23andMe

[Tom from Rubicon]

Anyone done one?

FedEx dropped a box this mourning which we had no expectations of.

It's a package from my niece. What could it be? Expected framed photo's of my great nephew? Nope! It's 23andMe kits.
DNA kits. $199 a pop x 2! One for me and one for Aunt Mona.
This ain't just finding your roots. It alleges to screen for diseases caused by genetic defects.
The reason I never made children, was my sister being type1 diabetic.

I already tried the National Geographic DNA test tracking Neanderthal DNA. My sample failed and the replacement test kit would not let me reset registration, and then N G stopped their DNA research.

Tom

[David G]

My sweetie has toyed with the notion. And she may still.

But she's already done a ton of geneological research, along with a cousin similarly fascinated by the topic, for both her family and mine. No sign that my family is - as legend claims - related to one of the presidents. Pretty sure though that my family was thrown out of Switzerland, and a bunch of them killed... for religious nonconformity. Imagine that...

[cathouse willy]

My biggest concern is privacy. You've sent off a sample that contains everything there is to know about you to a complete stranger, you can be pretty sure that they're keeping this info..... for what?

[David W Pratt]

Worse than that, Cathouse. Your DNA contains information about you, and your ancestors who never sent in anything, or consented. It also contains information about any offspring you may have. And, in the future it will contain even more information as analytical techniques get better and the significance of various genes becomes clearer.

[Peerie Maa]

I am not that interested. Using online sources i have traced my family back to the 17th c in some cases, to Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and Cornwall.

An international team, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, UCL and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Australia, used DNA samples collected from more than 2,000 people to create the first fine-scale genetic map of any country in the world. Their findings, published in Nature, show that prior to the mass migrations of the 20th century there was a striking pattern of rich but subtle genetic variation across the UK, with distinct groups of genetically similar individuals clustered together geographically.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/mar/...-british-isles

[JayInOz]

The wife and I did ours through "Ancestry.com". No surprises for either of us. And as for sending or receiving packages- I sent my daughter Katie an express post envelope yesterday containing a birthday card and some cash. It arrived today- ripped open and empty. My grand daughter saw the postman deliver it- said he looked at it kinda funny before putting it in the mail box. The envelope went from here to a sorting centre a couple of hours south and from there to the local post office where my daughter lives, so the thief had to be a post office employee. Apparently it's happened several times lately. I'm assuming the culprit will be soon caught. I'd like to sharpen his head to a point with my pocket knife. Scumbag. JayInOz

[phiil]

I tried it a few years back. Received many notices that I “may be” related to my mother and father.

[Jim Mahan]

For the paranoid worry-rats, it's only a problem for an organization of strangers to have your DNA if you or one of your close relatives is a long-sought mystery serial killer. So what that they harvest your data? For them, it's generic data. Yours is just like everyone else's as far as the individual value to those researchers and analysts. They have zero interest in you personally; you're not a target of them in any way, as an individual. It's not like they're planning to take over your estate from your heirs or something.

OTOH, all of the data available from your DNA and that of the growing number of others who've donated samples, are increasing the size, and therefore the reliability of, the entire general data base of genomics which science uses, in the form of government funded research in universities, and private for profit research by companies who will create tools for making vaccines and refining medicines and medical processes to treat the most threatening or costly diseases and disorders society deals with—frinstance, the elusive cure for cancer. The more individuals, the finer the resolution and depth of data, and the more nuanced the AI-assisted analysis, and the more obscure but pattern-recognizable genetic anomalies to be isolated and identified.

And the more data, the larger the population of donor samples, the less likely any given sleuth is going to match your DNA with a partial lifted by detectives at that infamous crime scene. And it's not like the IRS is ever going to use it. You're prolly safe. And you're prolly not Dolly Madison's illicit lover's great-great-grand-something. Well actually, you are, but so are another few percent of the country.

"We were able to track your relatives and ancestors back even further, and it turns out you are related to George Washington—and half the Continental army and most of Africa and Europe!"

[bluedog225]

China has a nice dna profile of americans. Good stuff.

[Peerie Maa]

There are a couple of TV series being aired where experts use DNA to tap into the worldwide DNA database to search for blood relatives for people put up for adoption as children.

[Jim Mahan]

A year or so ago, IIRC, I donated a blood sample to the VAs Million Vets Program. They have recognized that US veterans are a sizeable enough population with some useful characteristics to use for a new large data base for all kinds of research. It's completely anonymous. Even if I were a serial killer's cousin, they're not going to ID me. I think they are still actively soliciting volunteer vets.

Wait, there's a knock at the door...

Seriously, one of the prime benefits to society of a genetic data base is the ability to correct wrongful convictions by using crime scene DNA, sometimes decades old, to positively ID someone else as the real perpetrator. Starting to see these kinds of stories daily, seems like: Man gets out of prison forty years after being wrongfully convicted of killing a coke dealer in the eighties.

VA's Million Veteran Program (MVP) is a national research program looking at how genes, lifestyle, military experiences, and exposures affect health and wellness in Veterans. Since launching in 2011, more than 930,000 Veterans have joined MVP.

Million Veteran Program is a national, voluntary research program funded entirely by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research & Development and is an important partnership between VA and Veterans to learn more about how genes affect health and to improve health care for Veterans.

[Osborne Russell]

Not a bang but a whimper.

"But they told me this technology was disruptive! Waah!"

[AlanMc]

23 and me..... and the government.... no thanks.

[Breakaway]

My cousin did it a few years ago. As a result, we learned we had another cousin, nobody knew about.
Terri is the daughter of my uncle, born out of wedlock and outside of a long term relationship.
She is a top exec at a big firm. Has a husband and daughter. But never had any family.
Now, she does. And, we have her.
So, I call it a win.

Kevin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[George Jung]

more than a few stories I've heard, of folks who gave up kids for adoption, suddenly being 'outed' after a relative submitted testing, eventhough at the time, it was supposed to be anonymous. Makes for some interesting family dynamics.

[Jim Bow]

My wife’s niece did 23 and Me. Discovered that her dad had been a tom cat. She now has two sisters and a brother she first met two years ago.

[CWSmith]

Anyone done one?

Yep! It brought me one of happiest moments of my life.

[Tom from Rubicon]

I suppose I gotta do it, or my name will be (fill in the blank). My niece just had a baby with her MD husband so I understand their concerns for baby's future.
Coincidentally, my GP has been recommending a blood screening that looks for cancer markers. $900 USD

Tom

[George Jung]

not sure what a dna test for you would uncover, that your niece/husband couldn't discover on their own. what cancer markers is your gp looking at? In the past, a screening for BRCA and other breast/ovarian/colon markers was more than $3500. Now, you can get for less than $200.

[Jimmy W]

My younger sister, the genealogist of the family, got my father to do one of the Ancestry tests years ago. I saw the results years ago, but don't have a copy now.
We had an ancestor living in Virginia in 1640 and both my mother and father had ancestors that fought against the Tories at the battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War. My sister has tracked both sides of the family quite a way back in Europe. The DNA test showed some African ancestry, but if you were to go back far enough, we would all be from there.

[John B]

I am not that interested. Using online sources i have traced my family back to the 17th c in some cases, to Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and Cornwall.https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/mar/...-british-isles

I see my boat genealogy in thar . Irish Gaels and their adventures into Scotland begets Riada

[Tom from Rubicon]

Can't find the brochure my GP gave me George. I don't recall the name. I suppose if I submit 23andMe test.
At the least my niece will be happy.

Tom

[stromborg]

I submitted a sample to 23and Me a while back, my father was adopted so there was some curiosity about his lineage. Turns out I'm about as Northern European as you can get. On my mother's side a more traditional genealogical search traced my line back to one of the Mayflower colonists. Don't remember it costing $199.00 but it was some time ago.

[C. Ross]

I had DNA sampling done for medical reasons.

The sampling company threw in ancestry results too. DNA says:

D7B13C5B-83EA-4E8F-BF2F-BD90E6BC6859.jpg

85.9% matches my online research closely, though I can only trace roots to Sweden, not Finland.

3% Bedouin and 1.4% Japanese was a surprise.

If I’m 3% Bedouin then one of my great-great-great-grandparents would have to be 100% Bedouin. (I can reliably identify 21 of 32, all to Northern Europe.) Or one of my 4th grandparents 50%, one of my 5th 25%, … Fun to think about…and the same thing but one generation further back to get to Japan.

[Mrleft88]

My cousin (A freckle faced redhead) did that a few years ago. She discovered that she was a black man. (I'm not kidding) She was planning on divorcing her husband anyway, so this just made it easier, him being a good ol' boy from Tennessee, he didn't want to be married to a man. (Once again, not kidding)
The two daughters are a bit confused though, wondering if their mother is a black man, and they have flaming red hair, are they also black men with 2 fathers, or are they really women from their father's side of the family.
(The gene pool runs pretty shallow in Oak Ridge)

[Tom from Rubicon]

^Pud knocking troll.

Bedouin would be a hoot.
I guess I better spit and test.