The Walking Dead : Ancestry testing: the bad news

Ancestry testing: the bad news

The guy who started the whole thing, Spencer Wells, made a shitload of money and now owns a nightclub in Texas. Good lord!

Just kidding (though I'd be suspicious of a scientist who owned a nightclub, in Texas of all places!).

More interestingly, ancestry testing doesn't really give you objective info about your ancestry. As Angela Saini puts it, in Superior, "Ancestry testing doesn’t show you your past as much as it reveals the people you are distantly related to in the present who have had similar tests done." So it's not good science, and may feed into old-fashioned racism in an oblique way. Even if you're a good liberal, and celebrate the fact that you are white and you have common ancestry with people from Guatemala or Borneo or Rwanda, you're still swallowing a myth about genetics as transmitting valuable information; not to mention swallowing a myth about Internet-available ancestry-kits telling you something important about your origins.

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

My sister and our mother have all had our DNA checked there and it confirmed our ethnicity

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Wrong.

Cheerio.

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

How would they know we had Spanish and Italian ancestry?

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

"Confirmed" means you already knew?

Also, as Saini says…

"In reality, genetic testing is only an educated guess about where your relatives may have lived, based on the data fed into the models in the first place. As geneticist Mark Jobling explained, it’s possible to group people any way we like. Ancestry tests scan portions of people’s genomes to find those who have genetically a little more in common, then pool them together. Theoretically, they could pool them using any measure. But, of course, companies most often use old-fashioned racial categories or nationality.

This also means that if there are no DNA samples from the modern-day people related to you, you’re stuck. For example, one of the reasons Winfrey is linked to Liberia may be that this is where former slaves were long ago sent by white American leaders who couldn’t bear the thought of slaves living freely among them. Ancestry testing doesn’t show you your past as much as it reveals the people you are distantly related to in the present who have had similar tests done. Oprah has some connection to people who now live in Liberia, but this is not necessarily her ancestral homeland, from where her relatives originally came."

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

I knew that I was Spanish and Italian

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

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You look to be Russian to me.

Cheerio.

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Do you think? Are you Russian?

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

I wouldn't disagree with what you are getting at.

For people serious or semi-serious about genealogy, DNA is a handy way of corroborating working assumptions based on other elements, like family trees,family stories. It can't and won't give you objective and undeniable facts of your family history. It's just one tool in your toolbelt.

For example, if you believe that your family came from a certain town in England, but you are not totally sure, DNA can help corroborate. You do a search of that family name in their database, find a dozen people with that family name in their family trees who have a DNA connection with you and also have ancestors from that town, and lo and behold you have stronger evidence that your ancestors came from that town.

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Yes, that's a reasonable position. Apparently the pool of people who have been tested in relatively tiny, so the results will only corroborate large correlations (which would probably be intelligently inferred by talking to your grandparents and relatives). What strikes me as interesting is the fascination people have with the idea that it is "scientific." It really isn't, in the sense of being rigorous science.

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It works better I think for people coming from large families. I come from ginormous Catholic families in which each generation had like 10 kids a family, so I have tens of thousands of DNA matches on Ancestry, GEDMatch, and MyHeritage. It becomes an exercise in big data, which is great. Princess Corwin comes from Protestant as well as Catholic lines, and looks in envy on my army of DNA cousins.

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I always assumed Catholics were something of a minority in Canada (Anglo Canada, I mean)? I thought the big Scottish and English populations would be Protestant and Anglican.

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They were a disenfranchised minority in English-speaking Canada, but they were here in numbers. Highland Scots, and the Irish of course. And they often intermarried with the French as co-religionists.

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Highland Scots were Catholic? Damn, I have to brush up on my Scottish history. It is of the vaguest type…

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Oh yeah, lol, and definitely the ones who gambled and lost with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

It was the lowland Scots mostly who were the Presbyterians.

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Those tests always seemed more helpful to Americans whose families have lived here for generations and don’t know enough about it. But otherwise, I don’t see the utility for anyone from a country with more of a significant history.

Also, I took 23andMe and it confirmed that I am, indeed, Lebanese-Russian lol

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Lebanese-Russian


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Christina Barrett
½ American ½ European-ish Asian

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Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Do you watch Botched? Paul Nassif is Lebanese

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

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I don’t, but I know of him. He looks like he messed around with his face too much 🥴

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He's had a nose job

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

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There’s far too much representation of Lebanese people altering their noses. A lot of Leb celebrities do it. I love my big schnoz lol

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Marlo Thomas made hers much smaller

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

So is Tony Shalhoub (Monk).

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

That's true

If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

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I have a lot of Lebanese students. Very smart, very cosmopolitan. Not at all like the stereotype (backward-looking Arabs).

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How about lesbian students ?

Melting down over top boy

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Lots of those too. They sit at the back and cuddle.


Hey, sorry about your Dad, Kirk. I lost mine about fifteen years ago. Had to literally live by his bed for almost two months.

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True, but apparently the largest group of interested people are somewhat disconnected people who want to derive some sort of identity from what they hope their tests will tell them. It sounds kinda dangerous: to try and get an identity based on what some dudes in a lab will tell you. But then I'm old-fashioned about these things. I believe your identity is what you make of it.

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That reminds me of something actually! I saw a commercial from Ancestry (I think) where they were interviewing one of their customers. He talked about how he always thought he was Irish and Scottish and actually tried to immerse himself in that culture all his life. Then the test said he was actually mostly German lol. He talked about how that changed his life. I’m like how??? He’s still the same exact person he was. He even ended with a joke: “guess I’m exchanging my kilt for a Lederhosen.” I guess this is what you might call a real life Schrodinger’s experiment 🥴🥴

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That's why it's so silly to take this stuff seriously. There's a book called The Invention of Tradition which argues, quite plausibly, that almost all of today's traditions were invented in the 19th century! The Scots are an excellent example. Most of what we assume are Scottish traditions are invented. Imagine building your life around some nonsense like that.

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Lmfaoooo I had no idea. In that case, this country definitely had ample time to create one of its own.

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Found it! I got the ancestries backwards:


The ad is being completely dragged in the comments haha 220 thumbs down

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God, that was so embarrassing! If someone had given him "scientific" evidence he was a donkey he would have brayed and eaten some hay.

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Pitifully true

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Sorry, I just re-read this and realize now that you are focusing on people who use those home kits to determine their ethnicity.

I would agree that that can be problematic, also because the algorithms aren't great, and they can actually change your profile over time, as the companies work to improve the algorithms. That can be aggravating to people who put a lot of stock in them. They're reasonable guesses, the ethnic profiles, in other words.

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits-twins-marketplace-1.4980976

One set of identical twins, two different ancestry profiles.

At least that's the suggestion from one of the world's largest ancestry DNA testing companies.

Last spring, Marketplace host Charlsie Agro and her twin sister, Carly, bought home kits from AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, and mailed samples of their DNA to each company for analysis.

Despite having virtually identical DNA, the twins did not receive matching results from any of the companies.

In most cases, the results from the same company traced each sister's ancestry to the same parts of the world — albeit by varying percentages.

But the results from California-based 23andMe seemed to suggest each twin had unique twists in their ancestry composition.

Marketplace sent the results from all five companies to Gerstein's team for analysis.

He says any results the Agro twins received from the same DNA testing company should have been identical.

And there's a simple reason for that: The raw data collected from both sisters' DNA is nearly exactly the same.

"It's shockingly similar," he said.
One of the more surprising findings was in Living DNA's results, which pointed to a small percentage of ancestry from England for Carly, but Scotland and Ireland for Charlsie.

Re: Ancestry testing: the bad news

Nice! I always suspected it was a scam.

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I don't know if it's a scam (it might be with some companies), but it can be inaccurate, so people should know that before they spend the money and send their DNA away. I don't think it's worth it. These companies can do whatever they want with people's DNA, and I read it's difficult to get them to destroy it.

DNA testing companies have improved their methods for deleting your data over the years. However, since the United States government requires these companies to retain DNA information in order to comply with quality control guidelines, it’s never really possible to delete it forever. Before you sign up for a testing kit, always make sure you know what you’re agreeing to and that you’re comfortable signing that permission away.

Also:

https://internethealthreport.org/2019/23-reasons-not-to-reveal-your-dna/

23 reasons not to reveal your DNA

Excerpts:

The results may not be accurate. Some outputs on personal health and nutrition have been discredited by scientists. One company, Orig3n, misidentified a Labrador Retriever dog’s DNA sample as being human in 2018. As Arwa Mahdawi wrote after taking the test, “Nothing I learned was worth the price-tag and privacy risks involved.”

Heritage tests are less precise if you don’t have European roots. DNA is analyzed in comparison to samples already on file. Because more people of European descent have taken tests so far, assessments of where your ancestors lived are usually less detailed outside of Europe.

DNA tests can’t be anonymous. You could jump through hoops to attempt to mask your name and location, but your DNA is an unique marker of your identity that could be mishandled no matter what.

You will jeopardize the anonymity of family members. By putting your own DNA in the hands of companies your (known or unknown) relatives could be identifiable to others, possibly against their wishes.

You could become emotionally scarred. You may discover things you weren’t prepared to find out. A fertility watchdog in the United Kingdom called for DNA testing companies to warn consumers of the risks of uncovering traumatic family secrets or disease risks.

You will become the product. Your genetic code is valuable. Once you opt in to sharing, you have no idea what company gets access to it, nor for what purpose.

You may be discriminated against in the future. In the United States, health insurers and workplaces are not allowed to discriminate based on DNA. But the law does not apply to life insurance or disability insurance. Who knows in your case, where you live? Some day you could be compelled to share genetic information with your own insurer.

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Whew! Even scarier than I thought. I've always felt that these companies are taking advantage of people's loneliness and desire to feel important (and connected). In an earlier age (when there was less isolation and anomie) it would have been seen as a very odd thing to do. It's part of a social-media-dominated age. I can easily see a sci-fi movie being made in which each of us carries our DNA card in our wallets for identification…

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I think a lot of people are also hoping they're somehow related to well-known historical figures, as if that would make their lives "worth more" or something.

Edit: That's probably what you were saying with the "desire to feel important (and connected)" part of your post.

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There you go, you solved it for everyone. Now we can save our DNA!

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I know you wouldn't want to do it, but I wish you'd send in your dog's DNA, just for a laugh. It might come back with a really complex genealogy and show that your dog is related to the Duke of Edinburgh…..

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Lol! What if it shows up that it has a DNA connection to Soul Venom?

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Then I'll eat humble pie and admit those guys are on to something! Soul Venom is definitely related to some canine species….

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lol, I almost said Soul Venom instead of MMC2 in my last post. Your post wasn't here yet when I was typing the reply.

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Jared did a DNA test and discovered MMC2 is his biological father!

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He will never forgive you for that!

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I think you meant Jared won't forgive his mother for mating with MMC2.

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OMG. My mother did say that before I was born, she used to go out with a deluded old coot in his late 50s….mostly for his stock tips……. could that have been MMC2??? Is he my real father???
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