We did the 23 and Me for our daughter, who we adopted from Hunan, China at 9 months old.

She was left on the doorstep of an elementary school at 1 or 2 days old. She desperately wants to find her birth family - which realistically has close to zero chance.

23 and Me came back with her genetics, but more importantly, identified a ~second cousin (genes showed shared grandparent) in the Netherlands just 4 years older than our daughter.

My daughter is already in e-mail communication with a "relative" in the Netherlands, who was also delighted to find family.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodman:
The same people who cannot replace a broken doorknob or dress properly in the winter ...

????

I'm not sure I even like my family, let alone some unknown people related solely through genetics.

To me blood has nothing to do with family. Family is who you make it. My wife is more family to me than my sisters.

The original intention of 23 and Me was to identify risk of genetic diseases, but the FDA wouldn't let them do that. You can still go to back pages of your report and find SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphism) associated with certain diseases, but it's very hard to do.
The things that are offered up front by 23 and Me are not terribly useful; but my wife and I did it. Yes, the main benefit for the company will be selling their DNA database.

I am a Viking Warrior! I'm gonna run like a lightening bolt from Thor's Hammer!

Some people are curious about such things. I am mildly curious, but not so much as to pay for any testing.

I also have fairly good confidence in the family lore, so I think what I know is accurate enough. My dad traced back through our family name for 400 years or a little better, so I know that our ancestors on that line are, in fact, English. My mom (and her father before her) has made contact with distant cousins in Wales, but that only required going back four generations from me, so that was no trick.

Who knows, maybe all the rest of my ancestors (which is most of them) don't come from Germany. But they all had German names, and up until two generations ago all lived within about 200 miles of each other in the heavily German parts of eastern Pennsylvania, and had since before the Civil War.

But people are curious. They enjoy that sense of tribe. Or dressing up in kilts, or whatever.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
But people are curious. They enjoy that sense of tribe. Or dressing up in kilts, or whatever.

Dressing up? I love my kilt. Keeps things cool.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
The original intention of 23 and Me was to identify risk of genetic diseases, but the FDA wouldn't let them do that. You can still go to back pages of your report and find SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphism) associated with certain diseases, but it's very hard to do.
The things that are offered up front by 23 and Me are not terribly useful; but my wife and I did it. Yes, the main benefit for the company will be selling their DNA database.

They got nailed by the FDA because they were making diagnostic claims without the data/studies to support the claims. You cannot make a claim unless you have the data to support it. The main benefit is to use the residual DNA to make a better test, not sell the anonymized database. What they do now I consider as Facebooky, in the future I predict (as sequencing gets cheaper) that companies like this will actually be of medical benefit in the diagnosis and monitoring of various diseases.

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:

quote:

Originally posted by Woodman:
The same people who cannot replace a broken doorknob or dress properly in the winter ...

????

quote:

Originally posted by entropy:
They're all giddy to find out they are 1/1000th Upper Mongolian sheep hearder, but seem to miss the point (to me at least) that someone is mining data on them and their future offspring.

To me, it is the displaced priorities. But ya know? It's probably as much to do with me getting older and "not getting it", just as everything I did when 23 years old was exciting and cutting edge. Preserving and improving my environment, as well as planning and being prepared for the future, that was for other people to worry about.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Some people are curious about such things...

I also have fairly good confidence in the family lore, so I think what I know is accurate enough.

I'm one of the curious ones, but I don't have much confidence in a portion the family lore. We're waiting to get the results for my mom through the Ancestry.com DNA kit. Family lore is that I have a great-great-great grandmother who was a Catawba Indian. It's a nifty story, but I don't think it's accurate--it'll be fun to find out. It seems every family in the South claims to have some Native American ancestry. My cousin will be brokenhearted if we don't.

quote:

Originally posted by IrishWind:


Dressing up? I love my kilt. Keeps things cool.

If you want to wear a skirt, who am I to judge?

I gave my wife a kit for her birthday. She was adapted. An arranged deal where she was handed over in the hospital and didn't realize she was adapted until about age 15 or 16. She tried to find info on her natural parents, but hit a wall, and didn't want to spend money for someone to track them down.

It was interesting to see her genetic background.