Comments for The Genetic Genealogist

Comment on A Review of AncestryDNA – Ancestry.com’s New Autosomal DNA Test by So what

So what — Sun, 05 May 2013 06:30:02 +0000

I concur with James. Nobody likes to be the bastard child, consider themselves the bastard child, or even mention the bastard child. My own mother is a bastard child, but nobody in the family likes mention this, my mother included. You really do see what you WANT to see when you think you look like someone else, but it could be misgivings. It’s upsetting that your senses deceive you and more upsetting that your truth has been a deception. For people “totally” certain of their ancestry, why even bother with these tests? Even if your mother is from Germany, her mother could have been from Denmark, and her mother from Sweden. Just look at the similarities in language and it reflects the gene flow.

It apparently hasn’t been stressed enough that these maps are not complete. When more data arrives, it will possibly change. Read, people!

Comment on The Genographic Project Announces Geno 2.0 by Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 05:29:57 +0000

Shame there’s not an option to use your FamilyTreeDNA test results in this project. A friend of mine spent over $500 for the Comprehensive Genome test and would love to be able to use the results for this project instead of having to spend another $200 if he wants to join this one.

Comment on Family Tree DNA Offers 12-Marker Y-DNA Test for $39 (Limited Time Only) by Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:59:39 +0000

The sale is over, but the new price is $49, only $10 more than the sale price and much lower than the regular price.

They also have a sale going on other products until tomorrow (April 25th) that offers significant savings.

Comment on The Genographic Project Announces Geno 2.0 by Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:37:07 +0000

I was excited by the Genographic 2.0 offer. I ordered my kit in early December and mailed back my swabs for testing before Christmas. I eagerly awaited the 6-8 weeks to get my results…and waited…and waited…and waited. It has now been 5 MONTHS and the online results page says my analysis is only 60% completed. I contacted National Geographic for a partial refund because of the exceedingly long delay, but they refuse to issue one. This is a new and apparently popular test. I would urge people to seek out another DNA testing company than National Geographic, their Genographic Project, and their contractor Family Tree DNA unless you are willing to wait half a year or more for your results.

Comment on A Review of AncestryDNA – Ancestry.com’s New Autosomal DNA Test by james

james — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:59:40 +0000

To all the people wondering why you don’t match what you thought you should match, perhaps somewhere along the line your mom, grandma, etc. cheated on their spouses, that would throw your research off a lot. Perhaps someone was adopted, perhaps a daughter had a bastard child that was raised by the grandparents as their own (this happened in my family).

Bastards & infidelity will really throw off your testing!

Comment on Thought For the Day – Crowdfunding Genealogy by Elizabeth Khan

Elizabeth Khan — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:02:29 +0000

This is a fantastic idea! In fact, I suggest to clients, working on large projects, that they consider a crowdfunding platform to raise funds from the entire family.

I recently discovered another platform that I found interesting, and which I am thinking of somehow incorporating in our menu for clients!

There are so many useful applications to raise money for genealogy projects that could benefit a large group of people.

http://www.gofundme.com/

Comment on A Review of AncestryDNA – Ancestry.com’s New Autosomal DNA Test by Angel

Angel — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 04:14:19 +0000

I’m an adoptee searching not for relatives but for ethnicity. I think I would have still done the test anyway (seems like I paid more than anybody else and feeling kind of stupid for it), but I also wish I had seen all this before diving in. I’m willing to more or less accept the results I got, but knowing that I could have 0% of one parent’s ethnicity, or even only have 100% of one *part* of one parent’s ethnicity is so useless to me when I’m trying to find out who I am/what I’ve come from, and the “distant relations” are just teasers as far as I’m concerned (no closer relations have been found, but again, I’m not looking for relatives). I guess it’s not possible but I’d really like a test that could do just like the last 500 years or so – which seems to be all the people who even have 16 generations of family charted care about, too. I know, ethnicity doesn’t work that way. Still, I do feel like I might as well have rolled the dice and chosen an ethnicity or combination of ethnicities, since immediate family members have so little to do with it… I don’t see why it can’t show all the latent ethnicities, too? Does it work *that* way – if we don’t take on the ethnicity of a parent, aren’t we at lest a carrier?) The way it works now, this test only leads to more questions, no answers.

Comment on A Review of AncestryDNA – Ancestry.com’s New Autosomal DNA Test by Eva

Eva — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:13:04 +0000

A bit of good news.

Ancestry.com has made DNA raw data available. I downloaded it today- here’s how it’s done: from your ancestry.com DNA Home Page; click on Manage Test Settings, then click on Get Started in the box marked Download Your Raw DNA data. Follow the instructions from there.

I’m glad ancestry.com finally did this. It restores a bit of faith in their integrity as a data gathering/sharing business. Glad they decided to share!

If I had my druthers now I’m not sure if I’d get the test with ancestry.com, but I got it for $10, the cost of shipping, back when it was in the early beta testing, so it was no skin off my nose…but I was irked when they didn’t share any of the raw data. So, a year later is better than not at all, but still rather slow. Hopefully this is a sign they are learning from their mistakes. As for customer service…meh. I’m glad I never had anything urgent I needed from them.

Best of luck all!

Comment on Ask a Geneticist by Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:38:52 +0000

My son was diagnosed at 18 years old with Crohn’s disease. It may be related to taking Accutaine. Since Crohns is usually hereditary I want to know if he will pass this to his children if he decides to have any.

Comment on Problems with AncestryDNA’s Genetic Ethnicity Prediction? by Ponterick

Ponterick — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 19:06:30 +0000

A reply to ‘# 45 M.Martin’

You wrote that you “feel like I’ve been given someone else’s test results!” since you got the results:
“Ancestry Autosomal DNA test supposedly I am 70% Scandinavian, 23% Eastern European ( which I expected ), 6% Finnish, 1% Unknown.” and you have a documented British, German, Balto-Polish background.

Well, I do not know about the accuracy of the test, but to me your results could actually make good sense (perhaps):
The Baltic people have for thousands of years lived along side with the Finns so the Finnish admixture is no surprise. The high percentage Scandinavian genes may not be that strange since you describe your British forefathers originate from Yorkshire which is a area with very concentrated viking settlement. Viking from all areas of Scandinavia (even from the Eastern side o Scandinavia and in Stockholm there are rune-stones describing how explorers earned fortunes in England plus plenty of artifacts). The name York, furthermore, comes from the Scandinavian Jorevik and there is a huge museum in Central York where you can study the city’s Scandinavian heritage. Most Scandinavians outside the city settled down in areas with poorer agricultural conditions which the former Celtic and Germanic (i.e. older immigrant periods from Dutch-German-Scandinavian areas) immigrants had left uncultivated which can be studied in the village names of e.g. Yorkshire.

Also during the age of tribal movements in Europe (circus 200-500 AD), several tribes moved from Scandinavia into today’s England, Finland, France (the Normans in Normandy), Germany, Ireland, Poland, Russia and Scotland among others. Furthermore the Baltic states have for many hundred years been under German and Scandinavian control which also added to admixtures.

Considerable Viking settlements occurred also in the Irish cities of Dublin and Belfast (a part of the UK).

So, perhaps the 70% Scandinavian result can be explained and plausible to some extend?

Later on during the 13-15th century (German), 16th century (Scottish-Dutch), 17th century (French-Belgian) immigrants came to different parts of Scandinavia making up a part of the present day population.

So, I guess the gene map is more or less a patchwork all over the world.