topic Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review. in Wellness

Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 16:55:49 GMT

I am going through the information. It is somewhat interesting....not really surprising results. 97% European. Since I really did not get the complete results on my Father's side( women do not have the Y chromosome to get this) I feel the report is half sided. That was really what I wanted to know more so. My father has passed and no brothers so, no chance to get that information now.

I chose NOT to find out the results from the DNA on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. I do not think knowing you are predisposed to getting these is helpful as there is no cure and why worry needlessly knowing the results and thinking/worrying about it for the next 20 some years? If knowing about it gave you a way to prevent it though lifestyle then perhaps that would be a reason to want to know the results. That is just my feeling on these two tests. I am sure many people feel differently about knowing such things.

All in all, the $175 I spent I feel could have been used wiser.....but, I was curious and now see that it is not all that helpful....

UNLESS perhaps you had no clue as to your family history..adopted, of a certain heritage or such. Then this would be fascinating information!

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Oznell — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:21:39 GMT

How interesting, SeaMaiden. I did not know they that they offer you insight into predispositions to those conditions. I think I would make the same decision you did, unless as you say, there were a strong chance of averting them through lifestyle changes, etc.

Thanks for reporting on this.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SilleeMee — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:22:16 GMT

I did the Ancestry DNA test. I knew beforehand that I am half Japanese from my mother's side. What I wanted to know was a breakdown of her side of my genes. All they gave me was a huge map of the entire Eastern hemisphere...huh?? Why can't they break it down to individual countries like they do with the other continents?? Very disappointing.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:25:07 GMT

@SilleeMee wrote:
I did the Ancestry DNA test. I knew beforehand that I am half Japanese from my mother's side. What I wanted to know was a breakdown of her side of my genes. All they gave me was a huge map of the entire Eastern hemisphere...huh?? Why can't they break it down to individual countries like they do with the other continents?? Very disappointing.

@SilleeMee 23& Me does do a nice breakdown if that is what you would like.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SilleeMee — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:29:47 GMT

So 23&Me can tell me if I'm from China rather than Thailand? @SeaMaiden

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Oznell — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:38:08 GMT

That is disappointing, SilleeMee, that they would just give you a map and not pinpoint the specific other Asian elements if there were any. They don't seem to be able to get really down in the weeds as much as we would hope...

In my family we know quite a bit about the Welsh, English, Irish and French Huguenot strains, but I would love to track down some of the more nebulous things. For instance, some families that were Huguenot Protestants were actually Jews, and there was some suggestion of that, possibly, in my mother's family. But since "Protestant" and "Jewish" are religious designations, I wonder if they'd be able to tell explicitly if some of the genetic material was of Ashkenazic (sp?) or Sephardic Jewish origin? Maybe not.

Not earth-shattering, but would be fun to know. There was also some Spanish or Portuguese in there some where, which I'd like to know more about...

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SilleeMee — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:47:49 GMT

Ancestry did a pretty good job with my dad's side of my genes. The breakdown included European countries...Ireland, England and Norway. My other half is vague. Maybe they simply don't have enough genetic material from the Asian side of the world to give me specific locations. @Oznell

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 17:52:55 GMT

@SilleeMee wrote:
So 23&Me can tell me if I'm from China rather than Thailand? @SeaMaiden

@SilleeMee I would call their customer service line( they are very helpful!) or email them and ask your specific question.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Moonchilde — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 18:45:25 GMT

@Oznell wrote:
That is disappointing, SilleeMee, that they would just give you a map and not pinpoint the specific other Asian elements if there were any. They don't seem to be able to get really down in the weeds as much as we would hope...

In my family we know quite a bit about the Welsh, English, Irish and French Huguenot strains, but I would love to track down some of the more nebulous things. For instance, some families that were Huguenot Protestants were actually Jews, and there was some suggestion of that, possibly, in my mother's family. But since "Protestant" and "Jewish" are religious designations, I wonder if they'd be able to tell explicitly if some of the genetic material was of Ashkenazic (sp?) or Sephardic Jewish origin? Maybe not.

Not earth-shattering, but would be fun to know. There was also some Spanish or Portuguese in there some where, which I'd like to know more about...

@Oznell, I have seen test results and discussions regarding Ashkenazi ancestry. I've had testing from all three companies - 23andme, Ancestry and FTDNA. They all matched (and no real surprises), but the different companies provide the results each in a slightly different manner, with the breakdowns and the labeling differing. Some people regard this as one company being "wrong", but in reality it's mostly semantics.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Moonchilde — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 19:44:20 GMT

@SilleeMee wrote:
Ancestry did a pretty good job with my dad's side of my genes. The breakdown included European countries...Ireland, England and Norway. My other half is vague.

Maybe they simply don't have enough genetic material from the Asian side of the world to give me specific locations.

That's very much it in a nutshell, @SilleeMee. People think that testing of their own DNA will verify every single ancestor on both sides of their family going back multiple generations, and will be broken down per 21st C country boundaries. That's not how it works at all.

We each get half of mom's & dad's DNA. They got half of their parents' DNA, etc going back. ALL DNA from everyone is not passed on.

Women who test, and who have no living male or paternal relatives to also test, will never learn all there is to know about Dad's side of the family specifically. That's where genealogy takes over.

As far as country? An example: I had always heard a certain group of my ancestors were German. When I began my genealogy search I found that on some records they were termed German and on some records they were termed French. People emigrate from one country to another, and also, borders change. My ancestors came from an area that was back-and-forth French or German in the 18th-19th C. My DNA came back as both.

Another example: Someone could say they knew their great-great-grandparents were from Thailand, so it must be "wrong" that the test results said their ancestry included Chinese, not Thai. But what if their ancestors were ethnically Chinese and emigrated to Thailand? The DNA testing would be correct, even if it doesn't match family stories.

DNA doesn't lie; people's belief or interpretation of what they think they know based on family oral history, or want to be true, gets in the way of what actually is. People get ideas in their head and won't let go because they don't want to. They'd rather believe grandma and so the testing must be bunk. They could read explanations and FAQs on the DNA websites for a month and still refuse to believe.

Certain areas of the world, DNA is very similar, like Scandinavia. Difficult sometimes to say whether someone is specifically Swedish or Norwegian or Danish. It also depends on the size of the company's database of people tested. If a company had (as an exaggerated example) ten people who tested that were from the Phillipines, vs hundreds of thousands from the other Asian countries combined, the company probably doesn't have enough data to label someone Filipino vs Southeast Asian. It all depends on how great the numbers of tested are from a given country.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 19:48:46 GMT

@Moonchilde Wow! You know your "stuff"!

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Moonchilde — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 21:30:41 GMT

@SeaMaiden, I'm a researchy-person by nature. I can entertain myself for hours that way ;-)

I started out doing genealogy way before I ever had my DNA tested, so it was easy for me to see that my results were accurate (or not, if they hadn't been). I already knew from my genealogy results that most of my "family stories" were incorrect ;-(

My mother always told me that my paternal grandmother came from an orphanage in Montreal, and we assumed she was French Canadian. I learned a few months ago that she did come from an orphanage - in Chicago - and that both her parents (and maybe her as well) were born in Ireland! I was thrilled. I've always been drawn to Irish culture and knew I had Scots-Irish (i.e. Protestant Irish) ancestry, but this was the icing on the cake. My ancestry is 93% British Isles and Irish :-)

On each company's website I've read the "what you can or can't find out" bits, and read answers to peoples common questions. There are definitely things I'm fuzzy on still.

But I do know that DNA can't tell everyone all they want to know, and that when it comes to DNA testing women with no testable male relatives are kinda shafted :-(

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Roni18 — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:19:32 GMT

@SeaMaiden wrote:
I am going through the information. It is somewhat interesting....not really surprising results. 97% European. Since I really did not get the complete results on my Father's side( women do not have the Y chromosome to get this) I feel the report is half sided. That was really what I wanted to know more so. My father has passed and no brothers so, no chance to get that information now.

@SeaMaidenIf I understand correctly, the autosomal DNA results (the ancestry part) is measured from both your mom and dad's sides. So your ethnicity report should be from both sides combined. I can see relatives I share DNA with on my Dad's side on Ancestry.com.

The 23 and me test also includes DNA testing for your haplogroup and this is the one that tests your mother's (women only) side back or for men, the father's side back. Both my parents did that type of testing some years ago and we did the Ancestry test this year. To clarify, I did my Ancestry test before they did their tests and I was immediately able to see that I matched DNA with relatives on my father's side that I knew about from my genealogical research.

I have thought about doing the 23 and me test just to compare and also for the health testing. But like you I don't know if I want the results for Alzheimer's and Parkinsons because that would probably just give me something extra to worry about.

I am into genealogy so I am very happy that I took the Ancestry test. It has already helped me solve one question we had about an ancestor where I had one last name for a female ancestor and my distant relatives had another and they suspected that a neighbor was her father. I was able to do a last name search for my DNA matches and almost all my matches who had this name in their family tree came from the neighbor's family.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 13:08:35 GMT

@Roni18 Thank-you so much for sharing your knowledge. I am not as knowledable as you are on how the DNA all works. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me better. I do find it facinating... my Husband said he might like his done as well.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

IHeartFashion — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 02:28:34 GMT

Huh, I did this too with 23 and me, and there was no option for me to find out about Alzheimers and Parkinsons. I wonder why :-/

I found out I was 96% European, and 12% of that was Italian (a surprise to me). The rest wasn't a big surprise. I would love to do this for my husband and boys too, I felt it was worth it (and would have loved it if they would have let me know some health results too).

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

MariotaMurielle — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 14:46:26 GMT

@SilleeMee wrote:
I did the Ancestry DNA test. I knew beforehand that I am half Japanese from my mother's side. What I wanted to know was a breakdown of her side of my genes. All they gave me was a huge map of the entire Eastern hemisphere...huh?? Why can't they break it down to individual countries like they do with the other continents?? Very disappointing.

@SilleeMee, upload your Ancestry DNA results to Gedmatch. they give you an extremely detailed breakdown of ethnicity. if you're not familiar with Gedmatch there are several good tutorials on Youtube and their own website.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SilleeMee — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 14:50:39 GMT

@MariotaMurielle wrote:
@SilleeMee wrote:
I did the Ancestry DNA test. I knew beforehand that I am half Japanese from my mother's side. What I wanted to know was a breakdown of her side of my genes. All they gave me was a huge map of the entire Eastern hemisphere...huh?? Why can't they break it down to individual countries like they do with the other continents?? Very disappointing.
@SilleeMee, upload your Ancestry DNA results to Gedmatch. they give you an extremely detailed breakdown of ethnicity. if you're not familiar with Gedmatch there are several good tutorials on Youtube and their own website.

Thank you @MariotaMurielle . I will look into that site. I appreciate you telling me about it.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

MariotaMurielle — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 15:16:36 GMT

@SilleeMee, there is so much information on Gedmatch and I am in no way an expert on how to decipher it all. but with a little research and some tips from FAQ and Q&A sections online, I have learned how to navigate through quite a bit of the information available. I have found some somewhat surprising information about my own DNA. when you upload your DNA results you will get a Kit #, and with that you can explore so many things.

since you are interested in ethnicity, here's an example of the kind of information you can find.

#	Population	Percent
1	Neolithic	29.68
2	NorthEastEuropean	25.83
3	Steppe	23.55
4	Caucasian	18.17
5	Indian	1.38
6	NorthAfrican	0.64
7	Amerindian	0.36
8	Arctic	0.32
9	Ancestor	0.08

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

SeaMaiden — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:53:48 GMT

@IHeartFashion wrote:
Huh, I did this too with 23 and me, and there was no option for me to find out about Alzheimers and Parkinsons. I wonder why :-/

I found out I was 96% European, and 12% of that was Italian (a surprise to me). The rest wasn't a big surprise. I would love to do this for my husband and boys too, I felt it was worth it (and would have loved it if they would have let me know some health results too).

@IHeartFashion there are two tests you can chose . One is just the DNA family history....the other is the family history AND health information. You pay more for that test than just the family history. Which one did you get? I paid $175 for the complete family and health test. The family history only test was about $99 or so.

Re: Update on 23 And Me DNA test results .....review.

Mothertrucker — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 17:00:34 GMT

@Oznell wrote:
That is disappointing, SilleeMee, that they would just give you a map and not pinpoint the specific other Asian elements if there were any. They don't seem to be able to get really down in the weeds as much as we would hope...

In my family we know quite a bit about the Welsh, English, Irish and French Huguenot strains, but I would love to track down some of the more nebulous things. For instance, some families that were Huguenot Protestants were actually Jews, and there was some suggestion of that, possibly, in my mother's family. But since "Protestant" and "Jewish" are religious designations, I wonder if they'd be able to tell explicitly if some of the genetic material was of Ashkenazic (sp?) or Sephardic Jewish origin? Maybe not.

Not earth-shattering, but would be fun to know. There was also some Spanish or Portuguese in there some where, which I'd like to know more about...

Ancestry most certainly told me "European Jew" ..I will go find out the exact verbage