A dinner guest the other night excitedly announced that she had had her spit examined closely by this company for only $99, and she learned so much about herself from it. I asked her what she learned, and she went on about she’s 91% this and 4% that, and I wondered (not wanting to turn the dinner party into an inquisition) “Is that so valuable?”
I checked out their website, and still have the same questions. I’m interested in researching my family, and have connected with 120-odd cousins in Canada I’ve never met (but may soon), but I’m not understanding the benefits of 23andme. Can someone explain please what the benefits of a chromosome-analysis are, exactly? What would I learn from this? What WOULDN’T I learn? What can I do with the information?
They have a fairly extensive FAQ section there that explains in detail what you would and wouldn’t learn. If, after reading that, it doesn’t seem to have $99 worth of value to you, don’t sign up.
I received a kit for Christmas and its the best gift I’ve gotten in years. The medical stuff is interesting but the ancestry section blew me away. I’ve not only found 3rd and 4th (and more distant than that) cousins, but in contacting one, we were able to figure out where we were related (we share great great great great grandparents.)
My parents and I did it, and we all think it’s totally worth it. My dad and I are very interested in science and love learning about our ancestries and the medical conditions we have increased and decreased risks for. Our two biggest discoveries:
[ul]
[li]My mother and I have a significantly increased risk of age-related macular degeneration. She’s being followed up by an ophthalmologist, and I’ll be seeing one soon. Considering that one of her sisters is currently suffering from the condition, I’m glad this gave her the impetus to get that follow-up.[/li][li]My mother is a carrier for cystic fibrosis. She had no idea. It’s a moot point now that she’s post-menopausal, but it may explain the stories she heard as a child of some of her ancestors dying young.[/li][/ul]
Your mileage may vary, but I’m enjoying the experience.
Other than just for intellectual curiosity, it depends on what you find out. If find out that you have a gene for a dread disease, your brother is probably going to be very interested in finding out whether he inherited it, too. If your results come out “boring”, he’d probably be less interested.
I’ve been debating doing this as well. I was considering doing it with the Ancestry.com test, but have heard about the tests not being reliable. I probably will eventually, but so far am not in a big hurry for it.
The Ancestry version of the test does not contain the health reports, nor does it give anywhere near an accurate ancestral makeup as 23andMe. I’ve used the three major companies, and 23andMe blows the other two out of the water results wise.
The only problem I have found with 23andMe is that a lot of matches have taken the test for health results only and have no interest in the genealogy aspects, and therefore do not respond to contact requests.
I just got my results.
On the health side, there isn’t much cause for alarm or excitement. For the most part, I’m either pretty close to the average or still low enough that it’s not going to keep me up at night.
On the ancestry side, as I’m predominantly non-European, the ancestry breakdown doesn’t tell me much more than I would get from looking in a mirror. Also, if I understand the math correctly, there’s probably one person who’s a 3rd cousin, a dozen or so who are fourth or fifth, and more who are more distantly related. We’re given the options to PM each other (anonymously or with names) through the site and figure out which genes come from where. If I were more into genealogy, this would be fascinating. A few people have PM’d me. I’ve PM’d a few. I may try to dig a little more into it. I may not.
I’ve spent $99 way more frivolously than this. If any health risks had turned up, it would have been unquestionably worth it. It’s still kind of fun.
They found 990 relatives for me. They tell you what your projected relationship is, the closest of mine were a few 3rd cousins, and a bunch of fourth cousins. From there they go 5th to “Distant” I believe, meaning that at some point we might have shared an ancestor 500 years ago or whatever.
You choose whether or not to make your profile available to relatives, and also what kind of information to share publically (name, location, etc). You can also add a list of family locations and surnames, which helps when tracing your connection to the person (this is how I found the connection to my 3rd (4th?) cousin, through a common last name in our genealogy. We compared notes and our family trees definitely joined up in the mid-1800s.)
The system gives you the option to send a note to a person, and also to invite them to share information (sort of like “friending” someone on Facebook, though you can still choose which info to share).
Also, it’s important to know that women receive less information than men. Since men have an X chromosome from their mother and a Y chromosome from their father, they have a complete DNA picture on both the maternal and paternal lines. Since women do no have a Y chromosome from their father, they instead have an X from their paternal grandmother (and the other X from their mother). So on the father’s side, for women, it’s a less complete picture. However, if you are able to get your father, or a brother or a close uncle, that will help fill in any gaps in your profile.
