I've been wanting to do it for a while, but just couldn't stomach the cost. My H got one for me for MD. He got me the one that does all of the health tests as well so I'm super excited. I'm wondering for those of you that have done it, were there a lot of questions that you had to answer in addition to just sending the test in? Do you know if you can take the raw data and submit it to another site like Ancestry.com? My sister did the Ancestry test and I'd love to see the comparison between ours (we're half siblings). Also, did you find it to be accurate based on what you know about your ancestry? My sister, who is half Italian, her test showed no genetic tie to Italy LOL Also, if you've had the Health portion of the test completed, how were those results? I'm honestly not really sure what to even expect.
Are you sure that she really is half Italian? Did one of her parents or grandparents immigrate here directly from Italy? If it’s further back than that what each individual gets genetically is pretty diluted so one sibling might get a much different make up than the rest of her siblings.
I haven’t done it because I don’t trust the companies that do these tests with my results but my brother did and the results were mostly what we expected except with a much larger % of sub-Saharan African than I would have thought. He did have to answer a lot of questions.
My mom and her sister did the Ancestry.com test purely for origin curiosity and we've since communicated with two grown women who are their nieces. Their now deceased brother (my uncle) fathered two children with two separate women that no one ever knew about - they are both lovely and so was he but wow. So... I'd suggest being prepared for whatever the test may reveal or connect for you and your family.
I've done it. I do recall answering a bunch of questions but I don't think they're all required. I did find it to be accurate and to match up with my general knowledge of my heritage. To tacokick's point, just because relatives emigrated from a place doesn't mean there's a genetic link. My maternal great-parents were Russian Jews but I have no Russian genes because they originated from elsewhere. I specifically did the test for the health results because I wanted to see if I was a carrier for any genetic variants. I found that part interesting and helpful.
I've done it. I do recall answering a bunch of questions but I don't think they're all required. I did find it to be accurate and to match up with my general knowledge of my heritage. To tacokick's point, just because relatives emigrated from a place doesn't mean there's a genetic link. My maternal great-parents were Russian Jews but I have no Russian genes because they originated from elsewhere. I specifically did the test for the health results because I wanted to see if I was a carrier for any genetic variants. I found that part interesting and helpful.
Yes! I have a friend whose family came from England & Scotland but was shocked by a super high Scandinavia hit. Um, Vikings yo.
I’ve done Ancesrtry. There’s not a way to upload results from other places to compare on Ancestry. You can download your raw data from Ancestry though. Maybe there’s a 3rd party site to compare?
I've done it. I do recall answering a bunch of questions but I don't think they're all required. I did find it to be accurate and to match up with my general knowledge of my heritage. To tacokick's point, just because relatives emigrated from a place doesn't mean there's a genetic link. My maternal great-parents were Russian Jews but I have no Russian genes because they originated from elsewhere. I specifically did the test for the health results because I wanted to see if I was a carrier for any genetic variants. I found that part interesting and helpful.
What did the results say if you don’t mind me asking, Eastern European Jews? That’s what my boss’s results said, I don’t remember which service he used. Jews in Eastern Europe are from all over, so it definitely makes sense that there is no Russian blood. It’s very nuanced.
Just be aware, if you do the test, you may have to disclose any health data from that test if/when you buy life insurance, disability insurance or long-term care insurance. And it could mean you end up paying higher rates.
I've done it. I do recall answering a bunch of questions but I don't think they're all required. I did find it to be accurate and to match up with my general knowledge of my heritage. To tacokick 's point, just because relatives emigrated from a place doesn't mean there's a genetic link. My maternal great-parents were Russian Jews but I have no Russian genes because they originated from elsewhere. I specifically did the test for the health results because I wanted to see if I was a carrier for any genetic variants. I found that part interesting and helpful.
What did the results say if you don’t mind me asking, Eastern European Jews? That’s what my boss’s results said, I don’t remember which service he used. Jews in Eastern Europe are from all over, so it definitely makes sense that there is no Russian blood. It’s very nuanced.
I’m parking myself here too. This is one database I don’t want MY data mined from. It would be a candy store for any insurance company.
I know this sounds a little nutty but with this administration especially, I don’t want there to be files on our ethnicity anywhere.
It’s not nutty, I don’t think. Police can and have already used such testing results to find family members of (alleged) criminals. Not a far leap to think this extremist administration would use it for nefarious reasons.
There are very few outright protections on privacy of DNA done through these tests. I honestly would love to have these tests done but I’m way too scared of the lack of protection.
Last Edit: May 13, 2019 11:22:21 GMT -5 by Leeham Rimes
I need ham like water Like breath, like rain I need ham like mercy From Heaven's gate Sometimes ham salad or casserole or ham that’s free range, all natural I need ham
I've been wanting to do it for a while, but just couldn't stomach the cost. My H got one for me for MD. He got me the one that does all of the health tests as well so I'm super excited. I'm wondering for those of you that have done it, were there a lot of questions that you had to answer in addition to just sending the test in? Do you know if you can take the raw data and submit it to another site like Ancestry.com? My sister did the Ancestry test and I'd love to see the comparison between ours (we're half siblings). Also, did you find it to be accurate based on what you know about your ancestry? My sister, who is half Italian, her test showed no genetic tie to Italy LOL Also, if you've had the Health portion of the test completed, how were those results? I'm honestly not really sure what to even expect.
I've done it. As far as I remember, you don't have to answer any of the questions, but I work in clinical research, so I feel like I should contribute to research efforts and I do a lot of the surveys and even did a randomized diet study last year.
I haven't done anything with my raw data, but I don't think you can upload to other sites like ancestry. I have a bit of experience using gene browsers, so I've thought about playing around with the data (like I have a brown stripe in my blue eyes, so I want to know what eye color genes I actually carry) I just haven't done it yet.
Mine is fairly accurate minus the whole thing where I'm supposed to have a Native American ancestor (I'd really like to know who was in that picture my nana had then). My last name is Greek but we can't trace it back to Greek roots. None of my 3 aunts or 1 cousin on my dad's side have Greek ancestry, although I have a tiny Balkan/Greek DNA (but clearly from my mom's side if none of my dad's side has it). That side of the family has been in the US for a long time (1700s), so our background has always been kind of vague - Germany, Ireland, "europe." My mom's side has closer roots in Europe (her grandparents were born in Austria and Germany), so nothing surprising showed up there.
I haven't found any relatives I didn't know about that are closely related, but people I'm seeing on extended family's facebook pages are in my 2-3rd cousin matches. That's kind of cool.
I did the health one because I already had genetic carrier testing done for IF reasons (done by another company), so 1. the damage was already done in terms of opening that pandora's box if I have to report it to a company and 2. the things I tested + for in the carrier screen were actually fairly important and interesting to me, so I figured having more knowledge would be useful. The two things I have are NOT on the 23andme test. For more serious/impactful genes, you are given the chance to open the result, rather than it just showing up. Things like BRCA and another one - dementia perhaps. The BCRA variant they test for it specific to the Ashkenazi Jewish population, which I am not, so that was a low risk choice for me to view it.
I'll be honest. I just wanted to know if I had a genetic reason to hate cilantro. And I do. Thanks science!
I know this sounds a little nutty but with this administration especially, I don’t want there to be files on our ethnicity anywhere.
It’s not nutty, I don’t think. Police can and have already used such testing results to find family members of (alleged) criminals. Not a far leap to think this extremist administration would use it for nefarious reasons.
There are very few outright protections on privacy of DNA done through these tests. I honestly would love to have these tests done but I’m way too scared of the lack of protection.
I don’t think it sounds nutty either. I used to work in clinical research and there were many protections I had to ascribe to to protect the data from the samples I collected. There are very few with these DNA tests, and while I can appreciate them being a source of data for further knowledge, the data is not collected with those protections in place. Nope.
I've been wanting to do it for a while, but just couldn't stomach the cost. My H got one for me for MD. He got me the one that does all of the health tests as well so I'm super excited. I'm wondering for those of you that have done it, were there a lot of questions that you had to answer in addition to just sending the test in? Do you know if you can take the raw data and submit it to another site like Ancestry.com? My sister did the Ancestry test and I'd love to see the comparison between ours (we're half siblings). Also, did you find it to be accurate based on what you know about your ancestry? My sister, who is half Italian, her test showed no genetic tie to Italy LOL Also, if you've had the Health portion of the test completed, how were those results? I'm honestly not really sure what to even expect.
My aunt did it. That side of the family is 100% Italian and VERY proud of it (it was a bfd when my mom married an Irish guy). The connection to Italy is my great-grandparents (all of them on both sides) immigrated from Italy around the same time - we have the records. Her results showed 75% Italian and 25% Caucasus - which is a pretty significant portion. So much for 100%
It’s not nutty, I don’t think. Police can and have already used such testing results to find family members of (alleged) criminals. Not a far leap to think this extremist administration would use it for nefarious reasons.
There are very few outright protections on privacy of DNA done through these tests. I honestly would love to have these tests done but I’m way too scared of the lack of protection.
I don’t think it sounds nutty either. I used to work in clinical research and there were many protections I had to ascribe to to protect the data from the samples I collected. There are very few with these DNA tests, and while I can appreciate them being a source of data for further knowledge, the data is not collected with those protections in place. Nope.
Can you expand on this, because I don't have the same opinion.
Do you feel the same about companies like Counsyl, GeneDX, etc?
I don’t think it sounds nutty either. I used to work in clinical research and there were many protections I had to ascribe to to protect the data from the samples I collected. There are very few with these DNA tests, and while I can appreciate them being a source of data for further knowledge, the data is not collected with those protections in place. Nope.
Can you expand on this, because I don't have the same opinion.
Do you feel the same about companies like Counsyl, GeneDX, etc?
I’m no legal expert but in every article I read about *consumer* DNA tests, there are very very few protections of our genetic data. One article I read stated that there are more legal protections for felons that have had their dna taken than there are for the public.
Last Edit: May 13, 2019 11:52:32 GMT -5 by Leeham Rimes
I need ham like water Like breath, like rain I need ham like mercy From Heaven's gate Sometimes ham salad or casserole or ham that’s free range, all natural I need ham
Are you sure that she really is half Italian? Did one of her parents or grandparents immigrate here directly from Italy? If it’s further back than that what each individual gets genetically is pretty diluted so one sibling might get a much different make up than the rest of her siblings.
I haven’t done it because I don’t trust the companies that do these tests with my results but my brother did and the results were mostly what we expected except with a much larger % of sub-Saharan African than I would have thought. He did have to answer a lot of questions.
Yes! Her Grandfather (Mom's Dad) immigrated as did her Great-Grandparents (Mom's Mom's Parents). She doesn't know anything about their lives/family there though. The family is all the very stereo-typical olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes Italian. So clearly they all immigrated to Italy from elsewhere in Europe. It's all very fascinating. I'm very curious to compare our DNA that is shared with our Dad.
My husband and I have both done Ancestry. All of my grandparents emigrated from Ireland to the US, so I had a pretty good idea of my results. I was more interested in finding long lost relatives in my large Irish Catholic family.
My husband's results were unexpected. For instance, his grandmother was born and raised in Iceland and came to the US as an adult after meeting his grandfather who was stationed in Iceland after WWII. Nothing Icelandic popped up. I'm not sure if maybe some other Scandinavian countries did. We also know on the other side of his family, his grandmother was Italian and his grandfather Irish, but the results didn't really seem consistent with what we know.
I did find a first cousin who was unknown to me - my deceased Uncle fathered a child before marrying his first wife and having the first cousins from him I knew about. She and her half sister (both my cousins) have a very striking resemblance. Really quite uncanny.
Are you sure that she really is half Italian? Did one of her parents or grandparents immigrate here directly from Italy? If it’s further back than that what each individual gets genetically is pretty diluted so one sibling might get a much different make up than the rest of her siblings.
I haven’t done it because I don’t trust the companies that do these tests with my results but my brother did and the results were mostly what we expected except with a much larger % of sub-Saharan African than I would have thought. He did have to answer a lot of questions.
Yes! Her Grandfather (Mom's Dad) immigrated as did her Great-Grandparents (Mom's Mom's Parents). She doesn't know anything about their lives/family there though. The family is all the very stereo-typical olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes Italian. So clearly they all immigrated to Italy from elsewhere in Europe. It's all very fascinating. I'm very curious to compare our DNA that is shared with our Dad.
That’s very interesting! I think people forget how much immigration went on in Europe.
I don’t think it sounds nutty either. I used to work in clinical research and there were many protections I had to ascribe to to protect the data from the samples I collected. There are very few with these DNA tests, and while I can appreciate them being a source of data for further knowledge, the data is not collected with those protections in place. Nope.
Can you expand on this, because I don't have the same opinion.
Do you feel the same about companies like Counsyl, GeneDX, etc?
I know nothing about these other companies, so I cannot answer about those. 23 and me and the ilk are not HIPAA compliant, which means that personal health information that you give them, they are not required to keep it personal....unlike your doctors and medical labs.
If you get your DNA tested through a medical lab, and they are required to be HIPAA compliant. This means that there are limited people who can access your data.
While most are doing this for the genealogy, it is the other medical stuff that is ripe for the picking that also comes up when they start sequencing your DNA.
While GINA has been cited as a strong step forward, some say that the legislation does not go far enough in enabling personal control over genetic testing results.[23] The law does not cover life, disability, or long-term care insurance, which may cause some reluctance to get tested.[22][24]
I did ancestry out of curiosity. It has been interesting, I have been able to connect with my family from my grandpa's side we didn't really know anything about. Eastern European Jew- Polish. We have since learned which family made it out before the War and which family were lost.
We also discovered a 1/2 Aunt no one knew about. There have been other "kids" that have been discovered, but someone knew something about them.
Post by sandandsea on May 13, 2019 23:38:35 GMT -5
I did it and it was fun. There is no chain of custody so they can’t really prove it’s your spit that was sent in. You could use a fake name and email address if you’re really worried and you can answer or not as much as you want. You can also not share your data and have strict privacy settings.
I grew up knowing I was “Heinz 57” and my family had been in the US for more than 6+ generations so very few if any ties elsewhere and lots of family stories but no proof of anything. It was interesting and I didn’t have any of the bad variants they tested. So it was a relief too since I’m a worrier by nature. Unfortunately I won’t get a life insurance premium reduction for that but I should!!
Also I was over 35 with DS2 and had genetic testing done as part of my geriatric pregnancy so I figured my info is already “out there” and if you’ve ever donated blood or had bloodwork done your info could be out there too so I figured I was okay with any additional risk. And if they use my dna to find someone like the golden state killer I’m okay with that.
I read somewhere after my weird results that some of the companies struggle to get ethnicity correct for groups other than Northern Europeans.
All of my great-grandparents are from Sicily. At first, mine came back 59 percent Italy&Greece/15 percent West Europe/ 20 percent Middle East/ 1 percent Africa/ 1 percent Asia. I was like, well Sicily has a long history, lots of sailors, makes sense, LOL. Then a few months ago, Ancestry came back and was like oh, hey, we have "updated results." Turns out you are totally Italian with a touch of Greek - have a nice day!
My theory is that this is based both on now having more (angry) Italians taking the test but also that in some sense BOTH results are probably right. I mean, people didn't hatch from eggs on Sicily.
In terms of being able to trace your family connections, I've found it to be extremely accurate. When it has reported a relative, it has always been dead on about our connection, which makes sense because that's more straightforward DNA situation in most cases, I think.
I did it and it was fun. There is no chain of custody so they can’t really prove it’s your spit that was sent in. You could use a fake name and email address if you’re really worried and you can answer or not as much as you want. You can also not share your data and have strict privacy settings.
I grew up knowing I was “Heinz 57” and my family had been in the US for more than 6+ generations so very few if any ties elsewhere and lots of family stories but no proof of anything. It was interesting and I didn’t have any of the bad variants they tested. So it was a relief too since I’m a worrier by nature. Unfortunately I won’t get a life insurance premium reduction for that but I should!!
Also I was over 35 with DS2 and had genetic testing done as part of my geriatric pregnancy so I figured my info is already “out there” and if you’ve ever donated blood or had bloodwork done your info could be out there too so I figured I was okay with any additional risk. And if they use my dna to find someone like the golden state killer I’m okay with that.
“In all cases, the data is anonymized. (Though to be fair, it’s debatable how anonymous that data really is. In one case, researchers were able to find out a man’s last name using only the short repeats on his Y chromosome and access to a genealogy database.)”
And there’s another article I linked up thread that stated only 2% of the worlds population is needed to have a genetic profile of pretty much everyone on earth. As more people do this, there are that many more links to you and identifying you.
I mean that’s cool that you’re ok with it, everyone is different and has different opinions but it’s not as straightforward as “they’ll never be able to link it back to me” bc there are ways to do so, if Not now, then definitely in the future as more people take the test and laws change based on whatever special interest who gives the lawmakers in charge the most money.
I need ham like water Like breath, like rain I need ham like mercy From Heaven's gate Sometimes ham salad or casserole or ham that’s free range, all natural I need ham
Leeham Rimes , but also kind of in the same vein (ha HA), let's say I have a condition that is carried by DNA (and I do.) If a few people in my family took the test, even if I didn't, it would be logical to whatever insurance database in the sky we're conspiracy basing things on that I too have or am likely to have this condition. So basically it would have to be an all or none situation, right?
FWIW, if everyone wants to worry about health information, I've done some freelance work in the areas of AI and the IOT. One of the technologists I came across used to work for a large insurance company. While there, he learned that it was possible for the company to determine someone's HIV status based on just a few things in its database - we didn't get into it but logically specialists and prescriptions would be two that might figure it out pretty quick. He quit over it but it came up in a similar conversation about data tracking/insurance and it weirdly made me feel more blase about DNA, not less. Like, it's a losing battle. This stuff is out there. Privacy doesn't exist.
Post by Leeham Rimes on May 14, 2019 7:32:10 GMT -5
I suppose it’s true nothing is safe but I’m definitely not giving away my genetic makeup to companies if I can help it at all. And I don’t think my opinion is a “conspiracy theory” necessarily bc the companies are already doing things and being investigated for them. There’s at least one FCC investigation into 23& me. Also take into consideration articles written by lawyers saying there arent enough legal ways to safeguard our information. To brush it off as “conspiracy theory” isn’t quite fair..
I just don’t think it’s harmless fun but I’d love to be wrong. I’ll wait a few more decades and see what happens.
Last Edit: May 14, 2019 10:10:12 GMT -5 by Leeham Rimes
I need ham like water Like breath, like rain I need ham like mercy From Heaven's gate Sometimes ham salad or casserole or ham that’s free range, all natural I need ham