Many people with entirely Czech or Slovak family trees open their DNA results and find a spread of neighboring labels: Eastern European next to Balkan, or Czech next to Hungarian and Polish. They wonder whether the test or the tree is wrong. Usually neither is. This guide explains what an ethnicity estimate is, what the main companies show for Central Europe, why the results look mixed and how to read them sensibly. We checked these details in October 2026, and company features, database sizes and prices change often, so confirm them before you buy.
What an ethnicity estimate is
MyHeritage describes its Ethnicity Estimate as built from genetic models of populations around the world: your DNA is compared with these models to estimate the percentage that resembles each region. It is a statistical resemblance, not a record of where your ancestors lived.
What MyHeritage shows
- The labels. We could not confirm the current labels for Czech and Slovak ancestry. MyHeritage introduced Ethnicity Estimate v2.5 on 2 February 2025, raising the number of ethnicities from 42 to 79.
- A real-world snapshot. The only country page we could read, an old one for Slovakia, showed the share of MyHeritage DNA users in Slovakia with each ethnicity: East European 91.1 percent, Balkan 83.9 percent, Baltic 33.1 percent, North and West European 32.1 percent and Scandinavian 29.4 percent. These percentages overlap because a user can have several ethnicities.
- Genetic Groups. These name 2,114 regions without percentages, and they were not changed in the 2025 update, though they may now be nested under a different ethnicity.
- Ancient Origins. A separate report, produced with Illustrative DNA, places your DNA relative to ancient populations.
The lesson of the snapshot is that several broad labels appearing together for a Slovak result is a normal outcome of the model, not an error.
What other companies show
| Company | What it reports for Czech and Slovak lines |
|---|---|
| 23andMe | Its regional populations include a group called Czech, Hungarian, Slovak and Southern Polish, with Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and sub-regions such as Bohemia, Northwestern Bohemia, Western Slovakia and the Central Pannonian Basin. Its pages list Czech Republic (14+ regions) and Slovakia (8+ regions), and in April 2025 it added 17 Genetic Groups in Czechia and 15 in Slovakia. |
| AncestryDNA | One blogger describes a broad Europe East category that included Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and says a later update added regions. Check what it currently reports. |
| FamilyTreeDNA | Its autosomal test reports ancestry too, and its Y-DNA and mitochondrial tests follow single lines. |
23andMe says the update is the first phase of a broader effort, that it affects around 13 percent of customers who tested on its latest chip, and that not everyone whose ancestors came from the region will receive a match.
Early Czech Americans groups
In March 2025, 23andMe added Genetic Groups tied to Czech settlements in the United States, including Early Czech Americans of the Big Blue River Basin, Burleson County, Ellis County, Lavaca County, the Lavaca River Basin, the Navidad River Basin, the Nebraska Till Plains, the San Gabriel River Basin, Williamson County, Wharton and Fort Bend Counties, and Kewaunee and Manitowoc Counties. If your Czech American family settled in one of these places, a match could connect you to a settlement community. See our emigration guide.
Why Central European ancestry looks mixed
- Neighboring populations. Wikipedia notes that Czech Y-DNA haplogroups show a mix of Eastern and Western European traits and, based on haplotype similarity, Czechs are most similar to neighboring Slovaks.
- Centuries of mixing. The Czech lands and Slovakia had German-speaking, Hungarian-speaking and Rusyn communities. See our regions guide.
- Shared Slavic roots. Czechs and Slovaks are both West Slavic peoples, and the model has to separate groups that are genetically close.
- Reference populations. Estimates depend on the reference groups a company has, so the same person can get different labels from different companies.
What an estimate cannot tell you
- Which village your family came from. That needs records. See how to find the village of origin.
- Whether your ancestors were Czech or Slovak. The groups are genetically close.
- Your citizenship. Citizenship is documented with records. See the citizenship guide.
- A fixed answer. MyHeritage’s change from 42 to 79 ethnicities in 2025 shows that results can change.
How to use your results sensibly
- Start with matches, not percentages. See how to find Czech and Slovak cousins with DNA.
- Read your regional reports or Genetic Groups and compare them with your paper trail.
- Expect neighboring labels, such as Hungarian, Polish, Balkan and German.
- Compare more than one company if you can.
- Test the oldest relative available.
- Let the records decide. See our tracing guide.
Illustrative composite (not a real family): A reader whose grandparents came from Moravia gets a result of mostly Eastern European with smaller neighboring shares, and no Czech-specific label. She remembers that a Slovak snapshot at MyHeritage showed several labels at once, and that 23andMe says not everyone receives a Genetic Group match. Her match list and the Moravian parish registers do the real work of confirming her grandparents’ village.
Questions to ask about your result
- Which labels appear together, and are they neighbors of the region in my paper trail?
- Does a regional report agree with the village in my records, or only with the country?
- Do my matches live in the places my results suggest?
Common mistakes
- Concluding the paper trail is wrong. Mixed Central European results are common.
- Choosing a test for its percentages. Matches matter more.
- Treating a label as a nationality. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish groups overlap.
- Treating small regions as discoveries. They are estimates.
- Ignoring updates. Estimates change when models change.
Read the best DNA test for Czech and Slovak ancestry and MyHeritage DNA for Czech and Slovak ancestry, see the DNA testing hub and browse DNA & Tools. Sources include 23andMe’s ancestry page, 23andMe’s April 2025 announcement, 23andMe’s March 2025 diaspora update, Wikipedia on the Czechs and a blogger’s account of Ancestry’s Europe East category.
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