D.N.A. Ancestry Kits
16Ok, we all have seen the commercials for these genealogy tests. But who out there has actually tried them? I am considering buying my mother one for Xmas, as she doesn’t need any more shit around the house, and loves genealogy. They are all currently having sales on these kits.
Is it worth it? Was your insurance cancelled because the test results were shared? Is one test better than another? Help me to discover if I am really part Neanderthal.
- 41 comments, 82 replies
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What do you mean if ?
@mflassy How did I know you would be the first to reply to that?
@mfladd
How did I know you would say that?
My mum got one for me when they were on sale awhile back. No real surprises. I was annoyed by the ancestry site wanting me to sign up for shit while I waited for results.
I was only 8% Scandinavia which is funny because one of our family reunions is big on our Swedish backgrounds.
My top 5 were (in no particular order) Scandinavia, Europe West, Europe East, Great Britain, and Ireland.
If you do it, have your parents do it as well. It was interesting to see what I had that my mother did not. Apart from that, it was pretty meh.
/giphy typical whitey
@medz Thanks. What kit did you use? I have heard there a couple of differences in them. I wasn’t going to do it now, but thought she might get a kick out of it. I think the Swedish party thing is funny. Did you let them know?
@mfladd It was the ancestry.com one: https://www.ancestry.com/dna/
They gave a nice PDF file with the results and some history details on the migratory patterns of people from the areas my DNA was from.
Edit: as @cahuston said below, the ancestry site did match me with my mom as she had already set up an account on ancestry.com. It should allow you to link to those people to create a family tree on the ancestry.com site, but I didn’t want to pay for all that.
An interesting article having twins, triplets and quadruplets take the test. The kits aren’t perfect but are more accurate than I suspected. I’ve been interested in them myself as part of my background is a mystery.
@moondrake
That’s interesting, I was thinking about having Thing 1 and 2 do 23 & me to see if they’re identical (they shouldn’t be, but their blood types are the same, which statistically shouldn’t be either based on mom and dad’s blood type). Apparently they aren’t really accurate enough to answer that question.
I have two uncles who got them- one confirmed exactly what he thought, the other one was somewhat surprising.
They both enjoy them, but they were both already interested in that sort of thing.
It started with my mom, and she got her brother to do it (old Ancestry kits - not the same) then she bought the current Ancestry kits for her descendants, then my husband got into it, now his family is doing 23 and me and my mom got herself a 23 and me. She was a little meh about the 23 and me because she’s more interested in genealogy than chromosonal susceptibilities to disease but my brother-in-law is convinced he will develop Alzheimer’s tomorrow so he’s more of a 23 and me type.
My view is Ancestry’s is the most common so they have the best database to extrapolate from and they have sent updates when bigger data lets them chart migration patterns of genetic types. (Early American history, say).
My favorite part is my dad’s ~1% India Indian which he pshaws as analytical error but my sister and I are convinced its evidence of gypsy roots (white bread folks looking for something).
@monicabc That’s very helpful. Thanks. My mom would be more interested in the genealogy side, and at her age she wouldn’t care what disease she is going to get.
Also, I have seen you posting recently - are you new? Or a lurker coming out of the shadows? Or, have I just not been paying attention?
@mfladd Lurker would be too kind. I’m more of a distant follower. It takes me some time to find out about things and then a couple more years to get up to speed. But your topic is very … topical in my life. My mom and independently my husband are so into dna and lineage that my mom got my husband a gift certificate to get our dog’s (rescue mutt) DNA done?! At least information security doesn’t seem like as big a deal there. But then again my dog has a GPS chip implanted under her skin… Yeah, where are the dystopic canine novels because their lives are weird.
@monicabc we just ordered Ancestry kits because 1) I was adopted and found my birth family, but dad =? and 2) it was cheaper than the one we did on our rescue dog last year! Rescue told us he’s part corgi. Dog weighs 100 lbs. tldr of test: grandfather was Bernese mtn dog, the rest “your guess is as good as ours” guessing our results will be the same!
I looked at all of them, but went with 23andMe because of multiple reasons, including my feeling more comfortable with their protection of my personal data. I was (and am) happy to volunteer to share my anonymized data, and very amused to see the close matches of people that I know I’m related to.
I had no surprises as far as the ancestry part goes, other than the amusement of seeing that I had a fraction of a percent of Neanderthal. Every once in a while I log in to see if there’s anything new, as they add in more genetic tests and such. I was relieved to see that I didn’t have the gene that predicts a greater chance of Alzheimer’s (having one gene gives you a 1 in 4 chance, and having two of them gives you 1 in 2, or something like that).
I would absolutely NOT recommend anyone who is not Ancestry.com or 23andMe.com, under any circumstances.
@Shrdlu Neanderthal - Nice!!! Why am I not surprised
I am definitely only considering those two tests, but I am interested in knowing why you would not consider others. Thanks.
@mfladd Neanderthal is fairly common in certain narrow communities (European, and I’d have to go look up my notes for anything more specific).
I am only sure of Ancestry and 23andMe as far as safety of my data, and in knowing that you may have confidence when they say they will not share (without your specific permission) or sell.
What is said below is also true. No one should take these sorts of tests without being prepared for results that may be unpleasant or unexpected (especially as to parentage).
@Shrdlu I am so confused…the main criticism of 23andMe and Ancestry.com is the lack of privacy towards your data. Yeah, if you are comfortable with volunteering it, I guess its no big issue but it sounds like you are applauding them for volunteering your DNA and results (anonymized to some degree) for research and then in the same breadth thanking them for safeguarding your privacy.
@elimanningface You are confused, but I’m sure I just didn’t express it well. They are careful to not share my personal data. I’m fine with contributing anonymized data to various projects.
Book length post with more data below.
I logged in today (and spent three hours, dammit, playing around with stuff), and among others, noted that one of the surveys I participated in was part of a paper that was used to further knowledge about Parkinson’s. It’s interesting, since I don’t have it, but there are people I’m related to that do. It’s actually more complicated than that, but I did have a little twinge of “Oh, how cool” before I went on to read other things.
I’m happy to see that new advancements in Alzheimer’s research (in the area of gene identification for contributors) still say I’m not at risk. Many people I’m related to are, and that includes some with early onset. I fear it more than almost anything.
Here’s my latest breakdown on ancestors:
@Shrdlu I don’t think we necessarily disagree on the potential usefulness of the two sites, where we may disagree on is the level of privacy. Did you sign a waiver to allow your genetic information to be released for each specific project/study (i.e. the Parkinson’s report you referred to above) or was consent implied as part of the terms of service when you submitted your original sample that your genetic information maybe used without your specific authorization? Unless the TOS for both services changed in the past year, the concern some have is their genetic information being used in research projects or ventures without their direct and explicit consent each time. I imagine others can explain this better than so here are a couple of links if interest:
https://gizmodo.com/23andme-is-selling-your-data-but-not-how-you-think-1794340474
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/02/23andme-and-the-promise-of-anonymous-genetic-testing-10/23andmes-dangerous-business-model-17
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying either company is evil or have nefarious plans but rather the privacy concerns some consumers have about both companies are legitimate.
Our medical (and other) data, theoretically anonymized, is shared all the time. The cancer center has me in their system for 3 different cancers and apparently something I signed along the way allows them to share all my medical crap with a pile of other institutions… and of course marketers…well they can have fun with the lies I put out there… although they have managed to connect the dots on a few things.
I was a speaker at a medical data privacy conference and one of the other speakers (journalist) managed to identify - BY NAME - people in a theoretically anonymized medical database used in research. Another speaker - a victim of this - has been spammed for years with “as your baby/child grows” junk for her then (at the time of the conference) dead 5 years child (miscarriage and she had not yet bought anything anywhere for a baby).
And then there is the original data miner big bad story (I am sure there are more that may predate this but this one has a lot of coverage). A dad had a cow with Target because their house was being targeted with ads for baby stuff and he didn’t want that in his household with his teenage daughter and wanted to try to get Target to get it to stop. They told him that his household was getting it because someone was pregnant. He said, “not”. Nope Target was right. His teenage daughter. It turns out the data miner had figured out what new moms to be buy prior to when they start buying cribs, car seats, baby clothes and also knew if they could get those same new mom’s to be to buy some of those big ticket items then they tended to buy most of their baby and toddler stuff at Target rather than elsewhere. So they targeted them with ads. As a result of this a baby ad ad now may have some tools, or kitchen stuff thrown in as a decoy…
Of course Walmart figured out that beer sales went up when it was located by the baby section (although that wasn’t personally identifiable since it was obtained via individual sales). Diapers, formula and beer apparently are a good match. Use Walmarts credit card anywhere and heaven help you because they are into the data mining business big time. Years ago a marketing prof used to joke that if Walmart included credit cards and banking (their own bank) in their products or services, heaven help you because you’d have no place to hide as they’d know just about everything about you.
As it is the host of companies that sell your personally identifiable information is bad news on the privacy front. Likely the there is no putting the gene back in that bottle.
@Kidsandliz you make some really good points and brought up some interesting highlights. Privacy is more relative than absolute these days. In defense of 23andme, they repeatedly have said (and I think it is in their terms of service too) they aren’t using any information collected for target marketing…at least for now.
@Shrdlu Its epidemic in my family. I probably ought to take the test because all it could do is give good news, I’ve always assumed that it was my fate.
@elimanningface umm yeah google said that too way back when…
elimanningface et alia (at sign removed deliberately):
I feel comfortable with the current privacy protections with 23andMe and with Ancestry. Note that BOTH of these have (in a very few instances) given certain data to law enforcement when the proper paperwork was done. This is to be expected, and notification of this is in the fine print (yes, unlike almost everyone on the planet, I often read the fine printer). However…
I’m happy to contribute to scientific work on certain diseases and problems. In my family, on my mother’s side, there are any number of normally rare problems that are common in certain groups. Every time they find another marker for Alzheimer’s, and I get another pass because I don’t have it, I’m relieved. Until you’ve seen your twelve year old cousin (when I was also twelve) with that look of confused loss, because her mother had early onset, and no longer recognized her, or anyone, you don’t understand what true loss is. It’s a look I’ll take to my grave.
Sorry, back to the point. I gave permission to use my data. I’m content with that. I would do it again.
BTW, I never, ever trusted Google, not even back when they were still just two kids in a trailer on campus. I trust 23andMe in certain aspects of things, but I don’t trust anyone, ever, completely.
@Shrdlu Blame @therealjrn for the three hours you lost going thru your data, but I am glad you did. Thanks for chiming in.
@Shrdlu @mfladd
@Shrdlu National Geographic Geno 2.0 is also legit.
Please remember that genetic information about a family member, especially a parent, is also your genetic information. How much do you want to share?
https://gizmodo.com/why-a-dna-test-is-actually-a-really-bad-gift-1820934113
http://www.newsweek.com/genetic-tests-find-ancestry-could-allow-companies-exploit-you-schumer-warns-723091
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article185198178.html
The companies say the information is owned by you and you can delete it, but does anything online ever get deleted?
@2many2no Good to know. I thought I heard something before that 23 actually owns the data, I may be completely wrong, but thanks for the links. I might want to stay away from 23 if I don’t want to know that I won’t remember anyone in the nursing home.
@mfladd They own the data they let researchers use. Least anyone forget this company was started by 3 folks that included the wife of the google founder… and both companies have the same goal with respect to how they make their money.
While older this is very clear on some of the issues
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/
I believe the underlying business model of 23 and me is to rent the database to scientists for their research. We are lured into contributing (and filling out extensive questionnaires) by what they offer in return - however their primary goal in the end is trying to get the biggest repository of DNA out there plus additional information for future science research.
The other issue with finding relatives, countries you are from, etc. is that the accuracy (and reliability) of the reference databases. 23 and me is currently (or at least in the recent past) trying to add people to their African reference group so were offering a huge deal (like maybe free I forget now) to people who absolutely knew back several generations their heritage from specific countries/areas/ethnic groups in Africa. There are some parts of the world they have no one in their database and others where they just have one. Now the problem then is if that person isn’t representative - and even if they were - there is going to be variety within a given group with roots in a certain area and so much will be missed with low numbers.
It becomes even worse when trying to identify relatives. In the foreign adoption community families have had, over time, a big change in who is identified as siblings, cousins, etc. - including so called identified siblings who several years later aren’t even listed as a distant relative (one real case of someone I know). The catch here is again, partly the reference data base (or lack there of). If it isn’t big enough and varied enough within groups the accuracy of ancestry and who is a relative results will drop. And as someone else mentioned one would expect identical twins, triplets to come back identical and for the most part they do not.
The medical stuff is a bit better. Several years ago 23 and me had a problem with the FDA and was told they couldn’t do what they were doing how they were doing it with the medical testing. Not sure what they did to change it since then, but I have heard several people say that what is done is less extensive than before and that many genes identified aren’t definitively linked with issues in a way you can take to the bank so to speak… rather more a suspicion of (I think that was partly what they got in to trouble for earlier, if I recall correctly).
Probably nice as a parlor game, maybe a bit more worthwhile than that, but don’t necessarily completely believe everything you get back from them. If there are specific mutations (of the medical disease causing variety) that have been externally validated as actually “causing” a certain disease then likely your results on those are believable, but those that have not and there are only weak links with that gene or mutation with a disease then don’t count on the results actually meaning much. Also many diseases require multiple things to go wrong for you to get the disease…
Having not read a bit about it…how unsubpoenable are the results? Not that we would suspect @mfladd’s mom of a crime. Could the data become part of a lawsuit?
@mikibell She’s not going to be taken without a fight!
@mfladd
@mikibell
What about weird gifs? Is she into those?
Weird gifs could be a crime, you know.
And the need to search them out might be genetically-linked.
/giphy "weird gifs"
I purchases 23 over the last prime day sale. I only purchased the DNA test, I don’t want to know if I have or am likely to have some horrible disease - something to be said for not knowing!
Although there were no huge suprises for my dominant genealogy there were some lesser suprises. … <10% Asian, jewish, Swedish and African. Nnnnooooo idea where that comes from.
It said I have > 500 3rd degree relatives in their database I have not figured out how to contact them.
Oh and I am neanderthal
It was interesting.
@tinamarie1974 Neanderthals Unite!
Is there some type of club, or secret handshake for this genetic organization?
@mfladd So beyond being neanderthal, I am about 1/4 Iberian and Sicilian…the above pictures just look like normal pic’s of my uncles
But, you know, I think there should be a secret handshake or grunt, or something…
@tinamarie1974 I have about 400 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins. I want my mom to do her’s because it will let me know which side of the family these cousins are on. I had one contact me because she was adopted and trying to find her birth parents. I couldn’t help much but it was nice to meet a cousin.
I did one of the tests fron Ancestry. It was nice when I received a notice that I had a DNA match to people I thought where in my tree but couldn’t prove it in documents.
I was thinking about getting one for one of our dogs. I’ve wondered what the heck he is (besides being a dog).
I really don’t care about my ancestry…
Nothing beats a Maury DNA test.
/image you are not the father!
@elimanningface
I bought us 23 and me tests for my wife’s birthday. She kept saying she wanted to do it and I had to put up a bigger fight each time about not wanting to do it to keep her from ordering them herself. We actually haven’t done them yet.
She has come home with two or three stories about her co-workers doing the Ancestry test and discovering relatives that they didn’t know existed. And her office is pretty small. One of the families I think had a “sip-n-see” to meet their long lost uncle or some such.
Two of our adult daughters did the tests - don’t recall which company - and their backgrounds overlapped a lot but were quite different. Should I be worried?
@RedOak Prob not… but one of them may want to get a refund.
@lseeber yah, we all had a good laugh but concluded tests of this poor quality at this price are barely marginally useful.
I wouldn’t waste my money on the tests.
@RedOak That’s frightening.
Has anyone found a dna test that doesn’t have ancestry and a 23andmes horrible data retention model?
I would be interested in doing this if I didn’t have to sell out my entire downstream family line to see.
@thismyusername it would appear the point of the model - showing a map of your background - requires connecting your pattern to others. Without connecting the data, the maps would be empty rather than improved with each new sample.
Tricky balance of curiosity vs privacy.
@thismyusername FamilyTreeDNA maybe what you are looking for. You have to sign a waiver to release your data but also to see your matches (but you can makeup a fake name to get around that, I guess). It’s user database isn’t as large as 23andMe or Ancestry.com but you can export your results into other databases for additional matches.
The thing to keep in mind about ‘origin’ or “ancestry” maps is that it shows where people who have the same ethnic markers are living today.
As a hypothetical example, if you’re Asian it might show you’re ‘related’ to a pocket of people in the Bay Area because that’s where a bunch of Asians live now, not where you’re “from” (as in several generations back). The same for Japanese “ancestors” in Chile that might turn up.
Obviously they have no samples from before a century or so ago to compare your DNA against.
@mike808 This is also partly because they have few to no samples from parts of the world in their reference database…
For the privacy geeks, I seem to recall the the National Geographic DNA project had the most authentic science use/practices/policies in place specifically compared to the private commercial efforts of 23andMe and Ancestry.com.
@mike808 I wouldn’t ride so heavily on that “commercial/private company” distinction - whatever it means anyway. National Geographic (including “Society” would be disingenuous) is now far from a philanthropic/for the good of science entity. It departed from that “science-motivated” organization long ago. It is now a media company.
@mike808 @RedOak esp since murdoch bought it
My parents have been loyal Natgeo fans for years. They’ve subscribed since the 70s when they started being able to afford something as frivolous as magazines (we were dirt po and they are incredibly frugal). That being said, my dad gave my mom the natgeo dna test. Several months later, he did it too. Now my mom is going to buy her brother one and my dad is buying her sister one. The results are pretty interesting. My grandmother on my mom’s side had a tendency to exaggerate sometimes. Her maiden name was Toliffson. So my whole life i had heard we were part Norwegian. Turns out we are part scandanavian. There are huge pockets of toliffsons all over Minnesota and canada that migrated in the 1800s. Course the rest is British, Scots, and Irish which is precisely what one would expect from names like Stell, Scott, and O’Dell. My grandmother and a cousin did extensive research and traced her dad’s line back to the 1600s. Since then, I’ve met another distant cousin who traced it back to about 900 in England. Pretty average white family.
@ivannabc
Norway is part of Scandinavia. I’m guessing they don’t have enough info to narrow it down.
@RiotDemon yeah we all thought she made it up. I would have to go back and look at the report but i can’t remember if it specified a country or not. I’m sure she would gloat lol
My mom got me the ancestry.com kit since we have little info on my dad’s side of the family. Who knows what I’ll get??? The mystery could be solved, just as soon as I can find 30 minutes to not drink anything in order to do the damn test. I didn’t realize I drink that much throughout the day.
And if you have a blood cancer then these things may or may not be accurate. Getting some “real” DNA tests for actual medical diagnostic use (for a non-cancer problem) I noticed that disclaimer in the fine print when the results came back. So my negative test results may not be accurate for those tests nor for the one I got earlier since I had had breast cancer on both sides. The odds are reasonably low but not zero. Sigh. Wish I had known that before I sold a bunch of stuff to pay for that collection of tests.
Part of me is curious as to what they would find doing this stuff (heritage, medical, etc.) and part of me is afraid of privacy breaches/lack of sufficient anonymization (since they already happen with so called private medical data which aren’t ‘anonymized’ enough - see my previous post in this thread). I already can’t get disability, long term care, etc. insurance because of the cancers I have had or still have (and prior to Obama care no health insurance unless I had work sponsored insurance)… who knows what other problems would/could surface with “future use”, database hacks…
Eh, I’m hesitant. I watched some video where 23andme didn’t have a lot of testing from an entire country, so the people from that country where listed as some other country.
I have seen my ancestry on my dad’s side all the way back to 900, so I know that is true.
My mom’s side… My weird non blood uncle has figured out the family tree, way back, but trying to get him to share it is ridiculous. I’m going to have to try to convince my aunt to email it to us.
ha… maybe I’m paranoid but I figure one day the gov’t will confiscate all those dna profiles and use them against us somehow.
@lseeber just wait.
/youtube gattaca movie trailer
@lseeber just because you think they are out to get you, doesn’t mean they are not!!!
@mikibell True story.
I have to agree with @mike808 and then, just for good measure, to make sure everyone here hates me, I have to be that guy and say these tests are a wonderful marketing ploy…and a whole lot of bunk. For me at least, the fact that these companies are using political state names as labels for shared genetic phenotypes belies the faulty “science”(that’s right, I’m also the guy who uses quotation marks sarcastically) that’s behind these tests. To paraphrase @mike808, DNA may be able to tell you that you share genetic traits with specific groups of people who live in specific parts of the world today, but it cannot give you a breakdown of your genetic make-up as seen above.
Heritage is a shared history and cannot be accurately gleaned from genetic material. Along the completely understandable privacy concerns, these kits offer little of what they are advertised to with the exception of detecting potential carriers for genetic diseases which is an extremely important bit of information. If genetic screening is the byproduct of this snake oil fad, it will have been worth the awful commercials.
All that being said, save your money and make your mother something with your own hands. Make a card, draw her a picture, if you’re not crafty, take her somewhere and share an experience. It seriously doesn’t matter what it is, she’ll treasure it for the rest of her life because it’s thoughtful and it came from you.
@sixstringslim My Mom passed away earlier this year.
@sixstringslim I give /presence/. It changes everything.
Spend less. Give more.
Worship fully. Love all.
AdventConspiracy.org
@sixstringslim
@therealjrn Now I feel horrible. Well, more horrible than I normally do.
@therealjrn my condolences
@tinamarie1974 Thank you, certainly it is going to be a different world for me this year.
@sixstringslim I do not agree with you.
These tests are based on checking the SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) - single site mutations.
If you just have a set of sequences, that were produced using a tree-like mutation process, it’s possible to roughly reconstruct that tree.
When you have some historical data about the ancient migrations and know the prevailing state of the SNP markers of a given country, it’s possible to lay that tree on a map.
It obviously does not say much about the recent history of someone. Possibility of long-distance travel makes everything increasingly blurry.
Oh, really? You’ve definitely expanded my limited geographical knowledge. Can you help me a bit more, please? I’m struggling to locate the H1a3 state on my map. https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/haplogroups-explained/ https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/235201447-Getting-Started-with-the-Haplogroup-Reports
Oh, and do you know whether I need a visa to travel to Ashkenazi. Looks like a nice European state to visit. https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/
@therealjrn It will. I understand. I lost my husband unexpectedly 6 weeks ago. Things are different.
@lseeber Thank you. And may I extend my condolences to you as well? Merry, happy, so very different Holidays to you ma’am.
@therealjrn
Tough year for you. I’m sure you are all doing your best. : (
@therealjrn Thank you very much. And likewise to you. Make a new tradition.
@lseeber @therealjrn - the first christmas is hard. My dad had died about 2 weeks before christmas (and I had to put my cat down two days after his funeral - all in all december sucked that year). All the “firsts” are hard. I wish the two of you strength to get through them. Eventually they aren’t as hard. But it takes a while.
Nevertheless, I still haven’t used those services (apart from the prenatal genetic defects tests which I despise as a senseless money grab (very little info, for lots of money)).
My logic is that I do not like the idea of paying $100-$300 to get the info about some limited number of DNA sites (Surprisingly, the latest 23andMe test only checks about 2 times less sites than the previous version).
I want to have full genome sequenced. Right now the full genome can be sequenced for <$1000 (exome is several times cheaper). I’m just waiting for the prices to drop a bit more. I’ll pull the trigger at ~$300 for full genome.
@Fduch The FDA got involved with that a while back and so they modified what they did. I am sure the sequence for more than they release since their ultimate goal is the world’s biggest DNA repository.
@Kidsandliz I think that FDA was more concerned about the medical analysis and recommendations (not the extraction process). Companies had to remove the medical reports for some time.
@Kidsandliz Yup + yup.
I have not done any of these. What are the current deals?
How comprehensive or useful are the various genetic risk assessments, given the complexity of genetic risk factors, and other triggers/exposures for the full active expression of a genetic risk in one’s life?
Has anyone done both ancestry.com and 23andme, or done other side by side genetic qscans from different sourcing, to compare experience and results?
There are known things I am at risk for for, due to ancestors and close relatives having confirmed diagnoses (diabetes type 2, for instance, which I currently don’t have); and at least one genetic-risk cancer I seem to be free of at the moment.
I had various ancestors show cognitive decline, at ages usually well past 80, some past 90; at least one was far younger. Most of them went undiagnosed by modern standards (what was then called “hardening if the arteries”).
The most recent, now gone, was diagnosed formally, and supposedly had, not Alzheimer’s, but a series of TIA’s, along with some issues with neck and brain arteries.
I may also have some degree of risk for cognitive decline for to a somewhat reckless youth - the brain scan images of recently deceased ex-NFL players with confirmed brain injury, almost certainly due to repeated head impact and trauma, give me shivers.
I was a reckless kid and horseback rider when young. There were accidents and falls, plenty of them.
I don’t think - and I hope - I didn’t experience anything like the kind of trauma that occurs even in today’s HS football tho.
I used to think cognitive decline or loss was the loss I feared most, and actively dreaded. I have relaxed somewhat about that just a little, philosophically, I suppose. I world certainly get all legitimate treatment I could, in such an event.
But I have never been good at controlling all the universe.
"And you’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above …".
I suppose I ought to start by caring for my arteries as tho my capacity for useful consciousness depends on them.
I am also interested in the family aspects of this. I should show English, Scottish, French, low countries, Scandinavian, by family lore; but much is unknown. And my Most Wonderful Aunt recent told me that her mom - my Always-Right Grandmother - was known to engage in some wishful thinking about her desired-for “ancient royal connections”.
I had not previously known Grandmother did this, but I should have. She was quite inventive about Red Scare possibilities, so why not also be inventive about Crowned Head ancestors?
(Never mind the weird dichotomy of her excessive pride in her supposedly royal ancestors, versus her fanatic American patriotism; this oddity never bothered her even a little.)
Who has done what with implied generic/family connections? Has anyone combined generic information with family tree info to expand their active family relationships? Has that gone well?
As for family tree info, for those of you who manage that, how/where do you do it? Ancestry.com seems to be a wonderful resource, but the pricing seems like a $ grab to me. What other alternatives are there, and how good are they?
@OldCatLady, are you reading any of this? Comments?
@f00l I’d say that most bang for buck is the whole genome sequencing. It’s expensive at $700++, but it’s essentially one time test. Full exome sequencing is cheaper, but I do not know whether it adequately covers the DNA sites used for ancestry research. An example test: https://www.fullgenomes.com/
Then there are tests that do not do full sequencing, but rather look at some specific spots.
https://www.familytreedna.com/ seems comprehensive, more geeky and no-BS. It can also import data from AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage.
https://www.23andme.com/ is backed by giant Google.
https://www.ancestry.com/dna/ was quite late to the game, but they say they have a largest database of users.
Then there are more recent products like https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/.
You can see some comparisons here: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-dna-test/
@Fduch
Much thx for info.
Perhaps I’ll read up on all this in 2017, and wait for the sales near the end if 2018 to act.
Hmmm.
And plucked from today’s news:
Placerville Woman’s DNA Test Leads To Discovery Of Family Secrets
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/09/20/placerville-womans-dna-test-leads-to-bay-area-siblings/
DNA is going digital – what could possibly go wrong?
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/dna-goes-digital-cyberbiosecurity-risks/
“Just because we can, doesn’t imply we shou…”
“Oops. Too late now.”
/giphy "too late"
@f00l (and others): I often recommend against doing DNA research for people who might have unpleasant surprises. I look very much like my father, and I have half-sisters (same father, different mother) who I also look like. Strangely, though, I look most like my great-grandmother, on my mother’s side. In my case, the gene pool is fearsomely small. There are many cases where cousins have married, and even though they’re second or third cousins, it doesn’t take much to reduce the DNA down to basics.
There can be some unpleasant moments when searching ancestral relations via DNA, and just because I have had no surprises does not mean that the next person will wander through the brier path unscathed.
@Shrdlu
Mr ancestral surprises are prob further back than those involving something unexpected with my parents.
All three of we siblings look so much alike, and so much like my Dad, that we have been recognized 100’s of miles from home by people who only knew some other member of the family.
(This happened when we were younger; perhaps this might still work. Dunno.)
My Great-Grandfather’s (Mom’s Mom’s Dad’s) photos have been mistaken for “artificially-vintage-style photos” of my one of my cousins, this cousin born about 80 years later.
Have been told that the various family branches tend to “stamp” faces as being recognizable.
But I suppose one had better be prepared.
/giphy "twins"
I always heard about various branches of Mom’s family intermarrying over some centuries. A family book and my last year’s Memorial Day visit to a family portion of a cemetery confirmed it.
@f00l I had a cousin a couple of generations older- her mother’s maiden name was the same as her married name. She was a little bit odd.
I just spit in a tube for ancestry.com. My mother got in on a buy 3 get one free deal for Christmas and sent both of us kids one. I don’t expect very interesting results but we’ll see.
When I look around at my contemporary blood relatives, I can only imagine the disappointment that would come from extending my view into the past.
Our family did it and had a great time with the results. My mom went first and then bought tests for me and my 3 kids (all adopted internationally) and told my brothers she’d buy for them too if they were interested. Only one took her up on the offer. From that sampling, we know that my “100% German” father had some Spanish and Russian ancestry and his German side came from more Polish roots. My children had the most interesting results. All three were predominantly Native American, and the youngest was upset that she was 100% NA because she had always described herself as Hispanic. Her loving siblings said that probably meant that her family tree was a stick. Her very NA-looking half sister was 14% Greek/Italian and 5% Irish.
@rm9116 Remind your 100% NA daughter that the NA’s on the other side of the border are Mexican, thus hispanic; that the international border changed what they are called.
I got 81% Great Britain. I have 0% confidence in the results.
Got my results back from Ancestry. I always knew I was a mutt of European countries, but I was surprised to see that apparently I have some viking I didn’t know about and very little Irish which was unexpected. Also apparently my ancestors mostly came and settled in the Lower Midwest and Virginia in the 1700s.
43% Great Britain
27% Europe West (I think France specifically based on family history but it includes Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein)
15% Scandanavia
7% Ireland/Scotland/Wales
7% Iberian Peninsula
<1% Finland/Northwest Russia.
Really want to do 23andme now to compare and contrast.
So my brother and parents are related to each other but not me. Shit.
@sammydog01 surprise!
@medz @sammydog01
I’m not good at figuring these things out.
There’s no way to nonchalantly say “Oh, by the way, I’m unrelated to the family according to a DNA test”.
Correct?
@medz @PlacidPenguin It was my mother’s idea- she bought the tests. I would have thought there was an easier way to say “you’re adopted”.
They all just popped up. Good thing too.
@sammydog01 Are you being serious here? Holy Shit!
@mfladd It just took an hour for the matches to show up on the site. It’s all good now.
@sammydog01 These things have a lot of issues and are unreliable. There are identical triplets (determined to be so via medical DNA tests via a real MD/PhD geneticist) who did not come back with identical heritage. Heck full blood siblings don’t come back with the same country heritage. There are kids who came up as siblings and cousins in 23andme who then several years later were not longer listed as such. I’d say off hand it would take a medical parentage DNA test (which to be reliable needs to include at least one parent) to actually reliably conclude adoption. Several geneticists have written about this and have concluded these are just parlor games and should only be used for entertainment value.
@sammydog01 Phew!
@sammydog01 Well that’s good that all is well now, however my other warning still holds. Your brother and you should have the same heritage. Of course you don’t have exactly the same 50% of each parent’s genes which is why the heritages don’t match when they should (because when siblings have the same parents your heritage is the same).Even taking your 2 parents’ heritage and combining them still won’t be completely accurate as each parent has the same problem their kids have with this. Not nearly as accurate or precise as people presume.
My mother sent me my parents’ results. Mom is 38% Great Britain, and Dad is 7% Great Britain. Since I am 81% Great Britain (the only region I scored on) I guess that means the mailman is at least 43% GB? Yep, Ancestry dot com, I believe you. Totally.
I found this genealogy skit while following that march song down the rabbit hole.
Eight members of my family did the ancestry DNA test a year ago. It was fun to compare. There were no real surprises other than my German line seemed to process as Scandinavian. I know it is German as it can be traced from 1900 back to the late 1400’s, but the results do test for much farther back than that. It was very accurate about the Early American Settlers for my husband, and the path of travel shown on the map matches his family’s history. In case anyone is interested, you can try to research your ancestry free on familysearch.org. It is related to ancestry.com (which is pricey) so you may not have access to census records etc. (unless you belong to ancestry). I found a ton of info there.
I got mine done and my 11year olds done! Id do it again lol my husband on the other hand thinks its a waste of money.
Just putting this out there…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/golden-state-killer-police-using-114716296.html
"Investigators were able to make the arrest this week after matching crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored in an online database by a distant relative.
They relied on a website named GEDmatch, a different genealogy service to the once used in the Oregon search and did not seek a warrant for Mr DeAngelo’s DNA.
Instead, they waited for him discard items and then swabbed the objects for genetic material, which proved a conclusive match to evidence that had been preserved more than three decades."
Again, I don’t plan on perpetrating any crimes, but it seems like uncharted territory… as well as the cyber risks posted above…
If you have done a DNA test that allows you to download your raw data (ancestry.com, 23andme), you can upload the raw data to Promethease and they will give you waaay more info about what is hiding in your DNA, particularly health wise. Usually it is $5 but it is currently free until May 10th!
I confirmed a few things (inherited a crappy heart and bad cancer odds), learned a few things (I’m more likely to go bald? No one in my family goes bald!), and then laughed at
slightly greater risk of temporary paranoia when toking (pot)@Moose
You mean it’s longer than temporary?
@Moose Says it’s usually $10! What a deal. I’m about to see what sort of genetic hand I was dealt…
@Moose Lot to take in there, I found the table view with bad and good separately to be helpful. (also filtering just the higher magnitude to cut down the “good” ones) I guess I don’t metabolize some drugs very quickly. Lower risk of heart attack which was surprising, although my arteries may be an issue.
Also, slightly less damage from alcohol! Yay!
Seems like a lot of generalization based on available statistics, though. Likely doesn’t include external factors from external environment and such. I don’t know…need to do some more research on how it works.
@medz @Moose Yeah, I’m not randomly giving my genetic info out anymore, and I’m kind of sorry I did it in the first place. I’m paranoid even when I don’t use pot.
@sammydog01 Do it for the greater good.
Two 72-year-old women discover they were switched at BIRTH after taking 23andMe test
@therealjrn Crazy stuff.
@therealjrn this bums me out. When I was born, I was the only baby in the hospital, so no worries about switching.
@RiotDemon Well, mehbe they told you you were the only one…
@therealjrn haha. I have no doubts. When me and my brother walk, we have the same gait. We also have a very similar smile.
around mother’s day, ancestry had their kits on sale for like $45, so I bit…
my make up that we knew beforehand was 50% German(both parents 1/2 German), 25% French, 25%“Scotch-Irish”
My ancestry results came back:
58% Western European
21% Ireland/Scotland/Wales
9% Great Britain
Low confidence regions:
3% Iberian Peninsula
2% Europe South
2% Middle East
<1% European Jewish
<1% Scandinavia
<1% Caucasus
<1% Asia South
<1% Melanesia
so…more or less confirming what we knew…mostly…