DNA tests showing where your ancestors came from: Has anyone done this?

You may find this recent thread of interest.

Thank you for that, r1.

And also for not being a cunty r1.

I might love you, R2

Don't do it....unless one was adopted, and truly has no idea from where their ancestors came. Only bad can come from it.

I think 23&me is the best.

Getting your parents to do it is a very good idea.

Oh sure, get your parents to do it. So you can find out you’re not related to them.

I did the DNA test - six months later my mother did it and yes she is my mother.

My grandmother's maiden name is Austin and my list was full of Austins. I have no interest in meeting anyone.

The downside is your DNA gets updated once a year. So if you have a mixed ethnicity, it’s going to change all the time.

It’s fun but doesn’t hold water. I mentioned in the other thread I did both Ancestey.com and 23&Me. They are radically different results, but Ancestry is much closer to what my genealogy in historical records/documents and family lore say I am.

That's exactly what I did, R5. Probably about 10 years ago, I had my parents do the 23 & Me and there were no surprises. I'm almost completely German with a smattering of British and French on my mother's side.

I had them do it because I didn't want to get in anyone's database and I knew my parents wouldn't care.

That's exactly what I did, R5. Probably about 10 years ago, I had my parents do the 23 & Me and there were no surprises. I'm almost completely German with a smattering of British and French on my mother's side.

I had them do it because I didn't want to get in anyone's database and I knew my parents wouldn't care.

I'm not too interested in doing this (and I was adopted).

Honest question: are people in other parts of the world as interested in ancestry as the average American? Were Americans themselves interested before Roots? Or is it the Mormon influence on American culture? I'm not criticizing one way or another; just curious.

Not much in western Europe as I've experienced it, R12.

I'm not much of a privacy freak, but I don't trust our lawmakers to know how to regulate entities having this information beyond HIPPAA. I'd rather not share this info with anyone and I'm even a bit unnerved that members of my family have.

I'm Australian, r12. There's some ancestors I know a lot about and a lot I don't know much about at all.

My sister did but I won’t. We’d heard our entire lives that either our great-great grandmother or possibly her mother was Cherokee which ( if my math is right) would make me 1/16th or 1/32 Native American. My dad always said my grandfather (my mom’s father) was “clearly Cherokee. Look at his cheekbones”.

I was always suspicious because nobody could agree on whose great-great grandmother it was. I never told anyone that I was part Native American or even that I might be.

I had completely forgotten that she’d done the 23andMe test and one day when it came Io, I finally remembers to ask if we were in fact 1/16 or 1/32 Cherokee.

We aren’t at all.

0% Native American of any tribe. I wasn’t surprised.

Some families are finding out that "Cherokee" was actually "African". Interesting times.

I have a rather uptight, snooty friend who’s very old school Southern.

She is also CLEARLY biracial. Her kids look even more biracial than she does. I’ve always wondered how she feels about that.

I’m sure she studiously avoids any of this genetic testing .

Lots of this with the whities in South Africa, too. Secretive octaroons. It's bloody bizarre.

Why would it be considered bizzare? Interracial births are a fundamental part of Southern U.S. History and chattel slavery. It would be more surprising if something similar did NOT happen in another apartheid society.

No luv', it's bizarre that people hide their heritage out of shame.

The same people who created the system in the first place? It’s not bizzare…it’s proof of their degeneracy in allowing that system to exist in the first place.

I just like how it's leading to catching serial killers and giving 100s of Jane and John Does a name.

I did mine with Ancestry. My father had done it before me. And when I did mine, it came back and same he as 99% most likely my father. I think there has to be some credibility to all of it R9, because law enforcement is using it to track down people.

BTW, after my parents did the 23 & Me, I started researching my genealogy through the free Mormon site (link below) and the PA war and census records (PA keeps great records!) and found a Revolutionary War ancestor on my father's side. I spoke to a representative from one of the genealogical organizations and I was told my mother's side was "positively riddled with Revolutionary War ancestors," although after I found the one, I got bored and stopped looking. Still, in the process I found a few Civil War ancestors (Union, of course) as well.

It's amazing what you can find out.

As a white British person (4% Norwegian!) I do find it fascinating how so many white Americans, Australians, South Africans, Canadians, New Zealanders are so interested in their heritage, because they know they're not really "from" the place their families have lived for generations.

There was a programme on a few years ago where Black American were given DNA tests and that was quite emotional finding out where their ancestors were likely to have been taken from.

I am black American and did my DNA. It was fascinating. Of course it told me most of my ancestry was from Nigeria and Cameroon (the source areas of the African salve trade). But about 25% of it was European from places like England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Norway. I find it hysterical that I am 4% Norwegian being black and about 5'6" tall. I can imagine most of the mixing came through many generations of raping of slaves. But I like to think somewhere a long the line some of that European blood came through a loving interracial relationship somewhere a long the way.

Score one more DNA sample for China.

Years and years ago, my mother “gifted” me Ancestry. Then when I later tried to access it, it was gone AND they would not give me access because it was a gift. I raised holy hell because I told them they don’t own my DNA — I do. They told me my mother would have to rescues my results and I explained that she has dementia so that wasn’t an option. It tools months of aggressive fighting, they finally instead gave me a free test which I retook.

My husband’s mom was gifted a kit, and they tied it to the wrong email which in turned fucked up the entire family tree.

I’m not impressed with them because their operations/policies & procedures SUCK, and I believe DNA should be handled more carefully than a Big Mac.

R27

Your mother GAVE you Ancestry.com - not “gifted”

and

Your husband’s mom was GIVEN a kit - not “gifted”

(The misuse of the word “gift” is my number one cause of grammatical outrage.)

R28 Ancestry.com describes it as a Gift. Calm down.

ALL gifts are given. When something is given as a present it is called a gift - or gifted. It's not like she passed him the salt.

R28, do you also object to “an” Onlyfans?

I learned I had a bunch of Russian DNA. Wish I hadn't

R32 We are watching you tovarich

R28, thank you for the grammar lesson (no snark).

R32, I learned the same too. I think it explains a lot of my insanity lolol. I’m a fucking Russian! They have very strong negative/depressive tendencies. I always chalk it up to a rough society to survive in, but it must get naked into our DNA too, right?

BAKED

What I found intriguing wasn't the family stuff so much, no surprises there, but the raw genetic data which you can upload to a site that gives you info about what the genes indicate health wise. If that's what you are interested in, 23&ME is the undisputed leader (they also provide the ancestry stuff). I did Ancestry however, and the gene site reported that a lot of Ancestry genetic data was suspect--too many people were possessing what is a rare gene, for example. They were forced to exclude some data from Ancestry. (The site is not affiliated with 23&ME.)

I'd be very careful about giving over my DNA. For all you know these companies are selling it to insurance companies.

R29 & R30

Duh … because “gift” is a noun.

“Gifted” is an adjective, which typically is used to describe someone who is naturally talented at something: e.g., “he is a gifted cocksucker.

I thought I was mostly Irish or Saxon but my test came back linking me to Salome, the Whore of Babylon, and Genghis Khan.

[quote]Duh … because “gift” is a noun.

Crack open a dictionary, idiot. Gift is a noun and a verb, and the verb definition describes the exact usage you're objecting too.

Switch to decaf, hun. You're working yourself into a lather over nothing, and you're completely wrong, too.

My nephews results showed he was 70% Central European((whatever that is) We can document both sides of our family to England and Scotland for 300 years. Amusing parlor game but rubbish.

R29 Ancestry.com's "gift" is that it converts all your dead relatives to Mormons.

100% white here. English and Scottish. Tiny bit of French. Nothing else.

Amazed how people will believe anything they see on a computer print out.

OP you do know that if YOU do it you can find out where your parents are from. DUH unless they aren't your parents.

I was 9% Welsh for a while, then I wasn't. Now I'm 12% Scandinavian.

All I know for sure is I'm white, Mama!!

Q: Do you know who my father is?!?

A: No. And neither does your mother!

I'm 90% sub Saharan African by way of Edinburgh.

I found a paternal aunt & uncle I never knew existed. The aunt resided in a tuberculosis sanitarium and died their. According to the 194o census, the uncle was an inmate of the LA Dept of corrections (for robbery). I have no idea what happened to him after that. Neither were ever discussed

My brother did it when 23&Me was relatively new and it came back with info that made no sense based on what we knew of our family history. (Our parents and grandparents were dead by that time, so no one to fill in the blanks.) Problem was, 23&Me's DNA database was extremely limited in the beginning, and when my brother did it again recently, the results were much more nuanced.

Growing up my parents had always told us "You're 50% English and 50% Irish" which - big surprise - was total rubbish.

I started research after my mom died. Mostly because it was literally the ONE thing my father and I had in common and it was actually nice to bond with him over it for the years we worked on it together (until dementia kicked in for him).

There were no big surprises - well, other than confirmation of the half sibling we were told might exist. My father and mother's family were, for the most part, as expected.

However -

My mom was told there was some Native American in our ancestry and both Ancestry and 23andMe say none exists.

And some cunty members of my dad's family insisted my mom's actual father was black. Mom had curly hair and tanned in the summer, and she used to get called "high yellow" as a teenager. But again, nope. No sub Saharan African DNA. Mom was German with ruddy skin.

I’ve done my own DNA research!

R41, DNA is more accurate than family lore

I’m not that posted r53, you are right, but context matters too. These DNA databases continue to grow which means your data is only relative to what they have right now. Next year might be different.

You're an orphan R53. Pity.

Everyone seems to have been told they are part Cherokee, usually a princess grandmother or great grandmother. There was no royalty in Cherokee culture and even white people can have high cheekbones. Black people too! Native people do not have a monopoly on cheekbones or even on suntans.

Brazilian with Portuguese IN me, and it feels good!

r57 is Cristiano Ronaldo inside of you right now?

The downside is finding out your parents aren’t your parents (I would be thrilled) or someone getting access to your DNA and it being used to connect a relative to a crime, again their problem not mine. My results were so much more boring than I ever could have anticipated, even going back as far as it goes back it was basically 2 countries. I am as boring as I was told,

I wish, r58!

Just wanted to add that either through my dna or my sister who also submitted, a woman from the Philippines contacted me because we were remote cousins and she never knew her father. Turns out he was a cousin of my mother, or maybe a child of a cousin of my grandfather who my mother called a cousin. They figured out exactly who, he was a married US soldier based there. I didn’t want to be involved other than doing the right thing and tell her the names she could find on ancestry, so I have no idea how her mother and the guy hooked up way back when, consensual I hope.

Who are your people, dear?

You've never spoken of your people...

R45, if my parents do it, we get to see where *their* parents come from.

This has already been discussed in this thread.

I was hesitant to do it but very curious. When I found out my dad did it, I finally gave in. And as I said before as soon as I put my results in, he popped up on the top of the list of people related to me with 99,9% most likely my father.

And R41 families like about their backgrounds all the time - I know a lot of European Jewish families do. And just because someone lived in a certain area doesn’t mean they were from that area, or have the DNA from that area. My family has been in America for over 200 years and all my DNA is from overseas.

These tests warn you that you might find out something that you don't want to know. The truth is people have been lying about their backgrounds or just passing for something else since forever. Just because you can trace your family back 250 years and your last name says that you are Irish (or whatever), it doesn't always mean that you're genetically Irish (or whatever). If the choice is between science and family lore, I'm going with science. I'm in my 50s and in my lifetime there were still some parents who didn't always tell their adopted children they were adopted or they didn't reveal that their "oopsie" baby was really the child of their teen daughter.

Your ancestry percentages become more accurate as more people submit the DNA sample and more solid connections are made. I was 25% Scottish at first, then more and more results came in from the Scandinavian countries. Britain was invaded by Scandinavian people in its past, so it's no surprise to me now. I now have more Scandinavian blood then Scottish as a result of the updates.

I found out Marie Antoinette was my sister.

Give a random company my DNA? No thanks.

Those of you who use Ancestry, have they updated yet your DNA this year? Or is it done every December/January?

Not yet r70

Last time it was on August 19th (2022)

Thanks, r71.

Every year the samples of DNA they base this off of grows, so the results can change. Also, until a few years ago France did not allow the use of DNA to determine ancestry. When they finally did, suddenly many people who had no French at all became 60% French.

Families lie about their backgrounds and mothers lie about who dad really is. Especially going back two generations or more when birth control was less reliable, abortion less available, a pregnancy could not be confirmed within two weeks of the sex that initiated it. and there was no fear of being found out via genetic testing.

OP here. I think on my mother's side, we may turn up some half-siblings of hers. We know her father got around. Same for her older brother before he got married. What could be really problematic is if we turn up any offspring coming from her two younger brothers. One of them has already passed away.

I sold my sperm in college. The company has been out of business for decades. Nobody has tracked me down and I don't want them to. I won't give DNA.

Women love sperm donors who are tall with genius IQs. Unfortunately, that created a generation of Millennial Aspies.

I have an uncle who was a truck driver in the 70s-90s. He was always a bit off so I’m sure we’d find out he was a serial killer if I submitted my DNA. Of course my own father is an even bigger psycho, no telling what he might have done.

But my idiot brother did have his dna analyzed (foolishly) so I guess I might as well have submitted mine.

R78 oddly enough I have since learned after doing mine, that siblings can have very different DNA results.

[quote]Because of recombination, siblings only share about 50 percent of the same DNA, on average, Dennis says. So while biological siblings have the same family tree, their genetic code might be different in at least one of the areas looked at in a given test. That's true even for fraternal twins.

>>Your membership will automatically renew at $129.99 at the end of every 3 months after the initial 3-month introductory offer unless you are notified otherwise. If you don’t want to renew, cancel at least 2 days before your renewal date by visiting the MyAccount section or by contacting us. See our Renewal and Cancellation Terms for further details.

$520 a year just to maintain the communities membership ...fuck that

I'm a Northern European mongrel. I don't need a test to know it's nothing special.

As expected, mine told me what I've always known: Irish-British-German/Austrian-French-unspecified Northern European. The only surprise mine contained was that my mother's father probably had another son, and that the son died in Dachau.

I've seen a video of DNA tests done on identical triplets.

The results were not identical. Close, but not identical.

Had a surprise cousin pop up - my aunt had a baby in 1957 the family didn't know existed. (my father didn't, but my other aunt did.) Family agita for months, as my father made it clear she couldn't contact my aunt. Not what I would do, but not my decision to make. Had to delete the account. (ancestry.com)

Just be prepared for a few surprises.

Don’t do it OP, you could find out that you’re part….black!

I have a mixed background, r85...our family has a tendency to throw back and there are a lot of mixed litters, ie siblings with drastically different skin tones.

That's why I though getting my parents (and through Ancestry, their parents) was a good idea. But the ongoing fees are BS.

Throw back?

Parents can have a child significantly darker than either of them.

Living in Australia, with the weather, harsh sun and outdoor lifestyle, not a bad thing to have dark skin.

My sister had a baby in 1960s and gave it up fir adoption. My sister had gotten pregnant with the idea she would drop out of high school, marry her boyfriend and live happily ever after. My mother put a stop to that.

She married her boyfriend 5 years later and had 2 kids. So her 2 kids have a full sibling they don’t know exists. I’m never getting my DNA done. For all I know the adopted kid could be a lowlife, but I hope not. My sisters kids are lowlifes and I wouldn’t want someone who was raised well to find out what scabs they are related to. Years ago my uncle was married and had twins. He best his wife, who divorced him. He never saw his kids again abd paid no child support. The ex wife remarried. The twins didn’t know who their father was until one was old enough to drive and got her birth certificate. They tracked him down and for some reason came to my mother’s house. The kids were shocked to see the poverty we lived in and I think they decided not to contact their father. Their mother didn’t want them to meet him.

I always wanted to be middle class but never could be. So I just leave it alone. I don’t want anyone contacting me. Better to stay out of it.

[quote] He best his wife, who divorced him

Beat his wife. Sorry.

Yes - and I was glad I did it. My family is from Mexico originally but they were never Catholic or religious at all which I alway found interesting.

I suspected they were Jews who fled Spain to the New World but always had to hide their religion.

I did a DNA and I am mostly Sephardic Jewish, a little southern European, North African and Middle Eastern.

It's an interesting idea to find out where exactly your ancestors came from, but $520/year to stay subscribed to the Ancestry communities feature...who has that kind of money? You'd have to be really invested in it emotionally to justify it

I did it and found out I’m about 90% Ashkenazi and 10% Polynesian. Still wondering how that came about haha

Some interesting discoveries on this thread, but is paying the ongoing subscription worth it?

Thanks

No r94. It's good when you are researching and when you want to look deeper into the trees of your DNA matches, but otherwise you still have your DNA ethnicity updates and the list of all the people with whom you share DNA and many records

Thanks r95, so even when you stop subscribing you still get ethnicity updates, the list of people and other records?

r96 for ancestry.com at least

23andme also. And sites like my heritage will take your raw results from either of the big two for free and give you your breakdown and matches. You have to understand that you are both the consumer and the product. They need a big user base to get new people to buy-in. Every update is a free advertising from discussions. With Ancestry.com they have a lot of non-DNA based genealogy services and that is what the payment is for.

True story. My cousins did it and discovered they aren't cousins. Their grandfather, my mother's brother, was not the father of their father. So their Granny must have fooled around.

I come from one of those families whose Cherokee ancestor was actually African. I think it is pretty cool. I know how much black people contributed to the culture of the south.

Sale.

Most DLers seem to be of Northern European ancestry.

I did 23 and Me and found out I'm 81% Italian, and the rest Middle Eastern. I was amazed. I guess my ancestors never went anywhere but they did welcome foreigners.

I had someone contact me today to tell me she’s my sister. It’s kind of surreal.

[quote] Had a surprise cousin pop up - my aunt had a baby in 1957 the family didn't know existed. (my father didn't, but my other aunt did.) Family agita for months, as my father made it clear she couldn't contact my aunt. Not what I would do, but not my decision to make. Had to delete the account. (ancestry.com)

You can still decide for yourself whether you want to have contact with your cousin (baby from 1957). I loved my parents, but I wouldn't let them dictate who I could and couldn't associate with.

R16 That's exactly what happened with me! Family is from the deep South. We identify as white, but it turns out that some of my ancestors owned my other ancestors.

Our cousins just found out their Grandpa wasn't their father's father....since everyone is dead, they have no one to confront.

"... but they did welcome foreigners."

As slaves?

New results are out on Ancestry.com

I'm 40% France 26% Ireland 23% Scotland 7% Germanic Europe 4% Sweden and Denmark

R85 are you Velma von Tussle?

A friend found out she and her brother are only half siblings. Mom swears it's not true and says she'd like to take Ancestry to court. Her name is Cleopatra, Queen of something or other.

I found out I'm a PoC. Mom's adopted and there were apparently secrets in the bio-family. I have Angolan, Congolese and Ghanaian ancestry. According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr (Finding Your Roots), it's a fairly common occurrence in "white" people from the deep South.

I got 98% Ashkenazy Jewish (no surprise) and 2% Irish. I wondered how an Irishman connected with the ghetto but a month later I got a new analysis. They took the Irish away.

R103 if your family came from southern Italy the surprise would be if you DIDNT have a certain % of Greek, or Middle Eastern or other Med-adjacent.

So Ancestry doesn't distinguish between Danish and Swedish, just lumping them both together?

Bummer.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my ancestors worked in the illegimate theater!

Is it not possible to have your dna tested anonymously?

[quote]Honest question: are people in other parts of the world as interested in ancestry as the average American?

I think you're correct, R12. Consumers are largely from the U.S. where there is an active dialogue about 'Who are you people? And where are they from?' that's part of American's long-held image of themselves as some great melting pot.

At the link is an NIH published study that addresses interest and disinterest in Genetic Ancestry Testing (GAT). The study was based on U.S. subjects but it addresses GAT marketplaces internationally in terms of questions of race and immigration that drive interest in the U.S. and how the level of that interest varies widely: for example, Asian nations on whole are disinterested because of presumed predictability of the results; Latin American countries exhibit more interest because of a perceived wider range of potential variables.

The article notes the marketing potential for GAT testing companies beyond the U.S., but cautions that the data are not well known:

[quote]In spite of the industry’s growth, scholarship provides little information about the characteristics of GAT consumer. Within scholarship on DTC industries, the composition of the consumer market is considered the least-well understood aspect of direct-to-consumer (DTC) services (Borry and Howard 2008), and, beyond this, GAT is considered to be an “entire sector” that has been “generally omitted” from review.

Having been born in the U.S., I 'know' my ancestry name by name back into the 17thC in the U.S. on the maternal side (the lot of them English families) and to back equally far on the paternal side but my father's generation in the U.S., before that one part of Ireland from the late 17thC, and before that Scotland for a couple generations and then it's vague and impossible with official records. Far enough and seemingly reliable enough that I have no curiosity in uncovering what I already know -- the same thinking that makes GAT far less popular in Europe than in the U.S.

[quote]So Ancestry doesn't distinguish between Danish and Swedish, just lumping them both together?

Don't blame ancestry if the DNA from those two countries is identical. Norway is separate.

[quote]Honest question: are people in other parts of the world as interested in ancestry as the average American?

Pretty much in all countries settled by immigrants (The Americas and Australia and New Zealand)

R115 genetics does not recognize modem national borders.

Can you imagine?!

R117 Yes. You can do it anonymously, but you wouldn't get cousin matching. You could still get your ancestry reports though. I use a pseudonym for myself and only give my real name when I find a close genetic match that I want to communicate with. I think most people do it that way. I know people think there is some great conspiracy. If anyone really wants your DNA, all they have to do is swab a cup you drank from.

A good piece on the privacy of these tests.

I’m 100% Irish and British and my family has been in the country for over 100 years on both sides and lived in a large city. I guess people didn’t use to mix outside of their ethnic groups as much.

Norway 48%

• England & Northwestern Europe 29%

• Germanic Europe 9%

• Scotland 4%

• Ireland 4%

• France 2%

• Wales 2%

• Finland 1%

• Sweden & Denmark 1%

Guess I should visit Norway!

Norwegians look different than Danes and Swedes. They have darker hair and ruddy complexions. The two Norwegians I hooked up with had bushes the size of tumbleweeds. I don't have a comparison to Danes and Swedes.

[quote]DNA tests showing where your ancestors came from: Has anyone done this?

The week's award for colon abuse goes to the OP.

Oh, dear.

R 114 My mother's father was Sicilian and I don't have any of that in my DNA.

R128, a lot of Sicilians have Greek, Spanish or French ancestry, because sailers from those countries settled there.

R128 what do you have in your DNA breakdown? I'm 81% Italian from the Calabria region and I have about 6% Greek, and even Iranian and Egyptian as well as Turkish/ Cyprus. Sicily was dominated by the Greeks for centuries. Although the Carthaginians were also there too.

Tons of Italians have Greek ancestry. Greeks were all over Italy for hundreds of years, and many Romans were in Greece.

Ancestry just updated the percentages. I'm now at 51% English, so that's just what I'm going to say I am. The rest is Scottish, Irish and Welsh, with a little German and Czech thrown in. I'm not very exotic.

My Spanish percentage has increased although both of my parents are at 0% Spanish.

Yes, I am 100 percent of one race.

R28 Calm your bitch ass down. That’s how the site describes it.

I'm a human being from the planet Earth. What else do you need to know! Just accept who you are and don't blame shit on your ancestors

And also, I eat shit! Mmmm, lots and lots of it.

I, for one, am not looking to blame anything on my ancestors.

I just want to be able to say, “Oh I’m off to Spain, I have family from there, you know.”

I find the possibility of dna sharing aiding in catching criminals and identifying people really interesting

I read somewhere this data is given to big corporations free of charge. If they use it somehow, it's other example of transfer of wealth. Therefore I'm against it.

Whoo! I posted earlier about my cousins discovering their Grandpa wasn't their grandpa? Because Granny got with someone else not her husband. Well thanks to DNA stuff, we now know that Grandpa, has a few loose ends out here, too. Some guy on Ancestry was trying to find out about his grandparents, and oops, turns out our cousins' grandpa had a kid out there too. There may be more to come. I had no idea we had such a wild branch in the family.

I just looked at Family Tree DNA where I did a test a few years ago on my direct male line. They had some amazing new discoveries. They were able to tell that my direct male line lived in an eastern province of The Netherlands in about 1500 BC. Then it split off in about 370 AD in Saxony and went to England with the Anglo-Saxon invasions in around 500 AD. English nobles used to sniff and say, "We came over with the Conqueror". Well, that's nothing, "we came over with Cerdic"!

R61 brings up a good point. If you find a mystery relative don't be so quick to judge grandma or auntie. Many could have been rape victims. Abortion wasn't legal in the US until 1973. If they were afraid/against/unaware of illegal abortion facilities, they were stuck with just the adoption option.

R143 - not to mention the sexual harassment that many women had to go through in the workplace. Women were chased around the office and pressured into sex by their bosses more often than you'd think. Some women were outright raped by their bosses - or forced to give in to save their jobs.

I did 23 and me and it has made a massive difference for my health. It’s worth getting the medical traits checked, even more that ancestry. Yes they update the chip and rerun the sample, it gets more and more precise. I found out I was English, Irish, Senegambian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan no wonder I’m so cute!

About a year ago, I did a 23andme. It both confirmed what I always knew, but also had some stuff I never knew and with research was able to confirm. Like, in my family we jwere just always half and half italian/polish but I came to find there is "Mesopotamian" , anatolian turk, cypriot, Aryan, in there too. Perhaps most interestingly - it was able to tell me within a minute of the time I tend to wake up without an alarm clock. No clue how it knew that.

I’m always afraid the FBI will show up looking for my second cousin serial killer.

One day everyone will know the truth and by then it'll be too late. There are caves deep in Russia, where all that DNA matter we so innocently give up, is being used to clone us. Yes!

R140, that's interesting. Ancestry state they don't sell the data, but that doesn't mean they don't give it away.

Love your story, R91!

I have always suspected that my heritage must include at least a small percentage of Jewish. I spent a lot of money on 23&Me a few years ago to find out that my background is 99.7% European.

r144 my maternal grandmother was a young working woman in the 50s/60s and she's told me horrible stories.

[quote] we came over with Cerdic!

I meant "Hengest and Horsa". Cerdic was a Brittanic king.

Interpol has wanted my DNA for twenty years. Damned if I'll give it to them now AND pay for the test.

Interpol doesn't want your DNA, do you have the Midas touch or something? Why are you wanted, we want to know.

It really irks me when Henry Louis Gates finds that someone was not related to the person they thought was their grandfather or great grandfather.

“Heh, heh, grandma got with someone other than grandpa! Grandma was steppin’ out.”

Or grandma was raped.

Could’ve been a soldier, some stranger who grabbed her on the farm, or on the streets of a tough neighborhood where she lived. Could’ve been her boss, or someone who drugged her at a party.

There were no rape kits in those days. It was a woman’s world against a man’s. And if she didn’t know who it was, how could she tell her husband? “I was raped. I was out in the field and a soldier came along and grabbed me.” A man could leave his wife, or cast her out, and call her a whore though she did nothing wrong. Her husband might beat or even kill her. Men didn’t want to raise another man’s child, especially if the child was from an enemy soldier or a boss who was rich and privileged, while the husband was poor with a low level job.

Gates is aware that black women had no chance of fighting back or getting justice, but seems not to be aware to that white women were also victimized by men.

Through my ancestry searches, I discovered a family member who was born after a great aunt was raped. Though I'd never heard him talked of before, he lived with another family member and he was buried with his mother and other members of the family.

Between their legs r108

[quote]I was out in the field and a soldier came along and grabbed me.

And I’ve been standing out here swinging this hoe every day since hopin’ lightening will strike twice.

I sold my sperm in college. I am white, tall, handsome and I was a jock at an elite school. I know they made many babies with it. The sperm bank went out of business, thank god. I don't want to know any of my DNA so don't want to make it easier to be traced. I live on another continent now so that helps as well.

[quote] My nephews results showed he was 70% Central European((whatever that is)

Well, r41, Europe is a continent and the center of it consists of countries like Austria and Slovakia.

Found out I had ZERO indigenous American ancestors, ending a lifetime of "I heard tell my Dad was one-eighth Cherokee and he said he heard there was a "Grandma Wolf" in his mother's family." Nope. Northern European and Scots-Irish.

23andMe will tell you your paternal haplogroup, from which you can learn if you are descended from the Yamnaya culture. These are the people who swept through Europe in the early Bronze Age (roughly 3000 BC), bringing their language, Proto-Indo-European, with them. This is the ancestor language of almost every European language today. Another branch of the Yamnaya traveled east and south into southwest and south Asia, which is why Iran, Pakistan and northern India also speak Indo-European languages.

Whether the Yamnaya gently integrated with the earlier peoples of these regions, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya", or just killed off the men and "married" the women (thus largely replacing the paternal DNA) is a matter of controversy among some scholars of historical linguistics, although, given human nature and history, the answer seems pretty obvious.

r10 how shitty of you to do that to your parents. i hope your ass gets what you deserve one way or another.

[Quote]I'm now at 51% English, so that's just what I'm going to say I am. The rest is Scottish, Irish and Welsh, with a little German and Czech thrown in. I'm not very exotic.

r132 Who cares? who do you plan to disclose that uninteresting bit of information to?

And their was no Aryan Invasion of India, which has become a hot topic amongst right wing Hindus in the recent past.

I did 23andme and everything was extremely boring and normal but you do hear of people finding out things they didn't know before whether it's that their dad isn't their biological father or that Cherokee ancestry they were always told about isn't real. You can opt to not find relatives if you're concerned about that.

I may be a bit confused about how this works exactly. But isn’t the data pulled from samples given? The reason I ask is that I have heard several stories about people who thought they had Native American background and didn’t, including mine. Could it just be that not many native Americans have done it to garner a large enough pool to reflect in the results? Or would it show up regardless if Native Americans have participated greatly or not?

I got my test results. My ancestors were all European nobility.

^ probably said European No-Ability

R169 I’m sure your ancestors originated from a tribe of pigmy cannibals deep in the jungles of South America

I did 23&me. Not surprisingly, I’m something like 99.3% Eastern European. There’s a very small percentage Asian,,which probably explains my stunningly high cheekbones.

Ancestry.com. I did it. Found out I am a super Wasp. All British and Scottish with a touch of Danish and Swedish. Nothing else. Finding your genetic relatives is wild. HOLY SHIT! Mom's side, British peasants. Dad's side Scottish royalty show. I was amazed.

George Santos is finding surprising new ancestors!

George Santos came from outer space.

My DNA shows that my great great grandma was a Cherokee princess who ordered all her furniture from England and had it shipped over on the Mayflower. All of it. Everybody always knew that.

^^Your DNA shows that you’re stupid as fuck

R166 Native American tribes discourage DNA testing, however there are lots of Mexican and South Americans in the database which includes a lot of legitimate NA ancestry. If you show no NA ancestry, you probably have no NA ancestors or they are so far back that no specific NA genes show up for you. Widely held myths of NA ancestry are common in Americans and they usually prove to be untrue.

r175 I LOL-ed. The whole thing is about snobbery about being 'original' or 'real' Americans.

Yes! You are right, I didn't think of it like that, same thing.

R167, your ancestry will become more clear as more and more people submit their samples and are added to the pool. I was lead to believe my family was Scottish. My results now show I am about 40% Irish and 60% Scandinavian countries. The Scandinavians invaded Britain many centuries ago. Naturally they would show up in my DNA.

Doing an Ancestry.com DNA test doesn't show whether your ancestors were nobility or not, as some people here are saying. It says you're 43% (or whatever) English, not that you're 43% English nobility or peasant.

[quote]The Scandinavians invaded Britain many centuries ago. Naturally they would show up in my DNA.

That isn't how it works though.

[quote]And their was no Aryan Invasion of India, which has become a hot topic amongst right wing Hindus in the recent past.

Oh, really, R165? Then how is that the languages of northern India are Indo-European?

[quote]Native American tribes discourage DNA testing

R177, why is that? I would think they would encourage to sort out the liars and wannabes from people who are actually of NA origin.

Pigmy’s!

Yes r182 that's exactly how it would work.

There was no invasion into India, all was peaceful.

R183, r162 posted a link which will address your first question.

As to the poster concerned about ancestors being of noble stock: How the fuck would they test for that?

^^Palm reader

Here's my question:

Let's say that ten people all test, and they all have very similar DNA, and all claim to have Irish grandparents on the form they fill out.

How do these DNA companies verify that these people are Irish? Just by comparing the samples and believing what they wrote on the form? Is there some other baseline data that accurately traces the genome and tracks sequences from different gropus?

Count me among the white people who was told that my grandma had a Cherokee ancestor. I grew up hearing that we were Blackfoot Indians. We are from Maine, and Blackfoot Tribe is from Montana.

My DNA came back all Western European, as I suspected. It's pretty strange that so many families of the Greatest Generation were Injun Fetishists.

My dad used to say our left eyelash was Indian, but it wasn't true - 100% European.

R189 They don't verify the information based on where people "think" they come from. Just imagine how many genes would be associated with Cherokee if it was based on family legend.

"Genetic ancestry testing involves the comparison of a large number of DNA variants measured in an individual with the frequencies of these variants in reference populations sampled from across the world. The geographic region in which an individual variant has its highest frequency is assumed to be the most likely location of an ancestor who transmitted the variant to the person being tested."

Thank you R192, that makes more sense.

R183 Do your own research, there was no invasion. Btw, you're not a straight cunt by chance are you?

I have, R194.

No, I'm neither heterosexual nor a woman. Why do you ask?

[quote]Why do you ask?

Because she doesn't want to be the only one

Can someone help me with this?

I just found out my nephew is married to my cousin’s daughter. So my mom’s niece had a daughter and the daughter married her…?

R197, first cousin, once removed.

Thank you r198. I think some people are going to be upset. These relationships were unknown until today.

It’s really not a big deal r199, especially if they weren’t raised together as family. Until fairly recent history cousins married all the time throughout the world.

What’s weird is no one knew each other and they ended being related and married.

Anyone who might be interested in doing this - Ancestry.com has a sale on their DNA tests and it is a lower price than I think I have ever seen on any of their sales

Usually the test is about 100 bucks but until May 12 it is only $39.

That's exactly how it works idiot r182

The new DNA updates are out!!

Not unless you want your entire family tree to bear postumous Morman fruit.

I'm a lawyer. There is NO WAY that I would use one of these companies and give them my DNA. It would be far too easy for the government to get this information from them. I've got nothing to hide in my background but I'm always prudent about voluntarily disclosing anything. You never know how the information ultimately may be used.

Like how R206? I'm honestly interested.

Everyone needs to read about HIPAA, it's not what you think it is, that one provision for privacy is only a small part of HIPAA, its about spreading YOUR info and making you easier to track, complete opposite.

Everyone thinks they have native blood, very few actually do, and it's always Cherokee.

R207 Like getting rid of 'undesirable' races.

If I am a defendant in a criminal case or the target of a government investigation where my DNA could be relevant to an issue, the government readily could subpoena the company for that information. Even if the company should fight the subpoena, it almost certainly would lose and have to produce the information. It wouldn't matter if the "fine print conditions" the company provided to me says they wouldn't reveal the data to a third party, that would be irrelevant to the government's power to investigate.

I also have strongly recommended to my biological relatives not to sign up for these things. We share DNA so their information certainly would have some evidentiary proof against me (or anyone else to whom we are related).

I hope that I'm not coming across as paranoid. As a lawyer, I am just very conservative with divulging information. You never know when the disclosure for something as innocent as this could be used against you for another purpose.

I found this link that supports my concerns:

R206 a Caps LAWYER ?

my aunt did it and found out a man in UP Michigan was her adult son who she'd given up for adoption after being raped

I don’t feel comfortable having my DNA on file somewhere. They already have my fingerprints from the military.

R210 if my uncle called me to discourage me from providing my DNA to ancestry site, I’d be freaked out. Creeped out.

A woman sent her DNA to one of the dog breed DNA companies, she received the results stating she is a border collie/poodle mix.

I've heard that those DNA tests are basically a bunch of hooey.

I know exactly where my ancestors came from. On my father's side they came from The Netherlands, France & Germany. On my mother's side they came from Portugal, France & England. We've traced them all back to the 12th century. Any farther back than that I don't care.

I'm 83% European, and 17% North African. I'm very attractive.

An extended family member gave up a child for adoption. Her two adult sons today have no idea they have a sibling out there. No one in the family will tell them until their mother dies if then. So unless someone does a DNA test and follows up they'll never know.

I did 23&Me, hoping I’d find something interesting down the line but I’m 90% Northern European. Or whatever they call English, Scottish, Irish. Have some German by way of Ukraine. 🌻

My 17% extends from Morocco to Cyprus with stops in Egypt and Turkey. Exotico!

"I'm 83% European, and 17% North African. I'm very attractive."

Reese?