[Closed] Anyone had the DNA test done to trace your "genetic heritage?"

No, a waste of money. A colleague paid out £60 and they told him he was half English and half Scots and they would tell him more if he paid more money.

Really?? Do you know the company he got it from?

Sometimes people get more than they bargain for..
just sayin like..
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/18/your-fathers-not-your-father-when-dna-tests-reveal-more-than-you-bargained-for

23andMe gives a detailed (but who knows if accurate) analysis. It also turned up a bunch of second cousins in Canada I wasn’t previously aware of. I’m apparently slightly less Neanderthal that the average European too.

Lol, yeah, I read that!

Not to mention who actually owns your DNA afterwards ....

On the paternity issue - even doing the blue eye/brown eye experiment in school biology lessons can lead to awkward conversations..

dc2.0

Subscriber
23andMe gives a detailed (but who knows if accurate) analysis. It also turned up a bunch of second cousins in Canada I wasn’t previously aware of. I’m apparently slightly less Neanderthal that the average European too.

Sounds more like it. I'll go look at how much they charge!

I had mine tested.

Turns out I’m not even a real panther. ☹️

An awkward conversation with my parents ensued.

I’m apparently to be returned to the man-village.

(but who knows if accurate)

not really

Nope and DNA testing is a back door to data harvesting as has already been shown. The NHS are to offer this soon as a voluntary-for cash- service. Not good. Also they've been shown to be a load of crap with wildly varying results for a single specimen sent to different firms. Pissing your money away.

You not worried about attack of the clones perchy,or even attack of the small kittens that are not quite panthers 😉

I had mine tested.

Turns out I’m not even a real panther. ☹️

That sounds a bit fishy?

These companies must surely be a front for law enforcement.

You not worried about attack of the clones perchy

I was a bit..... but Jar-jar was hardly in it.

My other half got one for christmas, it showed she was 100% english, DESPITE having traced her ancestors back to Ireland. She was somewhat disappointed.
I was skeptical before, even more so now.

Yeah, I'm treating it more as a bit of fun than being definitive.

Would be going for the basic test too, not the health one.

even doing the blue eye/brown eye experiment in school biology lessons can lead to awkward conversations..

Just read up on this. What happened to the kids with green eyes? Eyeist school teacher

Not to mention who actually owns your DNA afterwards ….

and

Nope and DNA testing is a back door to data harvesting as has already been shown.

No chance I would give that sort of info to some random company - next thing we have god knows who getting hold of the profiles & you start getting targeted marketing based on a genetic predisposition you knew nothing about... hang on, why are all those ads for cat aids? ->

But seriously, bugger that - same with police forces that retain your DNA sample if you ever have to give one unless you specifically request that it's destroyed (if you're innocent of course, lol). A friend some years ago bore a mild resemblance to some local lunatic who had left some form of DNA sample at a crime scene - they took a sample which proved it was nothing to do with him, however he later learned that they don't automatically destroy the samples from innocent parties, they stay on the database, just in case...

/tin foil hat

The kits are a bit of a con.

They don't say definitively that you are "40% Italian" (or whatever) they say you share 40% of the same DNA as people from Italy.

I also share 60% of my DNA with a banana, but I'm pretty sure I grew up in Surrey, not Ecuador.

Heard an uplifiting story on the radio recently about a US woman who was adpoted and had been unsuccesful trying to trace her mother.Put her DNA in one of those companies and they linked it up and found her sister and a whole bunch of other relatives too who had been trying to find her.

My mum, who lives here in the UK, and her brother in Canada did it. Different companies. Got exactly the same matrilineal results, which also matched the ancestry work they had been doing.

I know people should be wary, but the results can’t simply be written off as worthless. If they were, they wouldn’t be repeatable.

"the results can’t simply be written off as worthless. If they were, they wouldn’t be repeatable"

Very easy to make a repeatable, worthless result, just give everyone the same report.

Just done the DNA test for a rather over-eager American second cousin who has been tracking down the history of the paternal side of my family and am awaiting the results. Fortunately she organised and paid for it.

We'd already done some ancestry stuff which confirmed we are from south-west yokel stock back many many generations. Older brother then got bought one of those DNA tests as a present, which said we are descended from Beaker people back at least 4500 years with a very high presence in south-west England. So no massive surprises but did find it quite interesting we're still here and been here that long, and probably haven't evolved much since then either.

My friend had her rescue dog tested.

100% pure labrador retriever.

Chuffed to bits.

I’m apparently slightly less Neanderthal that the average European too.

Hmm, you sure?

As others have said. Any company will just compare your DNA with their database, so you'll get results that show similarities to existing humans, and they use this as a proxy to suggest similarities to past generations.

If they tell you you are related to a King, don't get too excited, everyone alive today can pretty much trace their ancestry back to nobility. Same for Viking for that matter.

Its pretty much pointless (or just a bit of fun, depends on your perspective I guess)

The likes of 23andme do sell your data to third parties and are open to requests for data from agencies like the FBI. That may or may not matter to you. Also bear in mind that if you get tested then you're effectively also opening up the DNA of your close relatives to be searched against, which could be positive or negative depending on your/their outlook. Personally, it's not for me.

Seen one that does tests for those (mostly Americans) people into family tree research. They actually tell you if another relative has done the test and what your likely relationship is to them. Whether you know them or not which seems like a bit of a worry to me. Also ties into the news story above about a lot of awkward family discussions after people getting and giving them for Christmas presents, children doing the tests and their sibling coming up as half siblings or Uncle Bob showing up as their father. Turns out a lot of sweet old ladies weren't actually that sweet after all.

FBI data sharing

my sister had done an extensive family tree and had a DNA test which threw up a match in Australia, except the person in question who is of a similar age as me and my sister is not related to any of the great uncles who emigrated there after the war!

i'm wondering if one of them played away from home or maybe an illegitimate child was shipped off after the war and had further children.

Beaker people?

Turns out a lot of sweet old ladies weren’t actually that sweet after all.

Or that many more women were raped than denounced the culprits.

I did it and also bought kits for my mum and my stepdad for Christmas. We did the ancestry kits.

I'm mainly, English, pat Irish and a little bit Swedish apparently. The dna links allowed me to really trace my family back. My mum was always interested in her grandfather who was an Irish ships stoker who disappeared in some sort of scandal in the 20s. Through tracking the connections on the ancestry site we found his birth and death certificates, his ww1 records and the reason for the scandal - he was actually a scouser who bigamously married my great gran.

It was very useful for my stepdad. His father was a Canadian fighter pilot during the war who disappeared back to Canada as soon as the war was over. Through the dna links on the site he has managed to find loads about that side of his family.

I know people should be wary, but the results can’t simply be written off as worthless. If they were, they wouldn’t be repeatable.

they are probably fronts for the same backend service, in much the same way as most of us buy broadband from only 2 providers (Openreach and Virgin) but there are dozens of companies that wrap that up in a nice presentation package and send us the bills.

It does seem to be very popular in the US (they are generally more interested in genealogy so may be a factor) but I am surprised that in a country with insurance based healthcare they are quite so keen for private companies to have their DNA... ...obviously there would be major ethical dilemmas with using those results to change premiums, and no US corporate has ever done anything dodgy!

The identical twins tests (where they get different results) show the process has some serious issues with reliability. That makes the accuracy questionable.
As someone else said, it is a clever way of getting ahold of 'data' that you wouldn't give out any other way.
Best regarded as for entertainment purposes only - and don't be too surprised if someone knocks on your door asking if they can have your liver..

Or that many more women were raped than denounced the culprits.

Ok sure.

Kuco - beaker people, that's a very accurate representation of us...must be due to all the carrot crunching

Ok sure

Yup absolutely certain.

Do a bit of research on the genetic test results on prisoners convicted of rape. Some had been wrongly accused, and some were guilty of many more rapes than they were convicted for, including rapes others had been wrongly convicted for.

Tests are revealing all sorts of sometimes amusing sometimes not so amusing patterns of behaviour, incest, rape within families... .

But then you're another GT type, rene59, who thinks everything is the fault of woman.

Did ancestry.co.uk test. It's a complete gimmick and I had data sharing concerns bordering on paranoia but did it due to peer pressure. In it's defence it confirmed everything already known and all the "4th cousins" matches on the site that I investigated were actual relatives whom I'd had no contact with previously.

Tests are revealing all sorts of sometimes amusing sometimes not so amusing patterns of behaviour, incest, rape within families…

... and cheating partners.

But then you’re another GT type

I wish I was a grand tourer type. Fast and luxurious I ain't, although I can go long distances.

I have had it done - both mitochondrial dna and Nuclear so showing both my mothers and fathers side of the family. It was an interesting conmversation piece and not a lot else but it did throw up some surprises. I don't remember the details now but as I remember we got both a recent and an ancestral trace. We assumed my mother - short and dark was welsh or mediteranean but infact 60% Sami ie the laplanders - also a short dark people. My fathers side a lot of viking - which was expected as he has Dupuytren's contractual which is a recent ( in historical terms) mutation that originated with the vikings and he looks like one.