Formal population genetics · Updated 19 October 2026
Ancient Ancestry: qpAdm analysis of your raw DNA
Upload your raw DNA and get a formal admixture model, with the p-value, standard errors and z-scores that tell you how much to trust it.
Formal model report
- Anatolia_N
- 0.52 · SE 0.031 · Z 16.8
- WHG
- 0.11 · SE 0.028 · Z 3.9
- Yamnaya_Samara
- 0.37 · SE 0.034 · Z 10.9
What qpAdm is
qpAdm is a method from the ADMIXTOOLS package (Haak et al. 2015; Harney et al. 2021) that tests whether a target genome can be written as a mixture of a chosen set of "left" source populations. The test is judged against a fixed set of "right" outgroup populations using f4-statistics: if the target's relationship to the outgroups is not reproduced by the proposed sources, the model fails.
The output is a set of admixture weights, each with a standard error, and a p-value that can reject the model outright, the property an ethnicity estimate lacks. Ancestrify runs the ADMIXTOOLS 2 implementation, qpadm(), on your own genotypes merged into the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) v66.
How to get your Ancient Ancestry report
Five steps, and only the first two are yours. Everything after the upload runs on our infrastructure, and a person approves the result before it reaches you.
- Upload your raw DNA export, 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA, or a whole-genome
.vcf/.vcf.gz(which files are accepted). The free Raw DNA File Check shows your file's marker counts, and whether qpAdm can read it, before you pay. - Pick the depth, four tiers, one report, one quality check; a deeper tier is a longer search, never a different standard.
- We merge your genotypes with the AADR v66 reference panel on our own servers, so your file and every ancient sample are read at the same positions. How many positions survive the merge is your file's coverage, and coverage limits how small your standard errors can get.
- Our analyst tests models drawn from sources chosen for your declared origins before any model runs, so the candidates are plausible before they are tested. A person reviews the results and approves the one that is published: the p-value alone ranks models poorly.
- Your report publishes with the weight, standard error and Z-score of every source, the model p-value and the full right set, and, in its Your model view, the model record (chi-square, degrees of freedom, confidence intervals, panel labels and sample counts).
Afterwards, the Ancestry Workbench lets you run your own models on the same merged dataset. New to the method? Start with how to read a p-value, Z-score and standard error.
What you get
- Price
- from €29.99 to €59.99, one-time, depending on the depth tier you choose. No subscription.
- Method
- qpadm() from ADMIXTOOLS 2, run in R on our infrastructure
- Reference panel
- ~23,265Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) v66, ~23,265 samples, ~6,015 population labels
- Statistics reported
- Model p-value; per-source weight, standard error, z-score and 95% confidence interval; the right-population set used, with sample counts
- Model record
- The run record in the report's Your model view: chi-square, degrees of freedom, f4 rank, minimum SNPs per f4, merged SNPs, jackknife blocks, every source's panel label, sample count and 95% confidence interval, and every outgroup's sample count, free at every tier
- Eras
- 231 sourcesTwo, Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer, and Bronze Age to Middle Ages, across 231 curated source populations
- Catalog
- 199 countriesEvery sovereign state, 199 countries and 1,119 regions, for both Ancient Ancestry and Ancestry Map
- Accepted files
- .txt, .csv, .zip or .gz raw-data exports up to 50 MB, or a whole-genome VCF up to 1 GB (+€10)
- Also included
- Maps of your ancient sources and server-rendered cinematic ancestry videos
- Data location
- European Union, under GDPR: EU storage, analysis in Germany and Finland
Why qpAdm rather than a coordinate fit
Most consumer ancestry tools fit your sample to a set of reference populations and return whatever weights fit best. Those weights always exist, whether or not the model makes any sense, there is no output that says "this combination cannot have produced you".
qpAdm works differently. It operates on allele-frequency statistics against a set of outgroup populations, and it tests a model rather than merely fitting one. The p-value is the point: it is what allows a proposed ancestry model to be rejected. A standard error on each proportion tells you how tightly that number is pinned down, and a z-score tells you whether a source is contributing at all.
That is the entire reason Ancient Ancestry costs more and takes longer than Ancestry Map, our Global25 coordinate report. You are paying for a model that could have failed and did not.
Four depths, one report
Every tier delivers the same report, and every published model passes the same strict quality check before we will put our name on it. What changes is how hard we search: how many models a human analyst builds, compares and stress-tests before publishing your strongest one.
- The focused searchBase€29.99
Your strongest straightforward model, found, checked, published.
≈ a few hours of analyst time · 15 to 25 candidate models
- The search past good enoughMedium€39.99
We keep searching past the first model that works, until a clearly better one stops turning up.
≈ about one working day of analyst time · 50 to 70 candidate models
- The full sweepDeep€49.99
Every plausible version of your ancestry tried, the model that survives being pushed.
≈ several working days of analyst time · 80 to 120 candidate models
- The exhaustive searchPerfect€59.99
The search ends only when nothing beats it, the strongest model your DNA can give.
≈ a week or more of analyst time · 120 to 200 candidate models
Two things are true of every tier. The quality check never moves: a deeper tier is never a different standard, only a longer search past the first model that passes it. And deeper tiers buy certainty, not complexity: the hardest-won models are often the simplest ones, and the extra days go into proving that nothing better exists.
A worked example
Take an illustrative present-day Balkan genome and ask whether it can be written as a mixture of three ancient sources: Anatolian Neolithic farmers, Western hunter-gatherers and Yamnaya steppe herders, judged against eight distant outgroups. qpAdm returns one line per source and one p-value for the whole model:
Anatolia_N: weight 0.52, standard error 0.031, Z 16.8WHG: weight 0.11, standard error 0.028, Z 3.9Yamnaya_Samara: weight 0.37, standard error 0.034, Z 10.9- Model p-value 0.21: the data do not reject the mixture. Every Z is above 3 and every standard error below 0.10, so the model passes our publication bar, a house convention.
- The two-source version without
WHGreturns p = 0.004: rejected. That rejection is the method working, and it is what a percentage calculator can never tell you.
The same run in R with ADMIXTOOLS 2, for anyone who wants to reproduce it on the merged bundle the Ancestry Workbench lets you download:
library(admixtools)
f2 <- f2_from_precomp("merged_aadr_v66_f2/")
fit <- qpadm(
f2,
left = c("Anatolia_N", "WHG", "Yamnaya_Samara"),
right = c("Mbuti.DG", "Ust_Ishim.DG", "Kostenki14", "MA1",
"Han.DG", "Papuan.DG", "Karitiana.DG", "Onge.DG"),
target = "Sample1"
)
fit$weights # weight, se, z per source
fit$popdrop # nested models and their p-values
fit$rankdrop # rank testNo R installed? The free AdmixTools 2 Lab runs the same method over the public reference panel in your browser, and the step-by-step tutorial walks every stage from the raw file to the p-value.
What a result never means
Three things worth knowing before your report opens.
- A source population is a statistical proxy, not a family. A share of
Yamnaya_Samarain your model means your genome is compatible with drawing that much of its ancestry from a population like that one. It does not say those particular buried people were related to you. - A passing model is not rejected, never confirmed. Several different models can pass for the same genome. That is why a person chooses and approves the one you receive, and why your report publishes its full right set.
- Your result describes your genome, not your identity. It says nothing about nationality, language or belonging.
A person approves every published model
An automated search can propose candidate models, but it cannot publish one: a person reviews the candidates and approves every published model. The audit literature's lesson is that a search's error rate depends mostly on how plausible its candidates were before testing, not on whether a script or a person ran it, so the candidate sources are chosen for your declared origins before any model runs.
Your model is selected, run and reviewed before it is published to your report, and it is best read as one adequate description of your genome relative to the sampled groups, not as proof that those groups mixed. If you want to run a rotation yourself, the Ancestry Workbench fits one for you as a batch of real genotype-direct runs, and labels the rows as what they are: your own hypotheses, not our published finding.
Then run your own models
The Ancestry Workbench puts the same engine in your hands, with or without a report: compose your own qpAdm models against your own merged dataset, your sample as the target, sources and outgroups chosen from the same panel, and pay only for completed runs, about €0.004 each, from a prepaid balance from €9.99 that never expires. A finished report's sample attaches as a kit for free. You get the real output, including the rejections; a model qpAdm refuses is a finding, not a bug.
Prefer your own toolchain? Every Ready kit includes the merged dataset itself, your kit combined with the AADR panel, in standard EIGENSTRAT format, ready to download.
Running a company or a lab that handles many samples? The same merge and engine are available as an API, with self-serve keys and a free sandbox.
Learn the method first
You can try the formal machinery before buying anything. The AdmixTools 2 Lab runs real f-statistics, qpWave, qpAdm and admixture-graph fitting against a reference panel, free with an account, no R installation and no genotype panel to source. Expect rejections; that is the method working.
Understanding qpAdm explains how to read a p-value, a standard error and a z-score, why outgroup choice decides whether a model is worth anything, and what to do when one is rejected. The model record explained reads every other number the report publishes, chi-square, degrees of freedom, confidence intervals and the outgroup set. qpAdm vs Global25 sets out when each method is the right instrument, and the glossary defines the vocabulary.
Questions
Is Ancient Ancestry a qpAdm analysis?
Yes. Ancient Ancestry is our name for the qpAdm analysis: your raw DNA is merged with the Allen Ancient DNA Resource and modelled with the qpadm() function of ADMIXTOOLS 2. qpAdm names the method, and Ancient Ancestry is the report you receive.
Is this real qpAdm, or an approximation?
It is real qpAdm. We run the qpadm() function from ADMIXTOOLS 2, the same package used in published ancient-DNA research, against your genotypes merged with the Allen Ancient DNA Resource. It is not a coordinate-fitting method dressed up in qpAdm language.
How is qpAdm different from Global25 and nMonte percentages?
They answer different questions. Global25 and nMonte fit your coordinate to a weighted combination of reference coordinates, and will always return some percentages. qpAdm works from allele-frequency statistics and outgroups, and can reject a model outright: it returns a p-value that tells you whether the proposed ancestry model is compatible with the data at all. Percentages from a coordinate fit are estimates; qpAdm output is a statistical test.
What do the four depth tiers change?
How hard we search. Every published model, at every tier, has to pass the same strict quality check before we will put our name on it, and the report itself is identical at every tier. What a deeper tier buys is a longer, harder hunt for your best model: Base (€29.99) is the focused search, a few hours of analyst time. Medium (€39.99) keeps searching past the first model that works, about a working day. Deep (€49.99) is the full sweep of every plausible combination, several working days. Perfect (€59.99) is the exhaustive search, ending only when nothing we try beats the model on the table, a week or more.
Why do the tiers cost what they cost?
Because qpAdm is not a button. Our analyst composes, runs and audits each model against the ancient reference panel, and a longer search means more models to build and more reference sets to re-test them on, roughly 15 to 25 models at Base, 50 to 70 at Medium, 80 to 120 at Deep and 120 to 200 at Perfect. You are paying for analyst hours, from a few at Base to a week or more at Perfect.
Which statistics do you actually show me?
For each era you get the model's p-value, and for each source population its weight, its standard error and its z-score, alongside the set of right (outgroup) populations the model was run against. The report's Your model view then publishes the model record behind those numbers: chi-square and degrees of freedom, the f4 rank, the minimum SNP count per f4 statistic, the merged SNP count, the jackknife block count, each source's panel label, sample count and 95% confidence interval, and each outgroup's sample count. Those are the numbers needed to judge a model rather than just read it.
Does a qpAdm result tell me who my ancestors were?
No. A source population is a statistical proxy: a weight means your genome is compatible with drawing that share of its ancestry from a population like that one, not that any particular buried individual was related to you. A model that passes is one the data did not reject, never one they confirmed, and the result says nothing about nationality, language or belonging.
Which reference dataset do you use?
The Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) v66, roughly 23,265 samples across roughly 6,015 distinct population labels. We operate the merge ourselves: your file is converted, filtered of indels and strand-ambiguous SNPs, and intersected against the panel with Poseidon's trident before any model is run.
Which files can I upload?
A raw-data export from a consumer testing company, 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and similar, as a .txt, .csv, .zip or .gz file up to 50 MB. We validate the file by its actual content rather than by vendor, so exports that follow the usual microarray text layout are accepted even when the company is not named here. Sequenced your whole genome (tellmeGen, Dante Labs, Nebula)? Upload the VCF instead, up to 1 GB, +€10, and we convert it to the reference panel's markers ourselves at upload, lifting a GRCh38 file to GRCh37, the panel's build; the VCF itself is kept with your files until you delete it.
Do I get results instantly?
No, and deliberately not. Merging your genotypes against the AADR panel is a heavy job that runs on our own infrastructure, and your model is then reviewed and approved by a person before it is published. An Ancient Ancestry report is reviewed work, not a page that renders the moment you pay.
Can I verify the model myself?
Yes, and the report is built so you can. Every qpAdm model publishes its p-value, the weight, standard error and z-score for each source population, and the full right (outgroup) set it was run against, all of them, behind a Show all control rather than a truncated sample. The right set is what decides whether a qpAdm model means anything, so withholding it would make the result unfalsifiable. With the panel version (AADR v66) and those inputs you have everything needed to re-run the model in ADMIXTOOLS 2 yourself, and the Your model view shows the exact panel label, sample count and 95% confidence interval of every source and the sample count of every outgroup.
Can I download my Ancient Ancestry results?
Yes, as a PDF. The report is on screen, and Download PDF in its Your model view saves the version you are reading as one document: every era with its sources, their shares and descriptions, and the model record behind it, which is the fit block (p-value, chi-square, degrees of freedom, f4 rank, SNP counts and jackknife blocks), every source with its panel label, sample count, weight, standard error, z-score and 95% confidence interval, and the ordered outgroup set with sample counts. There is no text export of the record. The share cards and the ancestry videos download too, and the merged EIGENSTRAT dataset itself comes with the Ancestry Workbench, where your report's sample attaches as a kit for free.
Why is a person involved at all?
Because the p-value alone ranks candidate models poorly, so choosing among the models that pass takes judgement about what is plausible for your origins. An automated search can propose candidate models, but it cannot publish one: a person reviews the candidates and approves every published model. The audit literature's lesson is that a search's error rate depends mostly on how plausible its candidates were before testing, not on whether a script or a person ran it, so the candidate sources are chosen for your declared origins before any model runs.
Can I run qpAdm myself?
Yes, in the Ancestry Workbench. It runs on a prepaid balance from €9.99 that never expires, and every completed qpAdm run draws about €0.004 from it; failed runs are never charged. Your sample is the target, you choose the source and outgroup populations from the merged panel, and you get the real statistics back: the p-value, weights, standard errors and z-scores. It also fits rotation batches and Fst distance, and a finished report's sample attaches as a kit for free. Expect rejections, qpAdm saying no to a model is the method working.
Can I download the merged dataset itself?
Yes, from the Ancestry Workbench, where the sample of a finished report attaches as a kit at no cost. You get the exact merged genotype bundle your report was computed from, your kit combined with the AADR panel, in the standard EIGENSTRAT format (.geno/.snp/.ind), ready for ADMIXTOOLS 2 or any compatible toolchain on your own machine. It is a multi-gigabyte archive; download links are short-lived and downloads are metered.
Which countries and populations does the catalog cover?
Every sovereign state, 199 countries and 1,119 regions, for both Ancient Ancestry and Ancestry Map. The qpAdm source populations themselves (231 across the two eras) each have a public page on the Ancestry populations directory describing who they were and how they sit in a model.
Where is my data stored?
In the European Union, under GDPR: your files are kept in private EU storage until you delete them, and analysed on our servers in Germany and Finland. Your raw file is processed only for your own analysis, you can delete it whenever no report is being prepared from it, and full account deletion and data export are self-service.
Everything about qpAdm on Ancestrify
- Buy a qpAdm analysis: the price and tiers of Ancient Ancestry, what you receive and how ordering works.
- qpAdm via API: for DNA-testing companies and labs, send a DNA file and receive every passing model as JSON, 15 EUR per delivered sample.
- Learn qpAdm: the complete guide: every article we publish on the method, ordered into a learning path.
- qpAdm best practices: a working checklist, and where each rule comes from.
- A qpAdm tutorial: from a raw DNA file to a model with a p-value, with the R code.
- Where to buy a qpAdm analysis, Ancient Ancestry among them: every service, what it costs, what you get.
- What Ancient Ancestry costs: prices, tiers and add-ons.
- Is qpAdm worth it?: qpAdm versus ADMIXTURE, admixture calculators and percentage tools.
- Choosing sources and right populations: the left and right sets explained, with the standard right sets and how many outgroups to use.
- Why a model gets rejected: what p below 0.05 means, what to try next, and common errors and odd outputs, decoded.
- An Ancient Ancestry report, line by line: a worked example of the model record in the Your model view.
- qpAdm from 23andMe, AncestryDNA or MyHeritage raw data: what each vendor's file gives you.
- Understanding qpAdm, how to read a published model.
- p-value, Z-score and standard error, the three numbers, explained.
- Run your own qpAdm models, a walkthrough of the Workbench.
- The Ancestry Workbench, your own models, rotation and Fst distance on your own merged dataset, on a prepaid balance.
- AdmixTools 2 Lab, free ADMIXTOOLS 2 on the public panel, with a free account.
- qpAdm vs Global25, when each method is the right instrument.
- Glossary, qpAdm, f-statistics, left and right sets.
- Ancestry populations, the 231 source populations, one page each.
Bring your raw DNA into a tested model.
Your genotypes are merged against AADR v66, then the model is reviewed and approved by a person before it is published to your private report.