Submitting your DNA

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Tom

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Jan 13, 2005
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I'm continually surprised when I hear friends and acquaintances tell me they submitted their DNA samples to some online source, then are surprised that the results show their heritage as something way different from what they previously "knew".

Is this just me, or are folks getting taken for a $$ ride?
 
<Rant>
DNA, online banking usernames and passwords (Mint), and the list goes on. People these days wonder why they get spammed, robocalled, junk mail, etc.

I am terrified to think of the information can be gleaned from my DNA and who is seeing it. Maybe I am paranoid, I have been watching Orphan Black (it's about clones, if you haven't heard of it), but DNA is a pretty personal thing, in my opinion.
</Rant>

One thing I am missing is how they determine what your heritage is. Do they compare similar DNA sequences in a ethnic section of the population? I just don't know what the science is behind it.
 
My wife and I had our DNA checked by Ancestry.com.  I learned that my DNA showed 15% Irish, and the rest was northern Europe. I have no idea where the Irish came in from my known ancestors but I don't know them very far back. She thought she was 100% German but found out there was bit of French and Russian.  It didn't get more specific than that, but it was interesting to us.
 
I belong to a couple of family groups and DNA has been useful in identifying various branches of especially one.  The family originally came from Alsace based on actual genealogy backed up with historical data but there were missing pieces and branches with no known source.  We now know the origination of most of these branches and have identified further historical proof to substantiate what the DNA told us. There is still much unknown though.  Parts of this family are traceable back into the 1600s due to good family history, Bibles, church records, etc.

Genealogy is interesting and the DNA provides additional tools but the actual history is what nails things down.

Now if I could just find out why my Grandfather went to the Philippine islands as a teacher in about 1906.  While there he met my Grandmother, or had he already met her here in the States as she was the Daughter of an Army Dr. assigned to the PI in1906.  It is somewhat suspicious as both were in Ohio in 1905 visiting relatives in the same small area.  No letters have been found nor any other good references.  Frustrating!!!    :)

Still working on many other families as the number grows with each generation back!
 
DNA can easily determine whether you have African, European, or Asian ancestry.  That much is pretty accurate (but not completely.  30% of 'pure' Europeans have some African genes.).  When they state you have 18% northeastern Hungarian ancestry the science gets sketchy.  Also when they start claiming favorite foods and other cultural preferences.  That is just speculation, or fabrication.  DNA analysis is advancing rapidly, but no one is that good yet.  Some day maybe, not now.
 
I think it would be neat to know and yes its pricey.

I'm supposed to be 1/4 dutch, 1/4 French, and half irish.

I can't believe my ancestors had clean blood lines.  My grandma
was so dark and she had dark black hair with one white streak
down it when she died.  She was in  her  80's, since these French
came from Canada I think there is Indian in there too.  I would
like to know just for fun.
 
My father was, supposedly, 100% Norwegian according to my grandparents.

My Mother, on the other hand, told me she was 1/4 Welsh, 1/4 Scottish, and a
"little" Illinois.

Back in those days you weren't allowed follow-up questions.
 
Quillback 424 said:
Back in those days you weren't allowed follow-up questions.

Boy is that ever the truth!  In my family it was possible to get a grounded time if you asked the wrong question.

Added note:  I have found out the family secret as data became available on the internet and revealed the family secret via death certificates and news articles in old 1920 papers in small towns.
 
To hear from my Father (RIP) I had a lot of jackass in me. But thankfully the major part of Cajun came out on top!
 
Now that is funny. Did you ask him where the genes came from? I have been considering using the Ancestry.com kit in an attempt to find out something of my father. I found and met my bio mother but she would not reveal who he was. She did give me a name and a few details but given some inconsistencies I now believe she made it up.
However, unless someone in the family has submitted a sample that provides a close match all I am likely to find is that he was northern European.
 
I had 2 classmates who dated in high school. They broke up shortly before graduation. They went their separate ways. He joined the Navy. 48 years later, she called him and said she had cancer, as dying and wanted to tell him something. She told him they had a daughter together and she grew up to become a lawyer. He never knew after all these years. He made a attempt to contact the daughter but she didn't want to have anything to do with him. I can only imagine what the mother had told her growing up. So sad for both of them. The mother did eventually pass.
 
RoyM said:
However, unless someone in the family has submitted a sample that provides a close match all I am likely to find is that he was northern European.

My good fortune has been that there were family searches being done in the conventional way and as a group, several key people who we knew based on actual documentation had their DNA tested.  From that we have been able to go further and clarify other information as to the branches.

My wife has a problem similar to you, she was adopted way back when.  The birth mother's name was recorded in pencil on some of the original paperwork but no one knows the father's name and we did not find her siblings till after the mother and their father were dead.  DNA has possibly revealed cousins etc. but without documentation, birth certificates, etc., we cannot be sure of anything unless the matches are much better, i.e., more complete and with a match of a woman to a man, that is almost impossible.
 
After watching hours of NCIS, I'm not sure I want my DNA floating around. :eek:  No telling what I might be blamed for.
 
Well that is a good question. First the two services I've checked out are about 200 dollars. that is a hunk of cash (No I did not bite,  200 is too hundred too much) (Sorry about punning there).

Throy has it you can get a partial idea of someone's genetic ancestry but frankly.  I remain unconvinced.

I am not sure the Human Genome is that tightly mapped yet.
 
I told Chris that, if our DNA showed traces of steel or sheep, it would confirm what we already know  ;D
 
My wife's been doing genealogical research for the past 10 years or so. She takes the quality of her research seriously, often requiring multiple corroborating sources before she's willing to consider a connection "confirmed".
She sees DNA testing as a very handy tool, but you have to realize it's limitations. Results have to be viewed in context with other sources of information, and the specificity of matches drops off dramatically after a couple of generations.
She says that it's also a very fast-moving field, with the quality and depth of the test results constantly improving.
The "ancient ancestors" marketing ploy is double-edged. It gets a lot of people into the database, but many of those people read their results, find out that they're 2% Mongolian or Sub-Saharan, and then never log into the genealogical sites again. (Background: These sites provide messaging services so that members can be notified of the existence of people with significantly matching DNA and can "ping" each other anonymously to request further contact.) This has proven very frustrating for the active researchers, who get a notification that there's, say, a second-cousin match with someone whom they now can't contact. SO there's a ton of potentially useful information wasting away in the databases.
 
I didn't say this earlier, but about a year after we had submitted our samples, we were contacted by a person that said they were representing a 50 year old male that had been adopted as a baby. His DNA indicated that he was my second cousin and he was trying to get in contact with his birth parents.  So I guess that would mean that one of my first cousins was his parent.  I am not aware of any of my cousins that gave a baby up for adoption but there are lot of possibilities I guess. I provided my grandparents information to them but I am not aware that anything progressed beyond that.
 
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