[Closed] Anyone used a DNA website?

The tests don't actually tell you much about "where your parents came from", just where in the world *now* has similar DNA markers to you *now*. There's obviously been a huge amount of migration over the 100 years, so the results don't really reveal much of use.

Also you're giving your DNA to for-profit companies to monetise, which doesn't seem right. Adam Rutherford wrote about this a while back, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/10/dna-ancestry-tests-cheap-data-price-companies-23andme.

For me the DNA test was just a bit of fun (it was a birthday present) but it does mean I can tell people I'm 25% Viking 🙂

Also you’re giving your DNA to for-profit companies to monetise

All your base pairs are belong to us. 🙂

done anything naughty previously? Haven't there been cases solved using DNA matches on ancestory sites?

Wouldn't have thought it would be able to say your suspected father was "American".

Brother, sister and brother in law have all done this with the ancestry.com bit in mind, nothing weird on our side (so far) but some fairly unsavoury facts became apparent on bils side. If you are after tracking down family it's worth a punt but be aware of what it reveals might not be very nice to find out.

Though I assume if it showed American relatives it could be a path to follow?

I was also born in Bushey. And I have found out that unmarried mums from North London went there to give birth, as it was a little bit out of the way
North and North West London was home to several USAF bases at the time, 1959.

It is done on a fixed point in time showing where your DNA is similar to and that point in time, so the results will be different if they choose the point in time to be 100, 1000 or 100,000 years ago. Ultimately if you move the point back to 100,000 years then ultimately in the words of the Chemical Brothers "it begin africa" i belive.

When you say you have a "baby boy certificate", do you mean birth certificate? If so, then you'd be better hiring genealogist to trace for you, they are used often to hunt people for large wills and estates etc

EDIT - you have to remember that US is a very young country made of migrants from all over, so result may come back (if at all accurate) as irish, spanish, german or many parts of the world, not a place in US.

scud. No names were recorded on the birth certificate. I have checked and there are no further records with missing information. I guess they wanted no trace.
I think that drunken remark about the airman has always niggled me.
I only want something, it's an odd feeling having no knowledge.

EDIT – you have to remember that US is a very young country made of migrants from all over, so result may come back (if at all accurate) as irish, spanish, german or many parts of the world, not a place in US.

Yes, unless someone else in your close parental family is on their database. It won't tell you much.

I'd view it as a bit of fun and comparisons between different companies databases exposes their fallibility

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/family-dna-ancestry-tests-review-comparison

(tho from that ^^^ ancestry looks like your best bet, but it would be a gamble)

Oldgit - i sympathise for you, i now live in Norfolk, there were over 100 airbases in East Anglia, 67 of which were serving US airmen in WWII and it is a common story, but does not give you any comfort.

My father was in Royal Navy, but bar a few early years where he was around but drunk, i never really knew him, and have never met any of his family at all, but at least i have the ability to trace them.

Adam Rutherford did a good podcast / books on this subject.

I've got quite a comprehensive family tree completed. My dad has done his side and a second cousin has completed a lot of my mum's maternal line. My mum's paternal line stops quite abruptly mid 1800s on one lineage which is a frustration. I've toyed with the Ancestry test.

My impression is the ancestry test may flag up siblings / relatives you never knew you had and they never knew they had. Having seen many genealogy programmes I think it can be quite a delicate process showing up and declaring you're a half sibling.

It can be quite an interesting process finding out you're descended from farmers lacemakers, railway workers.

Though I assume if it showed American relatives it could be a path to follow?

Yes it would & if they have suspicions they may well have entered their details on a dna database, but they may be totally unaware of your existence too.

You submit your dna to ancestry you are also giving it to the police and I believe I heard something about insurance companies using the data in relation to insurance premiums and cover.
Also, if a relative has committed a crime at any point, in absence of actually having evidence purporting to the perpetrator, you would become a suspect. And we all know how often the innocent have been convicted of a crime they didnt commit. DNA is a billion to one, so you'd have zero chance of fighting any prosecution if the worst case scenario presented itself.

dyna-ti flying in with the solid and proven FACTS!

You submit your dna to ancestry you are also giving it to the police and I believe I heard something about insurance companies using the data in relation to insurance premiums and cover.

Any actual evidence of this? As their site says they will only respond to specific requests that have followed due legal process. That's very different to giving all their data to the police.

In fact, if the police want my DNA surely they'd just take a sample from me?

Also, if a relative has committed a crime at any point, in absence of actually having evidence purporting to the perpetrator, you would become a suspect. And we all know how often the innocent have been convicted of a crime they didnt commit. DNA is a billion to one, so you’d have zero chance of fighting any prosecution if the worst case scenario presented itself.

Well that very basic failure in statistics did cause a few wrongful convictions in the early days of DNA forensics, but any expert witness would now know the difference between a conditional probability and a non conditional one, which changes the odds enormously and has overturned some of the early wrongful convictions.

Also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy

If you pick a suspect based on non-DNA evidence and they then match them on DNA the odds of it being them are very high. As the reason you selected them is indepedant of the DNA match. So, the chance they are guilty is 1 - 15*/(a very large number) ie very small indeed.

However, if you pick a suspect based solely on DNA match then it becomes a conditional probability, they are one of a small set who generate a +ve DNA match (*normally around 15 people in the world will generate a +ve match, although varies by ethnicity). Thus, the chance they are guilty (solely by DNA) is about 1 in 15 and the chance they are innocent is 14/15.

Any actual evidence of this?

I have read of cold cases in the US being solved by DNA ancestry data, helped them hone in who / where the likely suspect lived.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-were-cracking-cold-cases-dna-website-then-fine-print-n1070901

Thanks Footflaps - genuinely interesting stuff!

Submitting DNA from a crime scene to a DNA website in the hope of getting potential matches to relatives is a long way from giving all their sample data to the police as dyna-ti suggested. Neat bit of thinking though.

Well the authorities know that dna is one of the best tools we have to detect crime. But some here are thinking that they would ignore obvious sources of dna, allowing those crimes to remain undetected.
NDNAD holds 5.8million DNA samples. Are we really suggesting theres been near 6 million crimes of the type where DNA is collected as a standard, as in fingerprinting.

So where did they get all those samples from 😕

Submitting DNA from a crime scene to a DNA website in the hope of getting potential matches to relatives is a long way from giving all their sample data to the police

They(NDNAD calls that 'Familial search
" One half of an individual’s DNA profile is inherited from their father and the other half
from their mother. As a result, the DNA profile records of a parent and child, or two
siblings, will share a significant proportion of the 16 pairs of numbers. This means
that, in cases where the police have found the perpetrator’s DNA at the crime scene,
but they do not have a profile on NDNAD, a search of the database, known as a
‘familial search’, can be carried out to look for possible close relatives of the
perpetrator. Such a search may produce a list of possible relatives of the offender.
The police use other intelligence, such as age and geography, to narrow down the
list before investigating further. The search is computerised and involves only the
DNA profile records on NDNAD. "

Iirc anytime anyone is arrested then dna is taken alongside fingerprints

For me the DNA test was just a bit of fun (it was a birthday present) but it does mean I can tell people I’m 25% Viking 🙂

I was once discussing ancestry with a friend in Chicago. I said (rashly generalising for humorous effect), "every American I've ever met has claimed to be a quarter Scottish."

She replied, "hey, I'm a quarter Scottish!"

QED, love.

All your base pairs are belong to us. 🙂

Well, I laughed.

dyna-ti flying in with the solid and proven FACTS!

Might be true in the US, but over here both parties would foul of GDPR. The police have no reason to process my DNA and Ancestry et al have no rights to provide it.

Iirc anytime anyone is arrested then dna is taken alongside fingerprints

Again, assuming that to be true, they'd need a justifiable reason to keep it.

Again, assuming that to be true, they’d need a justifiable reason to keep it.

No special reason is required in E&W - there is specific legislation which permits it and has been tested in court for its Article 8 (right to privacy) compatibility. Scotland requires almost all samples to be destroyed if proceedings stop or the person is not convicted. There are special rules for sex crimes where suspects samples can be retained for longer, but still not indefinitely.

In the US it will be a free for all, and I am pretty sure they will be using some ropey consent basis for the processing and sharing. The value of the businesses is based on the data they hold not the test service they provide - that tells me everything I need to know… and there’s no way id be helping them get rich via my DNA and paying for the privilidge!

No special reason is required in E&W – there is specific legislation which permits it and has been tested in court for its Article 8 (right to privacy) compatibility.

Five seconds' googling would suggest otherwise. What've you got that I'm missing?

The first hit is a 2008 court case (predating GDPR by a long chalk) referring to Article 8 as being in the European Convention on Human Rights and the outcome is the diametric opposite of what you suggest, the complaint that it was unlawful was upheld.

The second was a 2015 case which tested the above. It referred specifically to convicted criminals and the ruling was that it was legitimate to hold that data until the conviction was considered spent, but no longer.

Article 8 of GDPR covers the ability of children to give consent so I'm not seeing the relevance there, I think you might be mixing your legislations.

If there is an "Article 8 (right to privacy)" or indeed any other article anywhere that states that law enforcement can obtain the general public's DNA randomly and secretly by harvesting genealogy websites and then hold it all in a big database indefinitely then I've yet to find it. I think you're mistaken, I'm afraid.

A mate's partner discovered that her father was not her biological father using one of these, made worse (or at least more suprising) by her mother being a quite judgemental Christian at home.

So, yeah, be prepared for some potential surprises.

Iirc anytime anyone is arrested then dna is taken alongside fingerprints

That might depend on what they're being arrested for, didn't take my DNA or fingerprints when I was nicked many years ago for not showing up at court (driving offence).

Back to the OP though, I believe the tests show where in the world the same markers are at the moment, not historically, so it's a reasonably good guide, but doesn't give much in the way of concrete ancestry. That's not to say don't do it, if it even partly answers your questions then it's probably worth it.

DNA aside, Ancestry style websites are a fraudsters delight. Date of Birth? Mother's maiden name? Town of birth? (helps identify first school). Fill yer boots with numerous bits of personal info used in security questions. Just as well pet names and favourite colours aren't listed.

Mrs DB is into genealogy having been adopted and tracked down to her birth father in Australia. Looking at her DNA profile she suspects that her maternal grandfather was a Canadian soldier and not of Kentish folk as the official records show. She has been able to trace a family name based in Canada and US but not been able to confirm it.

I had mine done last year and it shows I am descended from Mali and Senegal as my great grandmother then in British Guyana was descended from slaves. Her family name was that of an 17th century English slave trader and privateer so there’s possibly a bit of pirate in there too. On my grandmother’s side, it seems a fair few were intimately aware of the internal arrangements of Armley Gaol in Leeds having ‘resided’ there 🤣

@cougar I stand corrected. It appears that since the Supreme Court/Law Lords ruled it was compatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the links you posted refer to Article 8 of ECHR so no idea why you are getting antsy about GDPR!) the ECJ has overturned that. I’ll try to keep more abreast of how England is being kept in line for its human rights abuses in the future. There’s a whole section of GDPR about processing for law enforcement and judicial purposes - it basically means most of the normal rules don’t apply!

I'm not getting antsy about about anything. I know a reasonable amount about GDPR as part of my day job is all, the rest was news to me. Like I said, I just googled it.

My impression is the ancestry test may flag up siblings / relatives you never knew you had and they never knew they had

As others have suggested this is the bit that you're clearly interested in, but has the greatest potential to be either a complete dead end, or throw up some unwelcome surprises for a group of folks who have no knowledge of potential family member's existence. I think there are even even self help groups on FB offering support to those effected by these tests. (uncles revealed to be fathers, mothers/daughters who are sisters and so on)

Seems like a can of worms to me. You have my sympathy, it sounds to me like you feel there's a part of you missing, or that you just want the details filled in...It may not be possible now to do that, I think in your shoes, I'd resolve to come to terms with that rather than to channel energy into something that may well end up being fruitless. Regardless of what you end up doing, I hope you get the closure you're looking for.

My OH has very recently done this. She knew her biological father was an American serviceman, and wanted to find out a little more.
Within the last 7 days she's had contact from 2 of his other children, both in the US and both very, very welcoming. It's been an exciting time for Ms fadda!
She was extremely sensitive when making contact, in fact the first contact was initiated by one of the others, and was positive right from the start, and she's been very mindful that she didn't know if any contact would be welcome. Luckily it was, and we know have new relatives in Texas and California.
Initially she just wanted some detail to put in that side of the family tree, didn't really expect to have contact so quickly!

Within the last 7 days she’s had contact from 2 of his other children, both in the US and both very, very welcoming. It’s been an exciting time for Ms fadda!

Very cool!

Like I said, I just googled it.

but obviously didn't read the articles you found very thoroughly since they both referred to Article 8 of ECHR and one even had it in the headline!

I know a reasonable amount about GDPR as part of my day job is all,

You might want to refresh your memory of GDPR Article 2, 2(d) then - which effectively says it doesn't apply to the cops when investigating crime! In the UK the DPA 2018 (which makes GDPR UK law) actually has an entire section (Part 3) on processing by law enforcement - which goes beyond what GDPR says, but I don't think it explicitly rules out storing DNA or electronic records of DNA; like most people I've glossed over that section as I'm not working in Law Enforcement. It is ECHR not GDPR which is used to argue that indefinite retention is wrong.

I know a reasonable amount about GDPR as part of my day job is all, the rest was news to me

I didn't realise that being sex machine from dusk til dawn required a good working knowledge of GDPR regulations. Makes sense though I guess.

but obviously didn’t read the articles you found very thoroughly since they both referred to Article 8 of ECHR and one even had it in the headline!

I literally wrote that in my previous post.

You might want to refresh your memory of GDPR Article 2, 2(d) then – which effectively says it doesn’t apply to the cops when investigating crime!

Again, I said this - it doesn't apply to Joe Public, they can't just hold data without just cause, you'd have to be a suspect to start with.

It is ECHR not GDPR which is used to argue that indefinite retention is wrong.

Does it matter? The outcome is the same.