I think I'm going to do this for my grandmother for Christmas. She's 84, so she's old enough that she doesn't care about people having her DNA info. And then I can research the family history!
I think I'm going to do this for my grandmother for Christmas. She's 84, so she's old enough that she doesn't care about people having her DNA info. And then I can research the family history!
My family and I did 23andme years ago, before my grandmother passed away. It was fun trying to explain the results (she had no problem with the concept of genes, but thought chromosomes were totally weird and unnecessary) and now that she's gone I really enjoy having her results and seeing the couple of things I definitely inherited from her.
While the idea of DNA testing intrigues me, I would never do it because all I can think of is Henrietta Lacks. I do not trust these companies or our government. And if you get the genetic testing, I recommend that you get life insurance and any other thing that can be affected by knowing genetic information before you do it. Once you know, you have to disclose.
I took her response more to mean "and no one thought - hey! maybe they're identical!"
Though there are a lot of frat twins who look identical (Olsens for example).
I just took it to be, why would anyone lie about that? Unless the parents didn't even know they were identical for some reason?
It's not that they were lying. Their mom was told they were fraternal by a backwoods Ohio doctor when they were babies and no one ever had a reason to question it.
But I'm also the person who turns off voice control and Siri and would never have an Alexa or whatever in my house because it's all listening to me. I know it is anyway but might as well decrease instances of listening as much as I can although I never say anything worth listening to.
Me and my tin foil hat are going to keep my DNA to ourselves.
I try not to be the tin foil hat type and I know if someone really wanted to get a DNA sample from me they easily could, but something weirds me out about just giving some random company all this info. No thanks.
I just took it to be, why would anyone lie about that? Unless the parents didn't even know they were identical for some reason?
Not knowing if your twins are identical or not is actually very common and normal. Unless they are boy/girl of course. Every twin mom I know did not know for sure if they were identical or not until they had them tested.
And that test being readily available and affordable is fairly recent as well - I'm not shocked that older people wouldn't have ever tested or had the need to test. That's cool though!
I really wanted to do one of these to see my actual heritage. Then I saw a 20/20 or Dateline episode where police were able to run DNA they received from a crime scene against their (the ancestry/23&me) database and found a familial match and arrested the guy. But he didn't commit the crime and was nowhere near the city it happened in.
Huh? They found a familial match, meaning not an exact match, but arrested him anyway?
My molecular genetics professor in grad school said that you'd be surprised at the number of people who do these sorts of ancestry tests and end up finding out that their father isn't actually their father.
I just took it to be, why would anyone lie about that? Unless the parents didn't even know they were identical for some reason?
Not knowing if your twins are identical or not is actually very common and normal. Unless they are boy/girl of course. Every twin mom I know did not know for sure if they were identical or not until they had them tested.
I'm 5'11 and my twin sister is 5'3. We get asked all the time if we are identical. We just say yes now - it's more fun that way.
I just took it to be, why would anyone lie about that? Unless the parents didn't even know they were identical for some reason?
Not knowing if your twins are identical or not is actually very common and normal. Unless they are boy/girl of course. Every twin mom I know did not know for sure if they were identical or not until they had them tested.
Yep! As someone pregnant with identicals right now this comes up all the time. I know they are identical because they are monochorionic. But twins can be identical and be dichorionic diamniotic, in which case you don't know if they are identical unless you do a test (assuming they are the same sex).
We just bought my mom an ancestry test for mother's day. She's super into the family tree and really wanted it. I don't see the harm.
I'm not generally a tin hat type so most of the concerns in this thread don't bother me.
The thing with easily finding birth parents brings up a lot of feelings for me because last January we were picking out donor sperm right before my husband had a sperm miracle and we were able to get pregnant with IVF using his sperm. I don't know. It stresses me out to think about.
Ditto andwhat on the life insurance before these and other genetic tests. Please make sure you are comfortably covered before taking any of this type of stuff.
We just bought my mom an ancestry test for mother's day. She's super into the family tree and really wanted it. I don't see the harm.
I'm not generally a tin hat type so most of the concerns in this thread don't bother me.
The thing with easily finding birth parents brings up a lot of feelings for me because last January we were picking out donor sperm right before my husband had a sperm miracle and we were able to get pregnant with IVF using his sperm. I don't know. It stresses me out to think about.
Ditto andwhat on the life insurance before these and other genetic tests. Please make sure you are comfortably covered before taking any of this type of stuff.
One of the reasons (beyond it's just better for the kid) that we are tell early and often about DD's donor egg origins is these types of tests. The possibility of her doing this at some point for whatever reason and finding out is high enough that it's not worth the risk. As for her finding her donor or genetic half siblings I am hoping this wouldn't be until she was old enough for us to navigate that but it's something I have thought about and considered happening sooner either by accident or by necessity.
I have a number of online friends who conceived via donor gametes that have a relationship with their kids genetic half siblings via the Donor Registry and it's a positive situation for them. A couple have some form of relationship with their donor (one via e-mail and occasional updates, one that have met and do some contact)
I think it is a tricky issue to navigate but once you are in the situation there are ways of making it work.
Not knowing if your twins are identical or not is actually very common and normal. Unless they are boy/girl of course. Every twin mom I know did not know for sure if they were identical or not until they had them tested.
I'm 5'11 and my twin sister is 5'3. We get asked all the time if we are identical. We just say yes now - it's more fun that way.Â
I had friends in high school who are identical twins but had a similar height gap - 5'9" to 5'3" I would say. As a result of cord issues one of them had stunted growth and a couple of heart surgeries at birth and as a child. This had a huge effect on her growth throughout life. So anything is possible!
I really wanted to do one of these to see my actual heritage. Then I saw a 20/20 or Dateline episode where police were able to run DNA they received from a crime scene against their (the ancestry/23&me) database and found a familial match and arrested the guy. But he didn't commit the crime and was nowhere near the city it happened in.
Huh? They found a familial match, meaning not an exact match, but arrested him anyway?
I'm off to google and try to find that story.
Here's an article about it - the dad had his DNA tested so the police figured the familial match was the son and arrested and held/questioned him for hours and followed him for months.
Not knowing if your twins are identical or not is actually very common and normal. Unless they are boy/girl of course. Every twin mom I know did not know for sure if they were identical or not until they had them tested.
Yep! As someone pregnant with identicals right now this comes up all the time. I know they are identical because they Are monochorionic. But twins can be identical and be di chorionic diamniotic, in which case you don't know if they are identical unless you do a test (assuming they are the same sex).
My cousin has twins that look identical but says she doesn't know if they are or not. She hasn't bothered to do the test. I couldn't handle not knowing!
I'm 5'11 and my twin sister is 5'3. We get asked all the time if we are identical. We just say yes now - it's more fun that way.Â
I had friends in high school who are identical twins but had a similar height gap - 5'9" to 5'3" I would say. As a result of cord issues one of them had stunted growth and a couple of heart surgeries at birth and as a child. This had a huge effect on her growth throughout life. So anything is possible!
We have different eye colors, different hair color, different skin tones. The height is just one of the many differences. And yes, we did get tested to see if we are actually even sisters lol (we are!)
We have different eye colors, different hair color, different skin tones. The height is just one of the many differences. And yes, we did get tested to see if we are actually even sisters lol (we are!)
Your twins and got tested to see if you're sisters?
Yeah that read confusing. Because we look nothing a like we used to say we aren't even sisters much less twins (joking of course). We did a twin study and they confirmed we are in fact sisters/twins.
connie0000, I knew nothing about twins until this pregnancy. We knew they were identical because there were two heartbeats on the screen and we only transferred one embryo lol. I have learned a lot since!
My kids were conceived using a donor. I'm afraid if they did this they'd be matched with the donor which opens up all kinds of weirdness.
This happened to my friend who donated her eggs. I can't remember specifically how, but she never took the test... it matched the kids who took the test to one of her cousins or something and the parents then used that info to contact her on FB. She was pretty upset, especially since there's a process for contacting donors through the agency they used.
Your twins and got tested to see if you're sisters?
Yeah that read confusing. Because we look nothing a like we used to say we aren't even sisters much less twins (joking of course). We did a twin study and they confirmed we are in fact sisters/twins.
Were they thinking one of you was switched at birth? Or was this just a baseline test for the study? I am trying to figure out how two babies born from the same mom at the same time wouldn't be twins lol.
Theoretically I used you could have been half sisters, but I think that is pretty rare.
Yeah that read confusing. Because we look nothing a like we used to say we aren't even sisters much less twins (joking of course). We did a twin study and they confirmed we are in fact sisters/twins.
Were they thinking one of you was switched at birth? Or was this just a baseline test for the study? I am trying to figure out how two babies born from the same mom at the same time wouldn't be twins lol.
Theoretically I used you could have been half sisters, but I think that is pretty rare.
Baseline test. It was a nicotine study (how the body reacts differently/processes it). They took blood throughout the process.
My biggest fear with these has evolved as the ACA seems to be falling apart. If the consumer protections of the ACA fall, this could be used to deny you health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, right? Or, it could make your health insurance so expensive as to not be available.
My biggest fear with these has evolved as the ACA seems to be falling apart. If the consumer protections of the ACA fall, this could be used to deny you health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, right? Or, it could make your health insurance so expensive as to not be available.
Not to say I'm not also watching how things progress, but GINA protections signed into law by Bush are still in place (for now) and we did direct-to-consumer testing, so our results were not diagnostic or part of our medical records. Also I did not opt in to some of the weightier tests (risk factor for alzheimers, breast cancer etc).
I had genetic testing done for IF reasons. Since I am a carrier for two diseases, H also needed to get tested. So at this point, I want to do it so that I can find out more about my heritage. We know nothing about my dad's side of the family. My last name is Greek. We are not Greek - as far as we know.
For those of you that are concerned for tin-foil hat reasons - would you ever allow your DNA to be sequenced for medical reasons? It's often done for diagnostic purposes - what type of mutations you have in a tumor to determine what treatment you would likely respond to or for research purposes - to learn more about cancer/biology in general. Different types of methods are used and some look at just a few specific genes. In fact, some cancers do have a genotyping aspect to diagnosis.
I did mine last year and DH did his this year. His was more interesting and way more diverse. He is Dominican but never really knew what exactly his ethnic makeup was, so finding out was very cool, and it's cool knowing our daughter's genetic makeup.
Side story, years ago my dad had asked for a paternity test for my little brother (my parents are divorced and dad wanted out of contributing to college, brother was about 17/18 at the time). My mom was super against it and told brother not to do it. My brother now kind of has interest in also doing Ancestry DNA to see if his matches mine, or if there is an anomaly that would answer the question of having a different dad. He's not sure if he wants the answer though.
This is probably not that uncommon because doctors used to think that separate placentas meant twins were definitely fraternal. But they know now that if the egg splits early enough identical twins can develop their own placentas.