Any of you sent in those DNA analysis tests?

[Guest]

For Christmas, someone gave me a DNA analysis test. I sent it in because it was free, although I don't think I'd ever pay to have this done. This was the Nat Geo 2.0 test. I come from a family which has some pretty extensive genealogical records, going back to the 16th Century. At least going back 500 years, all of my ancestors can be traced back to Germany, France (Alsace, mainly), and Belgium. Yet when I read the analysis, it yielded over a third as being from the "Jewish Diaspora," almost a quarter from Italy/Adriatic area, a fifth from the British Isles, and the rest from the Iberian peninsula, eastern Europe, and the Baltics. While I have often thought that our family had a lot in common with Jewish families (hard-working, successful bourgeois), I don't think there are any Jewish families in our tree, at least going back for the time we have records. And certainly no one from Italy, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, or the British Isles. I feel these results are probably complete bullshit. Have any of you sent your results in? Did you feel the analysis was wrong as well?

[+ sf westcoaster]

I did a DNA with Ancestry and the results were completely in sync with the nationalities of my parents. My brother also had Ancestry do his DNA and his results were quite different than mind but still consistent with our parents. I had a larger percentage from my Mother's family and my brother had a larger percentage from our Father's family.

[Guest]

I did a DNA with Ancestry and the results were completely in sync with the nationalities of my parents. My brother also had Ancestry do his DNA and his results were quite different than mind but still consistent with our parents. I had a larger percentage from my Mother's family and my brother had a larger percentage from our Father's family.

Well, the fact that your brother's results were "quite different" from yours seems to support my sense that these "analyses" are complete BS. I take it that he is your full brother from your response? The nationalities should have been pretty similar....

[+ Keith30309]

There was a thread about this a few months ago and the most interesting part to me was the privacy of the results

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/have-you-taken-a-dna-ethnicity-test.130771/page-2#post-1406512

[+ ArVaGuy]

I did a DNA with Ancestry and the results were completely in sync with the nationalities of my parents. My brother also had Ancestry do his DNA and his results were quite different than mind but still consistent with our parents. I had a larger percentage from my Mother's family and my brother had a larger percentage from our Father's family.

 

Well, the fact that your brother's results were "quite different" from yours seems to support my sense that these "analyses" are complete BS. I take it that he is your full brother from your response? The nationalities should have been pretty similar....

 

The Ancestry test states in the very fine print that it is possible for siblings to have slightly different results. Here’s a link that explains how parental DNA gets “mixed” amongst the offspring.

 

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/same-parents-different-ancestry

 

I did the Ancestry test a few years ago and it matched my parental lineage. Better than fifty percent Italian, Greek, and Mediterranean on my mother’s side. My father’s side comprised English, Scottish, Welsh, and Scandinavia.

 

There was also “less than two percent” East/central European Jewish. Analyzing the family history, particularly on my mother’s side, the European Jewish element is a distinct possibility. You have to consider the migration patterns, particularly that of the Diaspora, and how DNA enters into a family line and not even be noticeable.

 

I would take another test such as 23 & Me but not unless heavily discounted. All these companies seem to offer continuous discounts to attract customers. Maybe one of these days I’ll do it and compare results.

[mike carey]

The Jewish/Balkans/Yugoslav/Iberian link is quite plausible, as is such a lineage ending up in Germany 400 years ago. The Jewish community that lived in Moorish Spain for centuries was expelled to Sarajevo in 1492 and those people would have blended into the wider Jewish diaspora in Europe. Separately, anyone with parents from different ethnic backgrounds would have a mixture of those backgrounds in their genetic makeup. Siblings could easily have different makeups, one skewing to the mother's side and the other to the father's. Another thing to consider is the possibility of an extramarital liaison that brought in genetic material not apparent from family trees that assume all was in the family.

 

One of the delicious side-effects of genetic ethnic profiling is the occasional discovery of non-white heritage in avowed white supremacists. On a more positive level, it can defuse our exclusivist perceptions of our racial origins. Our European origins are complex given the migration and mixture of groups across the continent. 'German' communities were present across modern Germany but also all around the Baltic Sea and as far as Russia. Up until 1918, Europe had multi-ethnic empires in which groups were mixed. In the settler countries, intermingling of indigenous and settler communities is less ambiguous. (Hello Elizabeth Warren.)

[MikeyGMin]

Two friends and I took them together last year. Laza, a darker-skinned Mexican; Rafa, a light-skinned Mexican with an American grandfather; and me (total whitebread.)

 

The results all seemed reliable -- or at least plausible. Laza had the biggest mixture that included Indo, Southern European and African. Rafa had a good mixture with a bit of the local Indo population but was mostly southern European. I was greater than 99% northern European (boring.)

[+ azdr0710]

I can only add that some article I read recently, with the expressed purpose of comparing the well-known tests for accuracy, said they were accurate and consistent

[rvwnsd]

Well, the fact that your brother's results were "quite different" from yours seems to support my sense that these "analyses" are complete BS. I take it that he is your full brother from your response? The nationalities should have been pretty similar....

If my brother and I were to take a DNA test I'd be surprised if the results of the two weren't quite different. We are full brothers, but he looks almost exactly like my dad and I look almost exactly like my mom. He thinks and acts like my dad and I think and act like my mom.

[+ ArVaGuy]

Here’s how a different ethnicity can easily enter into a family tree. I have a Sicilian surname. Both my parents had full blooded Sicilian parents. But wait...I’m half English, Scottish and Scandinavian according to Ancestry DNA test.

 

How can this be possible? Easy...my father was ADOPTED by a Sicilian couple. The story is somewhat scandalous. Yes, I’ll share...

 

My father’s real parents were not married and he was “illegitimate” as they say. This was 1914 in the Deep South so you can just imagine what that meant for an unwed mother and a married man. To add to the scandal, my “real” grandfather was chief surgeon at...the Confederate Memorial Hospital in Shreveport. That hospital is now called LSU Medical Center. The unwed mother was a nurse at the hospital. Scandalous!!!

 

Now it gets even more interesting. The year prior my father’s adoptive mother suffered a miscarriage and would not be able to have another child. The doctor was her physician and soooo....they arranged a private adoption on the downlow. Basically, he was bought by Sicilians to solve a major problem.

 

It was an open adoption in some respects as my father eventually was told and met his real parents later. Even more he knew some of his cousins and I met one of them when I was very young. That just didn’t happen in those days and it’s still rare today.

 

What makes the Ancestry test even more interesting is that it would provide links to individuals with the clearly English surname of the birth mother. I’d get notices “you may be fifth or sixth cousins to XYZ person”. Had I not known of my father’s actual lineage it would cause major confusion as to why I am only half Sicilian and there are all these links to an English family tree on Ancestry.

 

So that’s how an entirely unexpected ethnicity can enter into a family DNA line.

Edited March 3, 2018 by ArVaGuy

[+ nycman]

Yet when I read the analysis, it yielded over a third as being from the "Jewish Diaspora,"

Maybe “grandma” did a little “shopping” at the local Jewish Deli?

 

As others in this thread have shown....our true “ancestry” is rarely what we are told it is.

 

DNA testing is a double edged sword....don’t do it unless you are prepared for anything.

 

I had one good friend (who’s skin tone never really matched his siblings) who’s test

came back at 50% from India. Both his parents are full on Northern European.

His mother’s response?.....”Give me a break, it was the 60’s. I can’t believe it took you

this long, and a good damned DNA test, to figure it out.”

 

Your test is unlikely to be wrong.

 

Your fabled ancestry?....I wouldn’t count on it.

[+ Gar1eth]

For Christmas, someone gave me a DNA analysis test. I sent it in because it was free, although I don't think I'd ever pay to have this done. This was the Nat Geo 2.0 test. I come from a family which has some pretty extensive genealogical records, going back to the 16th Century. At least going back 500 years, all of my ancestors can be traced back to Germany, France (Alsace, mainly), and Belgium. Yet when I read the analysis, it yielded over a third as being from the "Jewish Diaspora," almost a quarter from Italy/Adriatic area, a fifth from the British Isles, and the rest from the Iberian peninsula, eastern Europe, and the Baltics. While I have often thought that our family had a lot in common with Jewish families (hard-working, successful bourgeois), I don't think there are any Jewish families in our tree, at least going back for the time we have records. And certainly no one from Italy, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, or the British Isles. I feel these results are probably complete bullshit. Have any of you sent your results in? Did you feel the analysis was wrong as well?

 

 

The Jewish Diaspora would include Western and Eastern Europe. And if it was the maternal side -Jewish men were occasionally -only occasionally mind you -known to stray.

 

Gman

[+ Eric Hassan]

I did 23 and Me and FitnessGenes. Both of them gave me some helpful info. I never knew my dad, and nobody in my family will talk about him, so 23 and Me was like finding out a little bit about him. FitnessGenes confirmed some things for me that I already suspected about my body, and helped me tweak my workouts and eating.

[Rudynate]

For Christmas, someone gave me a DNA analysis test. I sent it in because it was free, although I don't think I'd ever pay to have this done. This was the Nat Geo 2.0 test. I come from a family which has some pretty extensive genealogical records, going back to the 16th Century. At least going back 500 years, all of my ancestors can be traced back to Germany, France (Alsace, mainly), and Belgium. Yet when I read the analysis, it yielded over a third as being from the "Jewish Diaspora," almost a quarter from Italy/Adriatic area, a fifth from the British Isles, and the rest from the Iberian peninsula, eastern Europe, and the Baltics. While I have often thought that our family had a lot in common with Jewish families (hard-working, successful bourgeois), I don't think there are any Jewish families in our tree, at least going back for the time we have records. And certainly no one from Italy, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, or the British Isles. I feel these results are probably complete bullshit. Have any of you sent your results in? Did you feel the analysis was wrong as well?

 

 

I had a 23andme analysis done. One small surprise. There is a story in my mother's family of a native American ancestor. I have never fully believed it. And the 23andMe analysis showed my ancestry as being essentially 100 percent northern European, with the distribution being exactly what I would expect from what I know of my family history.

 

A second small surprise showed some sequences, originating from North Africa, that are common among Ashkenazi Jews.

 

Myself and a couple of my sibs have dark hair and olive complexions and there's no good explanation for it, except maybe the milkman.

 

I also found some very useful health information, that I have a single copy of the apo e4 allele, which means my ability to process lipids is impaired. In fact, without a statin, my LDL level is higher than many people's total cholesterol.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Rudynate

[Rudynate]

Well, the fact that your brother's results were "quite different" from yours seems to support my sense that these "analyses" are complete BS. I take it that he is your full brother from your response? The nationalities should have been pretty similar....

 

 

They only extrapolate ethnicity from the genetic information. There is no way to say definitely that a person has certain ethnic makeup. Sibs share 50%, more or less. Depending on the way the genes have sorted, it would be reasonable for the mapping to a particular ethnic makeup to be different. It doesn't mean that the analysis is bullshit. It does mean that the marketing of these analyses causes people to expect too much of them. I'm surprised a physician wouldn't have thought all this through.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Until these companies are black & white about their privacy policies and DNA storage, I wouldn't touch them.

 

As for their validity, I'd question any company who says answers are as easy as spitting in a cup...

 

http://www.insideedition.com/investigative/21784-how-reliable-are-home-dna-ancestry-tests-investigation-uses-triplets-to-find-out

[+ Avalon]

I did it several years ago. Both of my parents are long dead but I have an elderly aunt (father's sister, same parents). I sent her the test kit. I was surprised that some things showed up on hers that were not on mine.

[+ pitman]

I had a 23andme analysis done. One small surprise. There is a story in my mother's family of a native American ancestor. I have never fully believed it. And the 23andMe analysis showed my ancestry as being essentially 100 percent northern European, with the distribution being exactly what I would expect from what I know of my family history.

A second small surprise showed some sequences, originating from North Africa, that are common among Ashkenazi Jews.

 

Myself and a couple of my sibs have dark hair and olive complexions and there's no good explanation for it, except maybe the milkman.

 

I also found some very useful health information, that I have a single copy of the apo e4 allele, which means my ability to process lipids is impaired. In fact, without a statin, my LDL level is higher than many people's total cholesterol.

I haven't done any of these tests since I have access to a lot of information about both sides of my family. Both sides can be traced to fairly isolated rural areas of Norway, so I would be very surprised if anything other than 100% Scandinavian showed up.

 

I would be more interested in any genetic information that would shed light on personal health issues. Would like to hear more about how others have used their genetic profile in this way.

[+ Gar1eth]

I did it several years ago. Both of my parents are long dead but I have an elderly aunt (father's sister, same parents). I sent her the test kit. I was surprised that some things showed up on hers that were not on mine.

Assuming it was accurate, the reason is most likely @Rudynate ’s last post. Unless you are an identical te twin (unless some kind of genetic accident occurs with extra chromosomes or something), you can receive at maximum 50% of the genetic make up of your full siblings. It’s possible you can receive less, and usually this is what happens.

 

You have 23 sets of chromosomes-consisting of a chromosome from each parent. While it wouldn’t happen, let’s say one egg gets chromosomes completely from the maternal grandmother. And one sperm gets chromosomes from the paternal grandmother. This would create a child chromosomally unrelated to a sibling who had chromosomes set from the maternal grandfather and the paternal grandfather. This is an oversimplification. My example would lead to an embryo with two Y chromosomes which wouldn’t be viable.

 

So this may explain, @Avalon, the differing results between you and your aunt.

 

Gman

[+ Avalon]

Assuming it was accurate, the reason is most likely @Rudynate ’s last post. Unless you are an identical te twin (unless some kind of genetic accident occurs with extra chromosomes or something), you can receive at maximum 50% of the genetic make up of your full siblings. It’s possible you can receive less, and usually this is what happens.

 

You have 23 sets of chromosomes-consisting of a chromosome from each parent. While it wouldn’t happen, let’s say one egg gets chromosomes completely from the maternal grandmother. And one sperm gets chromosomes from the paternal grandmother. This would create a child chromosomally unrelated to a sibling who had chromosomes set from the maternal grandfather and the paternal grandfather. This is an oversimplification. My example would lead to an embryo with two Y chromosomes which wouldn’t be viable.

 

So this may explain, @Avalon, the differing results between you and your aunt.

 

Gman

 

Thanks! I was hoping with my results and seeing what my aunt's were I could determine what I got from my father and what I got from my mother but that wasn't possible.

 

I wonder if it is indeed possible to separate the parental lines?

 

There are several companies doing DNA testing. I have thought of trying another company just to see what their results would be.

[+ Gar1eth]

Thanks! I was hoping with my results and seeing what my aunt's were I could determine what I got from my father and what I got from my mother but that wasn't possible.

 

I wonder if it is indeed possible to separate the parental lines?

 

There are several companies doing DNA testing. I have thought of trying another company just to see what their results would be.

 

 

It also gets even more complicated. If I’m remembering my genetics from college-or if the theory hasn’t been replaced by now-one way further diversity occurs is that in the cells that produce the sperm and egg, the maternal and paternal chromosomes can exchange material between themselves. So the resulting egg might receive a chromosome that is say 80% maternal grandmother and 20% maternal grandfather. The same thing happens with sperm. That’s a lot of different combinations that could occur.

 

Gman

[+ Avalon]

It also gets even more complicated. If I’m remembering my genetics from college-or if the theory hasn’t been replaced by now-one way further diversity occurs is that in the cells that produce the sperm and egg, the maternal and paternal chromosomes can exchange material between themselves. So the resulting egg might receive a chromosome that is say 80% maternal grandmother and 20% maternal grandfather. The same thing happens with sperm. That’s a lot of different combinations that could occur.

 

Gman

 

Genetics is fascinating!

[Rudynate]

 

I wonder if it is indeed possible to separate the parental lines?

 

 

Yes. To get the mothers line, they analyze mitochondrial DNA. To get the father's line, they analyze the Y chromosome.

[+ Avalon]

Yes. To get the mothers line, they analyze mitochondrial DNA. To get the father's line, they analyze the Y chromosome.

 

Do you know a company that does that? Will it tell the ethnicities? And it is expensive?

[Guest]

Yes. To get the mothers line, they analyze mitochondrial DNA. To get the father's line, they analyze the Y chromosome.

To know what comes from the father and what comes from the mother, you need to analyze their DNA as well. Obviously, if it comes from the mitochondrial DNA, it's from the mother, and if it's on the Y it's from the father, but the vast majority of the genetic material is on neither of those two.