Wellness

[SeaMaiden]

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! 

[Oznell]

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.

[SilleeMee]

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.

[SeaMaiden]

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@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.

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

[SilleeMee]

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

[Oznell]

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...

[SilleeMee]

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

[SeaMaiden]

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@SilleeMee wrote:

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

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

[Moonchilde]

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@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...

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@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.

[Moonchilde]

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@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.

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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.