Anyone here do testing on their DNA, to find out their ancestry? What were the results? I'm just curious, because my wife bought me a "23 And Me" test, for Christmas.. I'll mail it in, today.
I know many of my ancestors, back to the 17th century. No famous kings or knights, alas One of my uncles from my mom's site was very interested in their ancestry. And from my dad's side, there were also some family members who managed to dig up quite some information from archives and church books.
Ive heard good things about it. From what Ive heard, its kind of vague in that it really only tells you which parts of the world your DNA comes from. Ive personally never done it because my ancestry is pretty well-documented but if you just want a general idea of what your background is, it can be helpful. Im lucky in that my ancestry is pretty well-documented and traceable but for some people its not, so its nice to have something that uses your DNA to tell you where your ancestors were from.
My aunt did a family tree on Ancestry.com, so Im like you in that mine is pretty well documented. Mine didnt go back as far as your's did, mine goes back to the 1860s, when my ancestors left Germany, likely during the Prussian unification.
Most of my direct ancestors never travelled more than 150km, it seems. They are all from Germany and the northern Netherlands.
Our adopted daughter did the test recently through Ancestry.com. It is, as you said, mostly a breakdown of origin(s) by percentage of DNA. She was curious, though. The one big surprise was that we had been told that her maternal grandfather was Native American (a fact which was not disclosed until late in the proceedings and almost derailed them). According to the test, though, she is only 4% Native American; the rest was about what we expected.
My sister got one that either National Geographic or the Smithsonian was doing to do a world map. I don't remember the exact results (I would have to ask her or my niece again) but my overall sense is that we were a general Heinz 57 melange of everything under the sun. Which wasn't a huge surprise because my known ancestry is English, Irish, Scottish, Norwegian and German, with the English and Scottish part hailing from the border / Lowland / Danelaw region where waves of invaders settled, clashed and mingled for millennia.
For that, I think its great. Sometimes, its not really neccesary to know who your ancestors were as it is interesting to know where they were from.
Mine basically went from Germany to England, lived in England for about 10 years and then went to Boston, Pennsylvania before eventually settling in Wisconsin, where we've pretty much been for the past 120 years. Its kind of funny how it shows you the map where your last name is most common and its pretty much all western Germany and Wisconsin. LOL
I had this one pop up in my RSS reader a few minutes ago: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/27/best-friends-for-60-years-lear.html
Ours is fairly well documented to the 1600's when the father of our family offended the king and he was killed. His four sons escaped to America where one mysteriously die and the remaining chose to scatter.
My thoughts exactly. Why voluntarily submit your DNA sample? I am sure the government will have full access regardless of the public line. I would consider doing it on my dog, but thats about it.
That and the thought of your genetics influencing your cost of insurance or something silly like that. I don't like giving too much information.
I got the Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas and will be submitting it soon. Not worried about the government cuz I'm to old to care. There have been a bunch of different stories about our family background so I'm curious to see if any of them were close. Also, for those interested, the Mormon church runs a huge, free ancestry program called Family Search. Lots of good stuff there.
I did it through Ancestry.com. Took about 6 weeks to get the results which they emailed to me. I had already done quite a bit of ancestry research and the DNA test confirmed what I already kew. My father's side is all British Isles (primarily England and Scotland) and my mother's side is pure Italian with other mediterranean areas.
My daughter's in laws bought all of the kids Ancestry DNA kits for Christmas. The bulk of their family (kids) are all adopted from various parts of the world so I think it will be a blessing to them to learn where their heritage comes from. They even gave my daughter a kit so it will be fun to see what DNA she has. There better be a whole lot of Polish heritage in there or my wife has some serious explaining to do! I am a retired homicide detective and worry about the DNA database as well but Ancesty and 23&me both maintain independent DNA banks that aren't accessible to the government without search warrants and thus far the courts have been VERY hesitant to issue any warrants. That being said, yes, I don't like a third person having my DNA, just like I don't want someone I don't know having my SSN. The sad thing is, every time I "Google it" I am giving up my privacy rights. An employee of mine did the 23 and Me kit and like one other person said, some of the responses are generic. She was largely Scandinavian but the test couldn't distinguish between Swedish, Financial, Norwegian, Latvian etc.
