DNA ancestry testing

philstanbridge · 15 Oct 2016 at 14:49

Has anyone done one of these recently? I'm trying to think of an unusual present for my dad's 70th. There are quite a few companies now offering the same/similar service. Are they worth the money do you think?

Destination · 15 Oct 2016 at 14:58

What exactly do you think they will be able to tell him?
What is the interest here?
What are the claims these companies make?

jmc007 · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:02

My Uncle treated himself to one for His 67th Birthday recently, very interesting; £99 he loved it and all the family can glean from it.

Destination · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:05

What sort of things did it tell him?

jmc007 · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:10

Not a lot he did not already know, though he has researched the family for decades.

Here is a snippet from his blog "The 1% Irish is a surprise: I might have expected 6% from my Ulsterman great great grandfather William O'Neill, but his genes didn't reach me. The 1% from Finland is a very curious discovery, and I don't think I'll ever fathom that one."

http://schifffamilytrieste.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/my-dna-results.html?m=1

Hades · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:10

Quite interested in this. My brother and I were talking about this the other day.

Destination · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:23

Which company was used? How many genetic pairs are they looking at within their processing?

philstanbridge · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:26

Hikari Kisugi said:
What exactly do you think they will be able to tell him?
What is the interest here?
What are the claims these companies make?

We've been interested in our family tree for years, and this is just another step in our road to discovery. I don't know exactly what it will be able to tell him, that's why I'm interested.

Housey · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:29

I was discussing this my wife this very morning. One of our friends bought one for her brother to do some research. First thing he found out, unbeknown to both of them, was they had different fathers. Good start...

Hades · 15 Oct 2016 at 15:50

Housey said:
I was discussing this my wife this very morning. One of our friends bought one for her brother to do some research. First thing he found out, unbeknown to both of them, was they had different fathers. Good start...

Presumably they had a suspicion before the test as I guess two tests would be needed to prove different fathers. If no suspicion existed then a single test for siblings would be enough to give both of them details of their ancestry.

Tephnos · 15 Oct 2016 at 16:00

Did one of these myself recently.

What was more interesting was the raw DNA data they give you. You can put that into promethease and find out what every genotype they test for says about yourself. For example, coffee has never worked on me. Turns out I have a genotype which makes me a slow metabolizer of coffee, that'd explain it.

My ancestry results were unsurprising, for the most part. About over 80% British, the rest was broadly western European (French, German, Scandinavian).... and uh, 1% Japanese. Somehow.

Glaucus · 15 Oct 2016 at 16:04

Tephnos said:
Did one of these myself recently.

What was more interesting was the raw DNA data they give you. .

do the ancestry only ones give you that? I did 23andme. I'm the opposite with caffeine, hyper sensitive and slow to break it down. Which bares out with how I feel after caffeine.

however such tests aren't to be take lightly, very much depends on your personality, what would you do if you had increased risk of some of the more debilitating diseases.

Tephnos · 15 Oct 2016 at 18:02

Glaucus said:
do the ancestry only ones give you that? I did 23andme. I'm the opposite with caffeine, hyper sensitive and slow to break it down. Which bares out with how I feel after caffeine.

however such tests aren't to be take lightly, very much depends on your personality, what would you do if you had increased risk of some of the more debilitating diseases.

Indeed, that is true. I found out that I may need to be on folic acid supplements as my body seemingly has two defective genotypes that when added together means whatever enzyme responsible for B12 production is completely broken, for example. It's a good thing then that I caught it young, before it did any damage! Just need to confirm it with doctor.

Promethease does have a 'magnitude' number alongside the results which tells you the severity of what you're looking at. You'll probably have a ton of genotypes that are 'increased cancer risk', but with a severity of below 3, not really worth worrying about.

And of course, some results are just plain weird. I'm apparently 7x increased risk for balding even though my father is in his 60s and not bald, and both of my grandparents died with full heads of hair! I'm gonna be right ****ed if somehow I lost out on that

And I think so, because I heard ancestry.com is even better than 23andme for putting through that program - way more results.

regulus · 15 Oct 2016 at 18:10

I done it through the National Geographic Genoproject. No interesting results really. Irish from way back as we expected (aren't everyone Irish if you trace back far enough?), pootled around Britain for most our time, jaunts into Europe, Spain, Hungary and Sweden but nothing cooler than that :/

Destination · 15 Oct 2016 at 19:20

Tephnos said:
Indeed, that is true. I found out that I may need to be on folic acid supplements as my body seemingly has two defective genotypes that when added together means whatever enzyme responsible for B12 production is completely broken, for example. It's a good thing then that I caught it young, before it did any damage! Just need to confirm it with doctor.

And I think so, because I heard ancestry.com is even better than 23andme for putting through that program - way more results.

Folic acid isn't B12....
I'd certainly see medical advice.

(-edit, it's been years since I looked at the B vitamin interactions, but I though there was something about large doses of the folate masking the deficiency in B12, thus making the condition actually worse, but ho-hum, as I say it has been years)

Sutters · 15 Oct 2016 at 19:41

i've done one, found out my dads ancestors arrived in boats in 1066.

Housey · 15 Oct 2016 at 20:46

Hades said:
Presumably they had a suspicion before the test as I guess two tests would be needed to prove different fathers. If no suspicion existed then a single test for siblings would be enough to give both of them details of their ancestry.

Ive no idea, I just know a present was bought by sister for brother with good intent and now they have a family issue.

Tosno · 15 Oct 2016 at 20:52

Like 1 in 10 men are rising another man's child without realising.

Jokester · 15 Oct 2016 at 20:53

My dad had two different ones done and came back with different ancestory details.

Make of that what you will.

dowie · 15 Oct 2016 at 21:01

Hikari Kisugi said:
Which company was used? How many genetic pairs are they looking at within their processing?

Hikari Kisugi said:
What exactly do you think they will be able to tell him?
What is the interest here?
What are the claims these companies make?

I'd be looking into the above questions before handing over money and/or paying too much attention to the results of these things. In fact if you were really interested then the below idea would be a good test:

Jokester said:
My dad had two different ones done and came back with different ancestory details.

Make of that what you will.

complete hunch but my prior belief here is that that would likely happen quite frequently with these things and the % from X region is going to be very dubious

Tosno said:
Like 1 in 10 men are rising another man's child without realising.

obviously just betas tho...