We received an email containing the results of my wife's DNA test for Christmas morning. Heres is far more interesting than mine. Many people would know that she is Mexican. 48% European- 44% Southern European, 4% Finland & North Siberia- probably Spanish. 36% Native American 14% Northeast Asia (Covering Korea/Japan/North China/Mongolia/Russia)- probably a part of her native American heritage 3% West African. This was a big surprise to her- but apparently there were slaves brought into Mexico 300-400 years ago, and they mostly intermixed with the local populations. I have traces from all over Europe, so she covers a lot of other parts of the world. We only need our daughter to have children to an Indian/Australian Indigenous to cover most of the world.
Don't know if I would trust those tests. They could just say anything and I would be none the wiser. I suppose you could get two tests done by two different companies and see if they came up with the same results.
While there is probably a lot of interpretation as to specific mixes, I think the origins presented in my wife's testing are broadly correct. The tests did pick that this DNA test from Australia had a lot of American indigenous in the mix; many Mexicans would have a mixture of European (from Spain) and indigenous (except for the rich people and the ones on TV which are pretty well pure European). The black African in the mix was unexpected for her, but appears to be backed up by history. 200,000 to 500,000 Africans were brought into Mexico- there are very few people with recognisable African features in Mexico today, except for a few pockets. So they either died out or mixed in. Mexico actually had a president with African background (his mother was African) in 1829; he abolished slavery during his term. So two things were achieved by Mexico well before US. Edit: My tests did show a second cousin who I did not know I had. He had been adapted out, and only got to know about his real parents at age 50, 10 years ago. Both of our tests showed a lot of more distant relations. I've only tried to contact one other, who has not responded.
Subsequent to this old thread, according to ancestry.com family tree tracing (suspect I know), I am descended from royalty. In itself, that's not a big deal - a king from 900 years ago would have a huge number of descendants. But one nobleman I was descended from was known as Geoffrey the Incompetent.
It seems like a bit of fun even if the results are a bit made up. "Ancestry itself is a funny thing, in that humans have never been these distinct groups of people," said Alexander Platt, an expert in population genetics at Temple University in Philadelphia. "So, you can't really say that somebody is 92.6 percent descended from this group of people when that's not really a thing." Log onto a website like Nat Geo's and it chunks the world up into different pieces. Some of your ancestors came from this spot, it says, and they were Central Asian. Others came from that spot over there, and they were Middle Eastern. But that's not what human history looks like. Populations fuzz together. People move around, get together and separate. A person who calls herself an Italian today might have called herself a Gaul a couple thousand years ago and gone to war against the Romans. To divide people into groups, Platt told Live Science, researchers make decisions: For example, they'll say, the members of this group of people have all lived in Morocco for at least several generations, so we'll add their DNA to the reference libraries for Moroccans. And people who had one grandparent with that sort of DNA will hear that they're 25 percent Moroccan. But that boundary, Platt said, is fundamentally "imaginary." "There is structure to history," he said. "Certain peoples are more closely related to each other than to other peoples. And [commercial DNA companies] are trying to create boundaries within those clusters. But those boundaries never really existed, and they aren't real things." I Took 9 Different Commercial DNA Tests and Got 6 Different Results | Live Science But is it really harmless fun? 23 reasons not to reveal your DNA — The Internet Health Report 2019
My Ancestry DNA results have been refined since my earlier comment, they now read 75% Southern England, 18% Scots/Irish, 7% Chinese. This confirms my family research of over 20 years and my families going back to the 1600's. PS There are a lot Australians who have no idea they have a Chinese ancestor. The Chinese not only went in droves to the Victorian goldfields but also were indentured to property owners in the Sydney and surrounding areas. This is where my chinese ancestor met and married another immigrant from London.
My mother-in-law had a test last Christmas and was astounded to learn she had some middle-eastern (can't recall which country) ancestors, along with the usual English. That explains her beautiful olive skin and brown eyes and black hair (when younger). She still stands by her old story that she's descended from a Spanish princess, even though she's now admitted it isn't true.
This is absolutely fascinating...... solving cold cases using genealogy websites https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/27/golden-state-killer-dna-website-gedmatch-was-used-to-identify-joseph-deangelo-as-suspect-police-say/?outputType=amp
Am I the only one concerned about the privacy/security of the vast DNA data bank being built up by these testing sites, and possible future uses?
At the moment, my understanding is that they are governed by the same provisions as say, obtaining phone information. A warrant must be obtained,and there must be sufficient reason to seek the data.
i guess you have a choice, buyer beware A new data scandal: How ancestry DNA firms share your most intimate secrets law enforcement using this has been a game changer
I think this is a far greater potential risk to privacy and security. Phone location and data browsing data is a huge risk in itself,now this. The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
No, I will not pay to give someone access to my DNA. Its so scary what may be done with it in the future and by who?
