Anyone do the Ancestry Thing?

[winofiend]

I've gone back and forth about doing it or not, since I have certain reservations about sending my DNA to ANYBODY.

My parents finally did it, so there's no point in me doing it.  The results were somewhat surprising on my mother's side.  My father, we all knew, would come back Italian since his lineage is known.  My mother's side was always the question mark, even though we all grew up hearing Irish/German.

My father's came back 90-something percent Italy, with a smattering of Greek, Turkish, Armenian.

My mother's came back 40% Scotland/North Ireland, English, Norwegian, and Swedish.  Also a mention of Germanic Europe. 

Apparently the way they do this, is they take samples from people who've lived in certain areas for generations, and compare it with those sent in by people investigating their background.  I have no idea how accurate it is, but they nailed my father's test.

I've tried manually researching my mother's side, and can't even get past her grandmother.  It's like she never existed.  No records at all that I can find.  Maybe she was an illegal immigrant?

I've done Ancestry.com and found it woefully unhelpful. Tells me I'm 60% Irish, 30% Scottish and other places. Anything you want to do after, costs money. I've started a family tree, but unless I pay, I can't look into potential DNA matches. Had a few people message me saying they might be related, but I've not replied. Ironically, my mother is Scottish, and dad is English, so where the Irish comes in, no one knows. Erin go Bragh, I guess...

I should have taken the other one, that tells me how much Neanderthal I am. lol. Because us auburn haired big ugly buggers have to be prehistoric...

[rickymouse]

It must be about eight years ago that the wife and I sent in our DNA to ancestry.  Then I got the Gene apps and spent ten hours a day, seven days a week for at a minimum of three months researching what that the snps and gensets really meant.  Most of the genetic differences are environmental differences, people's gene expression and DNA was altered by environmental factors with a high tie to diet and enzyme creation. 

So, I got my kids, my grandkids, and even their spouses DNA done, then got gene apps through prometheuse and livewello on almost all of them to see if I could decipher if dietary changes could help.  Yes they could, but both daughters and my granddaughter would not even try to use what I said...even though this wound up being relative to the health conditions they got after I mentioned it.  Most times the dietary changes or cooking practices are not that much of a change, and most times it is not more expensive to do.  I was in Pre-med when I was in college and have always had an interest in it even though I discovered that being a doctor was more about gaining wealth and prestige for most in the field before I quit it.  With my interest, all my relatives would tell me what worked and what did not work with their issues...all hereditary it turns out to be.  The Tachychardia, low blood volume, and hypoglycemia on my fathers male side...my uncles included in this is in relation to a past ancestor having genes related to the Inuit people...only one point seven percent...and passed on to the male line for centuries with little to no change.  My grandfather had hardly any symptoms...he ate wild game and loved fish, so did my uncles, father, and me and my brother.  But my grandfather ate mostly fish and wild game and used lots of salt.  Without knowing anything about his genetics he ate the right things.  I lack an anti-diuretic hormone so I need lots of real salt...peeing or sweating out lots of the salts is normal for me.  Salt cod fish is chuck full of the diverse salts I need.  I thought there was something wrong with my kidneys because I pee a lot, drink in two cups of coffee and pee our four.  On top of that I should get my energy from healthier fats, I lack adequate enzyme creation for starches and sucrose, I need glutamine from meats instead of glucose.  I cannot break apart some of those bonds to break apart carbs of most types in the western diet.

I am glad I had only girls, they did not inherit that.  My nephew is the only younger of my whole family that is a boy...my fathers lineage ends with him.

So how much did this cost total, lets see, twelve  of us at about a hundred twenty bucks apiece, so that is about a thousand four hundred some bucks...but well worth the cost.  That includes the lifetime gene apps.  It has helped with the grandkids and kids health, but because everyone else eats the western diet, they wanted to be like everyone else so started eating highly processed foods with chemistries I cannot trace again.  So a year of less sickness and more energy then they went right back to eating wrong again because they want to take a pill to treat the symptoms instead of fixing the problem before the symptoms appear...just like so many other people in America do. 

It is harder to figure out the grandkids diet because my oldest daughter married a guy who immigrated from Guatamala with a Spanish father.  Well, actually his father was a mutt, and was more Italian and a mix of races including one and a half percent black.  But my grandkids have lots of genes from the Scandinavia area and the diets are far from compatible to be healthy...they cannot eat like hispanics and cannot eat like Finns need to eat to stay healthy....lots of differences in the nitrogen enzyme cycles and in IGE and IGA resulted.  I cannot test on myself to confirm if things I know will work for them.  And when my grandson got healthy, he was out riding his bike around town and broke his forearm bones when he went over the handlebars, immediately the daughter start feeding him crap again so he did not have energy to do anything and he has been at the doctors with metabolic issues and other health problems again...way more than normal.

Was it worth paying all that money and doing all that research when the kids just went back to eating junk foods because they want to be like all their friends...no, but I tried and the supplements I recommended do help keep them somewhat healthier, but patching a tube when running a bike over naily boards does not fix anything.  Just because it is Schwamm junk food does not mean it is healthy.  Before my grandson flew over the handlebars their whole family was doing better, prediabetes in the kids disappeared, and then after they returned to the junk food it came back again.

[Ninurta]

I've done Ancestry.com and found it woefully unhelpful. Tells me I'm 60% Irish, 30% Scottish and other places. Anything you want to do after, costs money. I've started a family tree, but unless I pay, I can't look into potential DNA matches. Had a few people message me saying they might be related, but I've not replied. Ironically, my mother is Scottish, and dad is English, so where the Irish comes in, no one knows. Erin go Bragh, I guess...

I should have taken the other one, that tells me how much Neanderthal I am. lol. Because us auburn haired big ugly buggers have to be prehistoric...

You might have something there - I have more Neanderthal DNA than 82% of the rest of the tested population, and I have the ugly part down pat, and am 6'2" tall. My son has more Neanderthal DNA than 91% of the rest of the tested population (meaning he had to get a fair bit from his ma which I can believe, that was different from the Neanderthal DNA he got from me), and he's got the auburn hair and is about 6 and a half feet tall...


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[Infolurker]

If you want your DNA information owned and monetized by an unregulated industry then you should certainly give them a sample.

No, they don't own the DNA nor the DNA data - not if they are based in the US or EU, anyhow. They DO monetize it by farming it out in anonymous bundles to bio researchers, which I personally am ok with - part of that "profit" goes to pay for the expenses of sequencing the DNA, the part I didn't pay for.

When did they become unregulated? The FDA was regulating them, so when did that change?

.

Police Use of DNA: Mistakes, Error and Fraud

http://dnapolicyinitiative.org/police-us...and-fraud/

If your profile is in a DNA database you face higher risk than other citizens of being falsely linked to a crime. You are at higher risk of false incriminations by coincidental DNA matches, by laboratory error, and by intentional planting of DNA. There can be no doubt that database inclusion increases these risks.

Ethical Concerns of DNA Databases used for Crime Control

https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/...e-control/

These issues include basic human error and human bias, linking innocent people to crimes, privacy rights, and a surge in racial disparities.

In 2011, in their much-cited study, researchers Itiel Dror and Greg Hampikian found that DNA interpretation varied significantly among lab technicians and forensic experts. Dror and Hampikian sent the exact same DNA mixtures to 17 different experts to ascertain whether they would arrive at the same conclusion as the original forensic analysis.

Challenging the viewpoint that “context” doesn’t matter, the 17 forensic scientists arrived at remarkably different results. Dror and Hampikian argue that this demonstrates that what the forensic scientist knows about the investigation (for example that the prosecutors are relying on the results generated to move forward) may impact the interpretation of a DNA sample.  Perhaps then, it is no surprise, that there are now numerous cases of lab techs who make mistakes or argue that there was a DNA match when there was none.

[Selbiene_Raveren]

I tried to do the 23andMe test about 5 years ago or so... It was gonna be a birthday present to myself. I have always been curious what my ancestry is. All I know is I've got some French in me and some German. Possibly English/Irish... Alas, to this day, it remains a secret. 

Both attempts to get a sample tested resulted in me getting a notification of an error with my sample. I haven't bothered to try again since.

Go figure... I'm probably an alien... >_>

At least I was able to get a refund on the kit.

[Ninurta]

Police Use of DNA: Mistakes, Error and Fraud

http://dnapolicyinitiative.org/police-us...and-fraud/

Law enforcement is legally barred from using my DNA in an an investigation without producing a valid search warrant listing their probable cause. If they have such a warrant - and a sufficient number of officers - they can get my DNA anyhow by the simple expedient of dragging me kicking and screaming down to  hospital and having it extracted. Not a damned thing I can do about that other than to bite the ears off of any of them that get within arm's reach. The law won't help any of us if they have a valid search warrant.

Now, it is true that Law Enforcement sometimes does illegal and immoral things. In this case, I have legal, documented recourse to sue the absolute asses off of them personally, the government they work for, and the company that allowed them to breach my data. And I will. I'll be a rich man, and buy us all steaks.

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[CelticBanshee3]

It must be about eight years ago that the wife and I sent in our DNA to ancestry.  Then I got the Gene apps and spent ten hours a day, seven days a week for at a minimum of three months researching what that the snps and gensets really meant.  Most of the genetic differences are environmental differences, people's gene expression and DNA was altered by environmental factors with a high tie to diet and enzyme creation. 

So, I got my kids, my grandkids, and even their spouses DNA done, then got gene apps through prometheuse and livewello on almost all of them to see if I could decipher if dietary changes could help.  Yes they could, but both daughters and my granddaughter would not even try to use what I said...even though this wound up being relative to the health conditions they got after I mentioned it.  Most times the dietary changes or cooking practices are not that much of a change, and most times it is not more expensive to do.  I was in Pre-med when I was in college and have always had an interest in it even though I discovered that being a doctor was more about gaining wealth and prestige for most in the field before I quit it.  With my interest, all my relatives would tell me what worked and what did not work with their issues...all hereditary it turns out to be.  The Tachychardia, low blood volume, and hypoglycemia on my fathers male side...my uncles included in this is in relation to a past ancestor having genes related to the Inuit people...only one point seven percent...and passed on to the male line for centuries with little to no change.  My grandfather had hardly any symptoms...he ate wild game and loved fish, so did my uncles, father, and me and my brother.  But my grandfather ate mostly fish and wild game and used lots of salt.  Without knowing anything about his genetics he ate the right things.  I lack an anti-diuretic hormone so I need lots of real salt...peeing or sweating out lots of the salts is normal for me.  Salt cod fish is chuck full of the diverse salts I need.  I thought there was something wrong with my kidneys because I pee a lot, drink in two cups of coffee and pee our four.  On top of that I should get my energy from healthier fats, I lack adequate enzyme creation for starches and sucrose, I need glutamine from meats instead of glucose.  I cannot break apart some of those bonds to break apart carbs of most types in the western diet.

I am glad I had only girls, they did not inherit that.  My nephew is the only younger of my whole family that is a boy...my fathers lineage ends with him.

So how much did this cost total, lets see, twelve  of us at about a hundred twenty bucks apiece, so that is about a thousand four hundred some bucks...but well worth the cost.  That includes the lifetime gene apps.  It has helped with the grandkids and kids health, but because everyone else eats the western diet, they wanted to be like everyone else so started eating highly processed foods with chemistries I cannot trace again.  So a year of less sickness and more energy then they went right back to eating wrong again because they want to take a pill to treat the symptoms instead of fixing the problem before the symptoms appear...just like so many other people in America do. 

It is harder to figure out the grandkids diet because my oldest daughter married a guy who immigrated from Guatamala with a Spanish father.  Well, actually his father was a mutt, and was more Italian and a mix of races including one and a half percent black.  But my grandkids have lots of genes from the Scandinavia area and the diets are far from compatible to be healthy...they cannot eat like hispanics and cannot eat like Finns need to eat to stay healthy....lots of differences in the nitrogen enzyme cycles and in IGE and IGA resulted.  I cannot test on myself to confirm if things I know will work for them.  And when my grandson got healthy, he was out riding his bike around town and broke his forearm bones when he went over the handlebars, immediately the daughter start feeding him crap again so he did not have energy to do anything and he has been at the doctors with metabolic issues and other health problems again...way more than normal.

Was it worth paying all that money and doing all that research when the kids just went back to eating junk foods because they want to be like all their friends...no, but I tried and the supplements I recommended do help keep them somewhat healthier, but patching a tube when running a bike over naily boards does not fix anything.  Just because it is Schwamm junk food does not mean it is healthy.  Before my grandson flew over the handlebars their whole family was doing better, prediabetes in the kids disappeared, and then after they returned to the junk food it came back again.

Very interesting!

[CelticBanshee3]

Is the "DIY Dodecad" fairly simple to use? I've been researching my Mom & Dad's genealogy the old fashion way, family group sheets, census, library, Courthouse, etc. I got my brother to do the Ancestry DNA for my Dad's line. I'm thinking about getting him to do it again with My Heritage and maybe one other. I just want to know where they migrated from to here. Thery were here for the Revolutionary War in York District, South Carolina. Probably sometime before that.

Yes, it's easy to use. it comes as  single program inside a "wrapper", a GUI. You just download the raw DNA file from the DNA service, which is typically about 5 or 6 mb, and run the software on that file. But be warned, there are a lot of differing datasets you can run it against, and every one is going to give you a different result. Some are entirely invalid - for example, if an pure African ran his DNA against a European dataset, or vice versa, he'd get really wonky results.

If you got your brother to do the test, that means you will be able to know your dad's Y-DNA haplogroup as well as your mom's (and both yours and your brother's) mtDNA haplogroup. It's possible for some of those haplogroups to be traced back thousands of years, recording a lot of migrations.

There are a lot of free DNA analysis programs out there, with a lot of different purposes. DIY Dodecad is not the only one. One guy in Australia wrote a tone of programs for DNA analysis, gives them away free on the internet, but no longer maintains them - he gave up coding DNA software to devote full time to evangelizing for Christians.

Some of it is pretty intricate, and may be difficult to use, but with a minimum or research to figure out the terminology, you'd be up and running with it in no time at all. If I can figure it out, you can, too.

.

Thanks, Ninurta!

[AugustusMasonicus]

When did they become unregulated? The FDA was regulating them, so when did that change?

There have been several investigations into inadequately secured DNA data being exposed to non-licensed entities as there is zero regulation on how they should secure said data. It's all up to the individual company. Also, genetic privacy laws are super-broad and there are plenty of areas where companies can take advantage of the vagueness. 

Their own privacy statement can change at any time with the only notification being that they've updated their statement. Do you think anyone is going to read that after not reading it the first time? 

The company I work for is heavily involved in cyber and this is one industry we won't touch because it's all very wild west at this time. There are no real standards to adhere to and with policy changes being on a whim it doesn't ensure any level of trust.

[gordi]

....My father's came back 90-something percent Italy, with a smattering of Greek, Turkish, Armenian.

My mother's came back 40% Scotland/North Ireland, English, Norwegian, and Swedish.  Also a mention of Germanic Europe....

Actually @"Schmoe1" uhm, about your mums 40% Scotland thing.... erm.... well you see, me and her.... uhm.... back in the day...
when we first met.... I asked her if she had any Scottish in her, and when she said "no" I asked her if she'd like some...... and uhm....

What do you mean "It doesn't work like that"?

No, hang on....   

G

[Schmoe1]

....My father's came back 90-something percent Italy, with a smattering of Greek, Turkish, Armenian.

My mother's came back 40% Scotland/North Ireland, English, Norwegian, and Swedish.  Also a mention of Germanic Europe....

Actually @"Schmoe1" uhm, about your mums 40% Scotland thing.... erm.... well you see, me and her.... uhm.... back in the day...
when we first met.... I asked her if she had any Scottish in her, and when she said "no" I asked her if she'd like some...... and uhm....

What do you mean "It doesn't work like that"?

No, hang on....   

G

Father?