It’s not much better for Hispanic or Native American ancestries. I took the basic 23 and Me test, and noticed two big problems
–the test defines ancestries by pre-Columbian geography
–“Native American” was the most precise breakdown they could give me, not by tribe or even region of the country.
So it was essentially impossible to tell how much of my “Native American” ancestry was Mexican Mestizo and how much was north American tribal, much less which tribe I can claim. Thus, I couldn’t tell how much of my “Spanish” ancestry is Mestizo and how much is actually from Europe.
Remember back when? Preventative mastectomies are still performed.
I’ve wanted to do one of these kits as well but haven’t due to privacy concerns a probably a little paranoia. I already think my computer and cell phone spy on me too much, I probably listen to too many “true crime” type podcasts, and I’m not sure we’ve thought through the implications of providing our most personal data to the public where it can be used, or even misused.
Folks here might be familiar with the “Golden State Killer”, a man who raped and murdered over the span of many years in California. He was caught because he left a DNA sample at at least one crime scene. The detectives working on his case collected a fresh DNA sample from a suspect, matched it to the crime scene DNA, and then submitted this DNA profile to GEDmatch.
GEDMatch is a website that allows users of different consumer genetics companies to submit results at one site so that users of one company can compare and contrast results with users of other DNA profiling companies.
23 and Me and Ancestry dot com don’t allow law enforcement to use their site without a warrant. GED match uses and “opt in” approach.
The GEDMatch database found a distant relative of the criminal these detectives were looking for. The detectives working the case then hired a genealogy researcher to develop a family tree that led back to their suspect. He was arrested and sent to prison.
Well that’s all good- who doesn’t want a rapist and murderer off the street?
But these detectives didn’t really need to do anything more than create an account on-line with GEDMatch. And GEDMatch may have allowed law enforcement to use their database, which was against their posted TOS, without letting their customers know.
I have not had one of these tests done but I did create an account at GEDMatch a while back. Just this month I received an email from GEDMatch notifying me that they were closing my (empty) account. There seems to have been a new privacy law passed in the EU that requires that EU citizens to positively affirm that they want their genetic genealogy information published on-line. It seems that in the US, if one uploads there, consent is assumed.
Also in this past year, GEDMatch (and other genetic/genealogy companies) has required users to “opt in” if they wish to allow their genetic genealogy information to be available to law enforcement. Again, that’s probably good. If I did have an account profile there, I would likely “opt in” too.
And, like RickJay, I have a coworker who found a previously unknown relative through a consumer-oriented DNA information website.
My coworker was placed for adoption as a newborn here in Texas. Her birth mother was a college student from Wisconsin.
About 10-15 years ago, we began to search for her birth mother using the interwebs. We tried a lot of different avenues including registering at several “matching” websites that required both parties to register to make a “match”. That seemed fair that both parties would participate, but a match was never made for my coworker.
After exhausting all other avenues available at the time we even resorted to searching the college yearbooks of the birth mother looking for physical matches.
Along the way found all kinds of internet oddities such as a registry for the children of anonymous sperm donors whose mothers or families were searching for half siblings of the children of their anonymous donor(s). People would post whatever ID numbers they had of their anonymous sperm donors to connect with other offspring of those same donors.
Heck, this could even be useful to avoid genetically related offspring from having children with each other but now not with just donor code numbers, now with DNA,
(See “Cecil Jacobson” a Mormon fertility doc suspected of fathering up to 75 children when he substituted his own sperm for donor sperm!)
About 5 or 6 years ago, my coworker bought a DNA kit and made her results publicly available. She was still interested in locating her birth mother and (potential) family.
About 2 years ago, my coworker received a contact from another user of the DNA company that said something like “Hi. I’m not sure of the quality of these kits. According to our results we’re half siblings.”
My coworker wrote back explaining that her mother had been a college student from Wisconsin who had given birth and placed the child (her) up for adoption here in Texas.
My coworker never heard from this contact again.
She says she’s not upset by this. She says that she’s had many years to get used to the idea of being adopted and that this may be “new” news for this other person; that this person may need some time to get used to the idea, and that this person may never get used to the idea at all, which is something that she can accept.
But she worries that this may have caused some harm to this half-sibling.
So, will there be a situation where people or entities searching DNA databases will be harmful to one’s self or others?
To me? My siblings? My parents?
Or to my children? Would something in my DNA reflect upon or affect my children in some way I have not yet considered?
Or even my distant relatives?
Will my insurance company review my DNA profile when deciding what coverage I can buy?
Will my computer start offering me deals on cholesterol drugs next week?
What recourse would anyone have for those who violate laws or TOS at these sites?
What, if any, limits will the government entities have to search these databases?
Correction: The detective in the “Golden State Killer” case did not collect “fresh DNA” from the suspect, he just ran the DNA they did have from a crime scene through GEDMatch (where a distant relative was found, the genealogist hired, etc.).
I confused this guy with another guy who was ID’d through some McDonald’s trash, where a “fresh” DNA sample was collected to match some crime scene DNA.
Exactly. Their entire definition of “African” ancestry is largely based on a sparse convenience sampling in a handful of big African cities. At best, the resulting models can tell you that you’re slightly more similar to a handful of random volunteers in Lagos, Nairobi, etc, than to more systematically and extensively sampled northern European populations.
In the past few years, there has been a much better and more coordinated effort to get high quality data from representative populations all across Africa. This effort is ongoing, and initial results were just published this year.
23andme has almost certainly not included newer African data in their ancestry models. Additionally, their genotyping chip was designed back when there was little data about non-European populations, so it probably is missing a lot of information that is necessary for discriminating between sub-Saharan African populations.
Pretty much my feelings as well. We casually share so much information simply existing, that I don’t want to take the effort and pay for the privilege of sharing even more.
My wife and I did the full ancestry and medical tests. There are plenty of warnings as you go through to take findings with a grain of salt (medically) and not to look at the results if you don’t really want them. If you go through all of what I found to be annoying warnings and get upset later, that’s kind of on you. The ancestry seemed accurate, the medical stuff was hit or miss.
I did a 23andMe last year, and found a half sibling. I knew I was adopted, so that wasn’t too surprising in and of itself. He noticed the same update, and contacted me that yes, he was most likely my half brother because he knew his bio mom had given up a baby for adoption prior to his birth. We’re Facebook friends now, but I haven’t reached out to any more of the family (I have 2 half sisters as well). Through his FB, I was able to get to his bio mom’s page, and look at a picture. The first time I showed my husband the picture, it took him a minute to realize it wasn’t a picture of me. So, it does seem to reasonably track (dates, locations, etc.). I wasn’t actively looking for my bio family, so I’m likely not going to pursue it any more than I have (unless another sibling shows up in their database and finds me). However, it was interesting, and mildly shocking.
[Looks out the window, concludes we are still on Earth]A corporation says something, anything, and offers strongly-worded assurances that the promise it just made is true, because it promises! If you’re the betting sort, bet against what was just promised, and double down by assuming the exact opposite is true: i.e. 23and me is owned by, and by design serves, some government organization. But I do chuckle every time they promote the kit for Father’s Day. I mean, that just seems like inviting all sorts of drama into an unsuspecting household.
Several people have found out their father isn’t who they thought it was too based on these tests.
I found out that I have more Neanderthal markers than 94% of respondents.
So I got that going for me.
But with more cause/history and not some of the total butcher-jobs from the 80s. Of course all surgery has improved but some of the ones I knew back then ------ on a very outside chance at most. And mastectomies combined with hysterectomies and other treatment for cancer that wasn’t even there yet — it was just a different thing and some doctors took advantage of whatever fear a patient had.
(Yeah – I know a couple someones. Its still a raw nerve with me.)
I did a 23andme test and I am curious as to how RickJay’s friend and **Indyellen **found this out. All I have is an analysis of my geographic/ethnic origins. How do you use 23andMe to match other individuals? I know there are companies that do this, but I am not aware that 23andMe does.
“Cracked”? Really? I’m not saying the information is false but this is a click-bait listicle just made up from links to other sites, with more ads than facts.
Matching to relatives comes with the “geographic/ethnic” test. Maybe the menu choice isn’t there if you opted out from showing as a match when registering, but for me it’s under the “Ancestry” heading on the main 23andme page, as “DNA Relatives”.
23andMe uses 50% confidence as the default for presenting “ethnicity”. If you click through and slide the confidence up to 95% you likely end up with very broad regions for most of your DNA.
Ancestry added more narrow regions recently, but they also added a more detailed view that shows a range of probability. It is less honest than the 23andMe approach as it, in my experience, still tries to separate very closely similar regions (like parts of Norway and Sweden) into distinct populations.
I know my experience is not typical, but as an adoptee whose records were sealed shut 53 years ago, I was able to locate both my birth parents and siblings and I’m very grateful for its existence.
I was given a kit as a gift and didn’t really take much stock in it. I’ve never cared about my ethnic origins, except to maybe understand why I look the way I do. The results I did get do match up with my bio mom but nothing on father’s side because he isn’t registered.
CookingWithGas, this. “DNA Relatives”.
I’ve read of families being ripped apart because of those tests revealing that someone’s father is not who they believed they were; or some “third cousin” actually turns out to have been a half-sibling; or whatever.
There’s no chance of that happening in my family. I look so much like my father that, when I was in my teens and he a much younger man, people would actually confuse me for him and call me “Mark” (his name, not mine). What’s more, he and my mother have been divorced for five decades, and they hate each other, so if it turns out I have a half-sibling that I didn’t know about (not at all impossible, considering my dad’s fondness for getting him some strange), the earth isn’t going to shatter.
I do have serious concerns about the most private of private things that I possess – my DNA sequence – being bought and sold or, even worse, given to law enforcement to use as they see fit.
That’s the reason I’ve resisted doing one of those tests, and will probably not ever do one.
Here is a story (Washington Post, paywall, may allow a few free articles) about a woman who was surprised. Lives not ruined, but definitely shocking to the families.
TL;DR: a woman meets another woman through a long path of genetic research and finds out their fathers were switched at birth in the hospital.
There is another side to these privacy concerns. Many adults who were abused as children will never be able to prove the abuse or protect other children from their abusers. But by having their DNA loaded on a site like GED Match, and giving permission for Law Enforcement to use it, they just might help another victim put these people behind bars. I’m sure there are quite a few prayers going up to that effect as the data are loaded.
I cried when I read that GED had been bought by a company which vows to refuse all access to Law enforcement. Seriously, how many people want relatives to go around raping and murdering unencumbered?