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Please don't turn this into a pseudo Brexit thread.
Thinking of getting a kit for my mother as I think she would be interested. She's always thought she might have some Latin ancestry.
Any good deals to be had?
Thanks guys!
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.
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.
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.
.jpg/200px-Beaker_(Muppet).jpg)
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.
I can't be bothered to look for UK stats but in France 12% of women are raped during their life but only 15% report.
Sure there are cheating partners and some women choose a virile partner to father their children whilst married to Mr fat unattractive rich genetically impoverished hubby. Unwanted children born "sous x" are very often the result of rape. Lovers take precautions, rapists don't, or didn't before genetic testing.
I can’t be bothered to look for UK stats but in France 12% of women are raped during their life but only 15% report.
No doubt. Some of them hide it from their partners as well, forcing them to raise another mans child. That and also because enough cheat, private paternity tests were banned to preserve the French system of filiation - ie recognition of fathers in the eyes of society, not biology. AKA - "Keeping the peace".
Lovers take precautions
All of them?
forcing them to raise another mans child
Not possible in the real world, only a Petersonesque world. One of the nice things about DNA testing is that courts can demand paternity testing before making decisions.
You're doing a pretty good job of victim blaming here, Rene59.
And there's nothing to stop French people getting a genetic test the same way Brits do, abroad.
Not possible in the real world
Ok, you got me there. That was was wrong. Should have said "forcing them to provide for another mans child".
You’re doing a pretty good job of victim blaming here, Rene59.
I'm not blaming women for being raped. Try not to be so ridiculous.
“forcing them to provide for another mans child”.
Again not possible, thanks to this very technology.
I’m not blaming women for being raped. Try not to be so ridiculous.
No, you deny that being raped is a reasonable explication for children not having the same genes as their official father. Read back if you've forgotten where you are going in this thread. Try starting on the previous page.
Again not possible, thanks to this very technology.
There are men in prison (in USA at least, don't know about France) for this very thing.
Well if you could provide the quote where I denied that, I'm having trouble finding it.
my mum who is of Polish background did one and it came back saying you are 98% eastern european, it wasn't a very exciting result.
rene59
Member
Or that many more women were raped than denounced the culprits.
Ok sure.
Posted 1 hour ago
That's like me saying you are denying that some women cheat.
No because as I've posted this you would by lying:
Edukator
Member
I can’t be bothered to look for UK stats but in France 12% of women are raped during their life but only 15% report.
Sure there are cheating partners and some women choose a virile partner to father their children whilst married to Mr fat unattractive rich genetically impoverished hubby. Unwanted children born “sous x” are very often the result of rape. Lovers take precautions, rapists don’t, or didn’t before genetic testing.
Posted 1 hour ago
I'm not lying, im' quoting you in context and the only way out is for you to make a statement to the effect you hadn't realised that when children find out their father is not the preson they thought he was that before accusing theri mother (or grandmother) of anything they should first consider whether they (like you) are victim blaming.
A women who went through a humiliating rape but decided the most socially expedient way of dealing with it was to say nothing, now goes through a second humiliation when the genetic tests point a finger.
I’m not lying, im’ quoting you in context and the only way out is for you to make a statement to the effect you hadn’t realised that when children find out their father is not the preson they thought he was that before accusing theri mother (or grandmother) of anything they should first consider whether they (like you) are victim blaming.
No, I was relating a story (not dissimilar to the one just above you) about people finding out their mothers or partners had cheated. In typical STW fashion where no criticism of a women's behaviour goes unchallenged, you posted about rape victims (I believe the term on here is whataboutery) to which I posted a short somewhat sarcastic ok sure reply. Now you're jumping to conclusions about how I never considered this could be the case. Well the original story wasn't about that was it? It was specifically about cheating partners. I suppose the BBC is victim blaming in their article also, or is that fake news, after all it's well kmown 'Lovers take precautions'.
A women who went through a humiliating rape but decided the most socially expedient way of dealing with it was to say nothing, now goes through a second humiliation when the genetic tests point a finger.
Doesn't make their partner any less of a victim though does it when they have been lied to?
The heritage element is gimmicky to get folk interested. Plus they struggled to get FDA approval to sell it on the basis of health.
Surprised at the data fear given 23andme was founded by the wife of some Google big bod.
Of more concern is that you discover faulty genre mutations that have serious consequences not just for the testee, but for the whole family. Back up and support from these companies is bordering on non-existent. Expect to see NHS genetic services overrun by people unsure what the results mean.
So for example, your mum has the gene giving high chance of pre-senile dementia, which is hereditary and currently untreatable. Which continent you herald from isn't quite as interesting. But you now might be able to start making care arrangements early...
Personally I'd rather ostrich.
Doesn’t make their partner any less of a victim though does it?
Oh FFS, if my partner had been raped & Id raised a child genetically not my own I'd
a) still love the child as much as ever
&
b) feel nothing but compassion for my partner
wtf would I feel like a victim?
And if you only knew her a couple of months before she got pregnant?
These tests are moderately accurate geneology test and as said before the identical twin experiments as previously described above (where they send their samples to different companies) have shown lack of accuracy of these tests.
Also the tests are moderately accurate for health reasons.
Finally almost all of these direct to consumer genetic tests are looking to sell the consumers genetic info to pharma companies - as 23andMe did last month.
I wouldn’t send my sample to one of these companies and I was offered to have my genome sequenced which I turned down for data security reasons too
And if you only knew her a couple of months before she got pregnant?
Your point, caller?
where they send their samples to different companies
Where they send them to the same company and get different results!
And if you only knew her a couple of months before she got pregnant?
There'd still be no way I'd be drawing equivalence between her being raped on the one hand & her not telling me about it on the other....
Back OT that twin case is most amusing, very poor job from 23&me who are supposedly the market leaders.
It's all down to how the data is analysed/interpreted.
It's a bit of fun & no more at the moment
More of a worry is the government running out of money for phase 2 of the 100,000 genomes project & creating a 2 tier health system by getting people to pay for their own screening.
Is it not the case that the ones that show your heritage would have to show it at a certain point in time, clearly on current thought) we all originated from Africa, then different groups spread out from there.
So if you took the worlds DNA history at 300,000 years ago, we would all be African.
If you take it the point 100,000 years ago, our DNA as a species would be more diverse etc
So it depends at what point in mankinds history they are making the cut-off point?
Probably not explained that very well....
Ideas OK but dates need work on, Scud:
Is it not the case that the ones that show your heritage would have to show it at a certain point in time,
That point is now, give or take 150 years or so. They just look in your DNA for chunks that are strongly correlated with certain geographical areas.
They just look in your DNA for chunks that are strongly correlated with certain geographical areas
Yes, and those geographical areas are very general and don't really link to our ideas of historical nations or races.
Somebody up above said they were told they had "Viking" DNA. Well Scandinavia was populated by the same DNA groups that populated Jutland, Saxony and Denmark. And those groups also populated England before the Vikings came. And the because people move around a lot it got all mixed up anyway. So most people with UK ancestry (even from Wales or Cornwall) have at least of some of this DNA, but its not because your ancestors wore horned helmets and came over here in longships waving battle axes.
Nope and DNA testing is a back door to data harvesting as has already been shown
There was an interesting "infinite monkey cage" podcast last year about big data mining and DNA, and how good it is in pushing forward medical science currently. It kind of opened my mind a little bit on the benefits that we could have allowing science to really study mass samples.
What we need is some very robust laws to protect peoples privacy and from the potential harms of commercializing such data, so people are not so afraid, and willing to allow their data to become part of advancing science.