Opinions on DNA Testing

[twoguns?]

The files were sealed , some....15 years or so ago
Only a judge can open it, and I'm not signing....

 

[twoguns?]

But Good Luck to you and your search

 

[RidgeHunter]

not interested... but maybe i'm paranoid
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/

That is terrifying. Fawk that.

 

[Surveyor1653]

This.

Y'all want to be part of a government (or government-searchable) database, that's your problem. Me, I'll stay the hell away.

This is not an issue for me since I contributed to the DoD database all the way back in 1993. After the Bill signed into law by GW in 2002, that database is searchable for LE purposes now instead of just for the ID of remains (though I'm sure it's been "searchable" all this time).

I've thought about doing this...just not a lot. I'm not necessarily looking to grow the Christmas card list, but doing it more for the ancestry information.

 

[Volmarr]

not interested... but maybe i'm paranoid
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/

Seen a Ancestry commercial the other day and wondered if the government had access to it.

 

[NightShade]

It's interesting to think about where you may have come from but at the same point does it REALLY matter? It will not change who you are, what you do or who you do it with. Not to mention that for how many hundreds of years people got along with their lives without the information. Yeah some people keep extensive family trees but most just know who their parents and grandparents are with a few aunts uncles and cousins. Personally I could care less about most of the people who are a part of my family, what good can come from more details.

Plus I am more a part of the paranoid camp, the big testing houses can screw things up and who knows what all they handle. The same lab that is testing DNA for a website is probably handling overflow from some state or doing all the testing for another that figured it was cheaper to just outsource. A tray gets mixed up and pretty soon they are looking for me for some crime I didn't commit. Pass...

 

[rhart]

Thanks to genetic recombination

Had they used mitochondrial DNA instead of nuclear DNA the outcome would be the same for all siblings, as long as siblings have the same mother.

A friend of mine's wife used ancestry.com for this and they got it all wrong. They said she was Irish when she came from Germany and her family has been in Germany for hundreds of years. I wonder if they just use their data base of names and skip the expense of actually doing the DNA test...

 

[dennishoddy]

Opinion - doesn't interest me.

But if she has sounded like she would like it, it would make a neat and unusual Christmas gift. If family tree stuff is her kinda thing, then she'd probably like it. My mom got into the ancestry.com stuff a couple years ago and got on a kick about it for a month or two then lost interest (like she does with every project ever). She kept telling me about all these long-lost people who were related to us around the country and such - I was pretty meh about the whole thing.

My sister got into the family history thing. She has published two books so far about the family. I've learned to not trigger some ancestry things with her. If I screw up, I'll get a thirty minute deal about who is buried where, who got divorced, who's kids married who, and I really don't give a crap.

 

[cktad]

A friend of mine's wife used ancestry.com for this and they got it all wrong. They said she was Irish when she came from Germany and her family has been in Germany for hundreds of years. I wonder if they just use their data base of names and skip the expense of actually doing the DNA test...

Your friends wife was more than just Irish as no one is 100% of any ethnic DNA. Tribes moved from one country to another. And think of all the wars and the spread of that DNA by the soldiers. For instance, the Vikings were all over Europe and Great Britain and you can have traces of that DNA. I have read that at least 10% of the worlds population has Genghis Khans DNA.

I did the AncesrtyDNA test and was surprised at some of the results but after thinking about it, it made sense. They said I was 3% Swedish/Scandinavian when I was sure I was Native American and Irish/Scottish. Found out that some of the Vikings settled in Scotland and their offspring (1/2 Scots-1/2 Viking) were called Gallowglass, a class of elite mercenary Scottish warriors. You just never know about your ancestors.

Being ex-military and using the VA health system the Feds already have my DNA so I wasn't paranoid about that.

 

[Eagle Eye]

A friend of mine's wife used ancestry.com for this and they got it all wrong. They said she was Irish when she came from Germany and her family has been in Germany for hundreds of years. I wonder if they just use their data base of names and skip the expense of actually doing the DNA test...

No idea what happened there.

What I am saying is that our nuclear DNA (which is found in the nucleus of all our cells) is a mix of our parents DNA.
Ever wonder why siblings look different from another although they have the same parents? Thats due to genetic recombination, which is basically 1. Independent assortment and 2. crossing over. Both processes happen during gamete formation (the making of sperm and eggs). because of this, no two eggs made by one woman are the same, and no two sperm made by one man are the same genetically. Actually it is just extremely unlikely that they are the same. Therefore when we consider two fertilization events (older brother and younger brother), the result is offspring with different combinations of the parental genes. Therefore, one sibling may get more of Dad's paternal side, and another get more of dad's maternal side. Same for moms DNA.

SO, when we look at Nuclear DNA we don't know exactly which lineage we are getting (tracing). The only given is it will include both dad's and mom's.

But, Mitochondrial DNA (found in the mitochondria) is inherited maternally only. So the linage become much easier to trace. But it is very restricted aka tracing back our mother's mother's mother's mother etc etc.
IMHO not really a good representation of ones ancestry.