Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I learned some time ago there is Swedish ancestry on my father's side so that was no surprise. There was an old family tradition on his side that his grandmother was perhaps one fourth Native American. No trace of NA heritage at all in my test. I have to wonder if she was not in fact, Italian. There may have been some reason why she claimed NA parentage. Maybe that would have been more acceptable in Missouri where she lived all her life. Just one of those mysteries.
Other than the US, most of my stamp focus has been on those countries my ancestors came from. Mostly British, Western Europe, etc. Bit, I also have an inactive collection of Italy. Funny, isn't it?
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Interesting. My wife was keen on doing this since her friend did so recently. I don't know what she's expecting because she is all Irish. All four of her grandparents came to the USA from Ireland. She only sent in the kit last week, so we are awaiting the results.
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The Ancestry DNA test is apparently not as detailed as the one offered by the other service- I think '23 and Me' or something similar. I was a bit disappointed because it just seemed vague, I have 23% western European but no further breakdown. You also get a list of others who've taken the test and share genetics with you. Mine numbered over 800.
I have cousins on both sides of my family who are into genealogy and may contact them to see what they have to say. Not sure if I'd spend the money for this again but it was interesting.
I apparently had one ancestor from what they call 'West Asia', that came in at 1%. India, perhaps? Probably centuries ago.
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The ‘Ancestry’ industry has some significant problems. For years they sold many people that looking up your ‘family tree’ was a good way to understand ‘who you are’. Truth is that family trees are never correct, filled with misinformation. The misinformation ranged from family lure where scandals were covered up to hide embarrassments of the time or official records which are also often found to contain intentional deceptions.
After they bilked people on this they moved on to ‘DNA testing’. Within the last 15 years the Government Accountability Office issued scalding reports on the ‘Ancestry’ industry, citing vastly different results from identical DNA samples and multiple examples of deceptive marketing. In Science magazine researchers from Stanford stated "Direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry tests fall into an unregulated no-man's land with little oversight and few industry guidelines to ensure the quality, validity and interpretation of information sold."
Frankly these DNA companies simply don’t have enough comparative information to pinpoint a gene on a world map. They are usually able to match your DNA to some group on one of the continents, but not always. For example, DNA tests have trouble telling the difference between Native Americans and East Asians. So the submission instructions requires you to check one of two boxes; ‘Old World’ or ‘New World’ so they don’t tell an obviously Asian person that they are really a Native American.
DNA is great for solving crimes or identifying your parents. But beyond that things get very dicey. We all get half our DNA from each parent. Now extrapolate that out 3 generations… that's a half of a half of a half. Even worse is that you might not be carrying, or the test might not capture, DNA from any one specific ancestor. We are all a genetic mishmash. The entire earth is a giant genetic melting pot, humans have always migrated. One day, perhaps in another 25-50 years, the DNA technology and a global DNA database might be in a better position to accurately tell us more than just ‘European’.
But right now if we want to know ‘who we are’ we are better off looking in a mirror.
Don
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My wife wanted me to do this because she claims I am an alien life form from another planet- I'm afraid to do it because she might be right. NaNu-NaNu!
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06:29:11pm
I think a person might want to be very careful about testing their DNA lest. at this point, ( my age for instance.) the chance that a product of a misspent youth come calling, " Hi Daddy, where have you been all these years ? "
Maybe thirty or forty years ago, but not now.
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My wife and her friends got into the Ancestry DNA test. So she wanted me to get mine done, and haunted me until I did it. I am still waiting for the results.
The funny part is upon submittal you get an email asking you to fill out your family tree... um no, you tell me! :-)
Otherwise it's right up there with sending in for your Cabbage Patch Doll's birth certificate!
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"um no, you tell me!"
DNA testing is not accurate enough at this point in time to reveal ancestry as explicit as we might think. For example, "Native American" DNA cannot be distinguished as being from "Native American" or "Asian". That is why they ask for one's family tree.
From "Live Science":
If a test-taker is just interested in finding out where there are some people in the world that share the same DNA as them, then these tests can certainly tell them that," said Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas in Austin. "But they're not going to tell you every place or every group in the world where people share your DNA. Nor will they necessarily be able to tell you exactly where your ancestors lived or (what race or social group) they identified with."
"A common misconception about genetic ancestry testing", Bolnick said, "is that it can reveal information about an individual's ancestry. It cannot."
https://www.livescience.com/7384-genetic-ancestry-tests-hype-scientists.html
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03:45:04am
Atilla the Hun's progeny was spread all throughout his fiefdom, and bits of his DNA are probably present in the genetic string of everyone who currently lives in Eastern Europe, if not all of Europe. It is a matter of simple Math.
When one or another of my then growing children were sick or feeling afraid about some surgery, I used to tell them that they descended from the brave Kings of Denmark and Norway, Sven Forkbeard, Harald Bluetooh, Canute and Hardicanute, as I sat at their bedside making stories up as I went along.
I made a tale about them finding the famous sword "Scoffnung" the sharpest and heaviest in the world with which, King Sven could raise over his head and bringing it down with such force that it could split an enemy warrior's shield and it was so sharp that it also split an opponent in half, head to toe, so fast and precise, that the two parts of the skeleton would speak to one another out of the sides of their mouths, asking if they could remain friends. Or sharing a mug of meade before they fell to the ground.
I explained that Sven was the Danish King of England for a while, and had defeated the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, bringing civilization to the British Isles. (Actually, the jury system of trial by one's peers, or crew mates on a long boat, stems from the Norsemen and Danes.)
I had read many stories and myths about the Vikings in the sagas of Snorrie Sigurdsson so it was easy to keep them thrilled til they fell asleep.
One day years later, and really just a few years ago, one of my Daughters suddenly asked me if it was true that we were descendants of one or another of the beserker warriors. That surprised me as I could not remember all the stories.
However, I asked her how many parents she had, then how many grand-parents, great grandparents and so on, so that she understood that two, times two, repeated ten times equals 1024 multi great-grand-parents, and if you continue the expansion to twenty times there were over a million ancestors. Allowing an average age of twenty-five per generation that number of ancestors could be reached in a mere two hundred and fifty years. Sven and Gunhilde, who had six or eight children lived about one thousand years ago, so since the population of Scandinavia was only about one million in those days, it is not far fetched to say that, except for those who died with no heirs, she was certainly a descendant of just about everyone alive in Sven's days. The same rule would apply to Atilla the Hun who was reputedly quite loose with where he left his seed.
As a child, I read the Dickens "Child's History of England " before I was age ten, and repeated it again as a young teen, so there were many stories to draw from and distract my sons or daughters. The key to it was that the descendants of a Viking King or Queen had to be brave. And such a husband and wife would pass some scrap of their DNA across the centuries and traces are likely in everyone north of the Mediterranean Sea, from which our Irish and Norwegian DNA comes.
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Out of curiosity I bought a DNA kit from them some weeks ago and got the results this evening. I don't know if anyone else on here has done this. The results were not in fact as interesting as I thought they'd be. Seems I am pretty much Western European, British and Irish. Also 12% Scandinavian and... 9% Italian. That last was a surprise.
I learned some time ago there is Swedish ancestry on my father's side so that was no surprise. There was an old family tradition on his side that his grandmother was perhaps one fourth Native American. No trace of NA heritage at all in my test. I have to wonder if she was not in fact, Italian. There may have been some reason why she claimed NA parentage. Maybe that would have been more acceptable in Missouri where she lived all her life. Just one of those mysteries.
Other than the US, most of my stamp focus has been on those countries my ancestors came from. Mostly British, Western Europe, etc. Bit, I also have an inactive collection of Italy. Funny, isn't it?
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re: Ancestry DNA
Interesting. My wife was keen on doing this since her friend did so recently. I don't know what she's expecting because she is all Irish. All four of her grandparents came to the USA from Ireland. She only sent in the kit last week, so we are awaiting the results.
Login to Like
this post
re: Ancestry DNA
The Ancestry DNA test is apparently not as detailed as the one offered by the other service- I think '23 and Me' or something similar. I was a bit disappointed because it just seemed vague, I have 23% western European but no further breakdown. You also get a list of others who've taken the test and share genetics with you. Mine numbered over 800.
I have cousins on both sides of my family who are into genealogy and may contact them to see what they have to say. Not sure if I'd spend the money for this again but it was interesting.
I apparently had one ancestor from what they call 'West Asia', that came in at 1%. India, perhaps? Probably centuries ago.
Login to Like
this post
re: Ancestry DNA
The ‘Ancestry’ industry has some significant problems. For years they sold many people that looking up your ‘family tree’ was a good way to understand ‘who you are’. Truth is that family trees are never correct, filled with misinformation. The misinformation ranged from family lure where scandals were covered up to hide embarrassments of the time or official records which are also often found to contain intentional deceptions.
After they bilked people on this they moved on to ‘DNA testing’. Within the last 15 years the Government Accountability Office issued scalding reports on the ‘Ancestry’ industry, citing vastly different results from identical DNA samples and multiple examples of deceptive marketing. In Science magazine researchers from Stanford stated "Direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry tests fall into an unregulated no-man's land with little oversight and few industry guidelines to ensure the quality, validity and interpretation of information sold."
Frankly these DNA companies simply don’t have enough comparative information to pinpoint a gene on a world map. They are usually able to match your DNA to some group on one of the continents, but not always. For example, DNA tests have trouble telling the difference between Native Americans and East Asians. So the submission instructions requires you to check one of two boxes; ‘Old World’ or ‘New World’ so they don’t tell an obviously Asian person that they are really a Native American.
DNA is great for solving crimes or identifying your parents. But beyond that things get very dicey. We all get half our DNA from each parent. Now extrapolate that out 3 generations… that's a half of a half of a half. Even worse is that you might not be carrying, or the test might not capture, DNA from any one specific ancestor. We are all a genetic mishmash. The entire earth is a giant genetic melting pot, humans have always migrated. One day, perhaps in another 25-50 years, the DNA technology and a global DNA database might be in a better position to accurately tell us more than just ‘European’.
But right now if we want to know ‘who we are’ we are better off looking in a mirror.
Don
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re: Ancestry DNA
My wife wanted me to do this because she claims I am an alien life form from another planet- I'm afraid to do it because she might be right. NaNu-NaNu!
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
05 Sep 2017
06:29:11pm
re: Ancestry DNA
I think a person might want to be very careful about testing their DNA lest. at this point, ( my age for instance.) the chance that a product of a misspent youth come calling, " Hi Daddy, where have you been all these years ? "
Maybe thirty or forty years ago, but not now.
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Ancestry DNA
My wife and her friends got into the Ancestry DNA test. So she wanted me to get mine done, and haunted me until I did it. I am still waiting for the results.
The funny part is upon submittal you get an email asking you to fill out your family tree... um no, you tell me! :-)
Otherwise it's right up there with sending in for your Cabbage Patch Doll's birth certificate!
Login to Like
this post
re: Ancestry DNA
"um no, you tell me!"
DNA testing is not accurate enough at this point in time to reveal ancestry as explicit as we might think. For example, "Native American" DNA cannot be distinguished as being from "Native American" or "Asian". That is why they ask for one's family tree.
From "Live Science":
If a test-taker is just interested in finding out where there are some people in the world that share the same DNA as them, then these tests can certainly tell them that," said Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas in Austin. "But they're not going to tell you every place or every group in the world where people share your DNA. Nor will they necessarily be able to tell you exactly where your ancestors lived or (what race or social group) they identified with."
"A common misconception about genetic ancestry testing", Bolnick said, "is that it can reveal information about an individual's ancestry. It cannot."
https://www.livescience.com/7384-genetic-ancestry-tests-hype-scientists.html
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
06 Sep 2017
03:45:04am
re: Ancestry DNA
Atilla the Hun's progeny was spread all throughout his fiefdom, and bits of his DNA are probably present in the genetic string of everyone who currently lives in Eastern Europe, if not all of Europe. It is a matter of simple Math.
When one or another of my then growing children were sick or feeling afraid about some surgery, I used to tell them that they descended from the brave Kings of Denmark and Norway, Sven Forkbeard, Harald Bluetooh, Canute and Hardicanute, as I sat at their bedside making stories up as I went along.
I made a tale about them finding the famous sword "Scoffnung" the sharpest and heaviest in the world with which, King Sven could raise over his head and bringing it down with such force that it could split an enemy warrior's shield and it was so sharp that it also split an opponent in half, head to toe, so fast and precise, that the two parts of the skeleton would speak to one another out of the sides of their mouths, asking if they could remain friends. Or sharing a mug of meade before they fell to the ground.
I explained that Sven was the Danish King of England for a while, and had defeated the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, bringing civilization to the British Isles. (Actually, the jury system of trial by one's peers, or crew mates on a long boat, stems from the Norsemen and Danes.)
I had read many stories and myths about the Vikings in the sagas of Snorrie Sigurdsson so it was easy to keep them thrilled til they fell asleep.
One day years later, and really just a few years ago, one of my Daughters suddenly asked me if it was true that we were descendants of one or another of the beserker warriors. That surprised me as I could not remember all the stories.
However, I asked her how many parents she had, then how many grand-parents, great grandparents and so on, so that she understood that two, times two, repeated ten times equals 1024 multi great-grand-parents, and if you continue the expansion to twenty times there were over a million ancestors. Allowing an average age of twenty-five per generation that number of ancestors could be reached in a mere two hundred and fifty years. Sven and Gunhilde, who had six or eight children lived about one thousand years ago, so since the population of Scandinavia was only about one million in those days, it is not far fetched to say that, except for those who died with no heirs, she was certainly a descendant of just about everyone alive in Sven's days. The same rule would apply to Atilla the Hun who was reputedly quite loose with where he left his seed.
As a child, I read the Dickens "Child's History of England " before I was age ten, and repeated it again as a young teen, so there were many stories to draw from and distract my sons or daughters. The key to it was that the descendants of a Viking King or Queen had to be brave. And such a husband and wife would pass some scrap of their DNA across the centuries and traces are likely in everyone north of the Mediterranean Sea, from which our Irish and Norwegian DNA comes.
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