 25% in each grandparent, and less than 100% across all grandparents.

One of my parents has a region that isn't shown in my results. How is that possible?

You only inherited half of each parent's DNA, so the missing region might be in the half you didn’t inherit.

My results suggest my parents have more of a region than their results show; why?

Regions and percentages are based on DNA comparisons to a reference panel, and ranges are included for accuracy. Neighboring regions can have such similar-looking DNA that it’s hard to tell them apart. This can sometimes lead to differences in how regions are assigned.

What's the difference between ancestral regions and regions by parent?

Ancestral regions show the percentage of DNA that looks most similar to DNA from people with long histories in different places around the world.

Regions by parent shows which ancestral regions were inherited from each parent.