It's DNA turtles all the way down!!

sengsational said:
Maybe I'm just being dense, but I can't see how one of my siblings could possibly have a tiny fraction (I think it was less than 1%) of Native American DNA given 2 of 4 grandparents weren't born in the US, and the other 2 came here as kids. How would a Native American get over to Europe in the early 1600's (far enough back to justify the small slice found)? I guess it's possible that somebody came over to the colonies, got knocked-up and the result of that is my great, great, great, great grand parent. But almost all of the other 63 were Scandinavian, and I'm not sure how many of them were visiting the colonies for a romp with Native Americans. So yes, under the NA romp scenario, one sib could have a sliver of NA DNA and the rest of us didn't inherit it. I just don't see that as very likely.
Click to expand...

Squanto was kidnapped and brought to Europe before returning to North America and befriending the Pilgrims. Maybe he left some descendants behind in the Old World.
 
I found a connection to some long-lost second cousins on 23andme. As far as I can figure, their mother/grandmother was the child of my great uncle and his wife, who was adopted by another family when they split up. The cousins were totally in the dark about that maternal origin ... records are spotty and inconclusive (the courthouse burned down in the 1970s) but the circumstances and the DNA link fit. The adopted woman's son and I share a 4% DNA correlation.
 
Katsmeow said:
My DH is really interested in genealogy and tracing his family tree. For many people like him where you go with it are things like comparing trees and hoping the other person may have some information about a particular ancestor that you don't have. DH has often gotten good information from the more distant cousins. And, in some instances he has researched a line more than the other person and can provide information.

In my experience people usually test DNA for one of 3 primary reasons:

1. Genealogy to help find more information about ancestors and to solve brick walls in the tree -- These are usually people who know who their immediate relatives are. They are more interested in their matches who might help them to fill out their tree or solve a brick wall. For example, I am helping someone right now who has an ancestor (a woman) of a particular name and last name (which is fairly common). We can't find this ancestors parents (ancestor was born in 1870s as I recall). But this cousin of mine has several matches who all descend from a particular person with this last name. That gives a clue of where to look to try to find more information. Without DNA we would still have no idea of where to took.

2. Ethnicity/heritage -- This is what Ancestry advertises on TV. And, many people test for this reason. It is actually the least accurate part of the testing. But, lots of people test just for this reason.

3. To solve unknown parentage questions -- This is me! I tested to try to find my birthfather. After trying for many years using traditional search means -- 20 years after I found my birthmother and gained lots of information about my birthfather -- I found him in a matter of hours after I started looking at my DNA results. It isn't just adoptees, though. I've helped a couple of people whose parent was an adoptee. Or someone whose mother was unmarried and they never knew who their father was. Or a grandfather who was informally adopted and no one knows who his parents were, etc. DNA helping has revolutionized this kind of searching. This is the area that I am most personally interested in.



Some of this depends on how you look at it and from what point of view.. When my adoptive mom was 92 there was a sale at Ancestry and I asked if she wanted to test. She wasn't interested in genealogy and she knew who her parents were. But she ended up testing. She had some mild interest in the ethnicity. But the primary reason was to perhaps be able to help someone who was in category 3 find who they were looking for.

The day I got back her results, she got a message from someone who's father tested fairly closely to my mom (the father had DNA tested but had recently died). He was an adoptee. He knew who his birthmother was (she was deceased) but had no idea who his bio father was. He was clearly related to my mom on his father's side. Looking at my mom's tree and census records and talking to her it was fairly easy to narrow his dad down to one of two first cousins of hers (both now deceased). She and I were both happy for her to be able to solve this for this man's daughter and for her to finally complete her search (well, almost complete -- she still had to narrow down which brother it was.
Click to expand...

And,

4. To attempt to locate modern-day relatives, when earlier family members were scattered, separated, or killed by revolutions, wars, starvation, and/or impenetrable political divisions.

Through 23andme I "found" a 2nd-cousin-once-removed in Germany who is absolutely delightful and has become like a sister to me. In the 5 years since we met, we Skype weekly and have traveled annually to spend 3-4 weeks with each other.

Finding her launched us into more online research and finding many contemporary relatives. It's been an amazing experience.

Recently, digging deeper into my 23andme results, a familiar name showed up, that of the 88-year old father of my friend of 30 years. Turns out he is my 5th cousin, which makes her my 5th-cousin-once-removed. We haven't yet found our common ancestor, but I'm confident that will happen. She has a huge family tree which is constantly being updated. I have a small family tree and am always combing through my DNA test results, hoping for a close match. For those identified as DNA-related, I comb through their trees, ethnicities, countries of ancestral origin, etc., and contact those people who seem promising.

omni
 
sengsational said:
Maybe I'm just being dense, but I can't see how one of my siblings could possibly have a tiny fraction (I think it was less than 1%) of Native American DNA given 2 of 4 grandparents weren't born in the US, and the other 2 came here as kids. How would a Native American get over to Europe in the early 1600's (far enough back to justify the small slice found)? I guess it's possible that somebody came over to the colonies, got knocked-up and the result of that is my great, great, great, great grand parent. But almost all of the other 63 were Scandinavian, and I'm not sure how many of them were visiting the colonies for a romp with Native Americans. So yes, under the NA romp scenario, one sib could have a sliver of NA DNA and the rest of us didn't inherit it. I just don't see that as very likely.
Click to expand...

Native American DNA can mean a lot of things, it includes both North, Central and South America. Even tribal North American Indian leaders have brought this up with the controversy with the female Senator from Massachusetts. Most Caucasians carry less than 1% Native American DNA which is 1/1024 or 0.0009765.

Scandinavinan DNA is attributed to the various tribes of the Vikings, and we all know there is proof of Viking settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland. There may have been some "breedable" natives there, also.
 
Years ago, when Nords first had his 23-and-me test done, it was a new and intriguing idea. I fantasized about what I might discover if I had mine done. My grandmother was adopted. I wanted to get mine done as soon as I could afford it, to find out where her birth family was from.

Now I can afford it, but in the years since, I have heard of many possible down sides of having this done. Besides it is probably more fun to dream and speculate than to have this pinned down. Maybe,
 
W2R said:
... I have heard of many possible down sides of having this done.
Click to expand...

I agree the possible downsides outweigh the potential positives. Knowing my luck, my testing would lead to some relative being charged with a horrendous crime and I would end up a family pariah.
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
Squanto was kidnapped and brought to Europe before returning to North America and befriending the Pilgrims. Maybe he left some descendants behind in the Old World.
Click to expand...

Winemaker said:
Scandinavinan DNA is attributed to the various tribes of the Vikings, and we all know there is proof of Viking settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland. There may have been some "breedable" natives there, also.
Click to expand...


Interesting possibilities that I never thought of. So, yeah, it appears there are might have been a case where a Native American and a Scandinavian had a child in the 1600's. Not at all likely, of course, but possible. I prefer to stick with the most likely explanation. But still, I think it would be really cool if I had descended from a kidnapped NA or a NA that somehow ended up hanging with the Vikings that paddled over to Newfoundland (and survived and returned home). That would be awesome.
 
REWahoo said:
I agree the possible downsides outweigh the potential positives. Knowing my luck, my testing would lead to some relative being charged with a horrendous crime and I would end up a family pariah.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

Even worse, my grandma's birth parents might turn out to have had only plain old boring Scottish/Irish/English ancestry, like all of my other ancestors. This way I can fantasize that she could have had some more exotic lineage.

:D
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
Squanto was kidnapped and brought to Europe before returning to North America and befriending the Pilgrims. Maybe he left some descendants behind in the Old World.
Click to expand...
Another possibility is some early Spanish colonizers brought Native American women, or children they fathered, back to Spain.

REWahoo said:
I agree the possible downsides outweigh the potential positives. Knowing my luck, my testing would lead to some relative being charged with a horrendous crime and I would end up a family pariah.
Click to expand...
You mean you're not a family pariah? Interesting ... :D
 
Sometimes a little knowledge can be frustrating.
I was contacted though 23andme a couple of years ago by someone who shares enough DNA with me that we are at least second cousins, maybe first cousins once removed.

But she has absolutely zero knowledge of her forebears. All she knows is the hospital and city where she was born, and that she was adopted almost immediately.

I'd love to help her, but even though I have a fairly good record of my genealogy back several generations, she has no names to go by. I can't even figure out whether the relationship is on my maternal or paternal side.

So far, she has had no luck finding out who her birth mother was, and without that information it's just a brick wall.
 
braumeister said:
Sometimes a little knowledge can be frustrating.
I was contacted though 23andme a couple of years ago by someone who shares enough DNA with me that we are at least second cousins, maybe first cousins once removed.

But she has absolutely zero knowledge of her forebears. All she knows is the hospital and city where she was born, and that she was adopted almost immediately.

I'd love to help her, but even though I have a fairly good record of my genealogy back several generations, she has no names to go by. I can't even figure out whether the relationship is on my maternal or paternal side.

So far, she has had no luck finding out who her birth mother was, and without that information it's just a brick wall.
Click to expand...

I've worked with several adoptees to try to help people search. A few suggestions you might give her in case she hasn't tried them.

There is a mailing list called DNAAdoption that is super helpful. She can get information about by going to dnaadoption.org as well as other information.

Do you know what state she was born in? Many states are starting to open up records. If she can't get her original birth certificate under state law, most states have a procedure to get non-identifying information. That is very helpful to get.

It should be fairly easy to figure out if she is related to you on your maternal or paternal side. Look at the matches that you and she have and common and see if they are on your maternal or paternal side. With a tree and that close a relationship you can probably easily help her to figure out which of your grandparents she is related to. That should help narrow it down.

If you are still in touch with her, I would be willing to try to help her.

Also, if she has not done so she would upload her DNA to gedmatch genesis and should test with Ancestry. Ancestry has a much larger database than 23andme.
 
Katsmeow said:
That is not quite the way this works. Here is an article that has a pretty decent overview:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/12/17957268/science-ancestry-dna-privacy
Click to expand...

There's a lot to not like that your name is grouped in with maybe 850 other 4th cousins in some investigation.

"I did nothing wrong, what do I have to worry about?"

Well, undue scrutiny and mistakes. Your name in a permanent file somewhere, even if "eliminated." It is just a worrying trend.
 
REWahoo said:
I agree the possible downsides outweigh the potential positives. Knowing my luck, my testing would lead to some relative being charged with a horrendous crime and I would end up a family pariah.
Click to expand...

Just make sure the DNA being tested is from your reincarnation as a distinguished nobleman who was also a swashbuckling hero of the masses.
 
Last edited:
JoeWras said:
There's a lot to not like that your name is grouped in with maybe 850 other 4th cousins in some investigation.

"I did nothing wrong, what do I have to worry about?"

Well, undue scrutiny and mistakes. Your name in a permanent file somewhere, even if "eliminated." It is just a worrying trend.
Click to expand...

I will not be providing my DNA to anyone. Bloomberg article, 2/1/19: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-company-is-sharing-genetic-data-with-the-fbi

Major DNA Testing Company Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI

“The decision by a prominent consumer DNA-testing company to share data with federal law enforcement means investigators have access to genetic information linked to hundreds of millions of people.

FamilyTreeDNA, an early pioneer of the rapidly growing market for consumer genetic testing, confirmed late Thursday that it has granted the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to its vast trove of nearly 2 million genetic profiles. The arrangement was first reported by BuzzFeed News.

Concerns about unfettered access to genetic information gathered by testing companies have swelled since April, when police used a genealogy website to ensnare a suspect in the decades-old case of the Golden State Killer. But that site, GEDmatch, was open-source, meaning police were able to upload crime-scene DNA data to the site without permission. The latest arrangement marks the first time a commercial testing company has voluntarily given law enforcement access to user data.” (emphasis mine)
 
Calico said:
I will not be providing my DNA to anyone. Bloomberg article, 2/1/19: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-company-is-sharing-genetic-data-with-the-fbi

Major DNA Testing Company Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI
Click to expand...

Wow, just wow. I respect our law enforcement agencies, but they are run by people who have flaws and sometimes just make mistakes or get tunnel vision.

Another quote below from the article:
“The real risk is not exposure of info but that an innocent person could be swept up in a criminal investigation because his or her cousin has taken a DNA test,’’ said Debbie Kennett, a British genealogist and author. “On the other hand, the more people in the databases and the closer the matches, the less chance there is that people will make mistakes.’’
Click to expand...
 
JoeWras said:
Wow, just wow. I respect our law enforcement agencies, but they are run by people who have flaws and sometimes just make mistakes or get tunnel vision.

Another quote below from the article:
Click to expand...

I respect our law enforcement agencies too. I just want to hold onto the last shred of privacy (or the illusion of privacy!) which remains in this day and age.

It's not that I think there are any serial killers in my family (!) but if these organizations are going to share with the FBI there is nothing to stop them from sharing with other entities as time goes by.

Of course, my extended family has several amateur genealogists who love researching the family tree, so my information is probably out there whether I like it or not. :facepalm:
 
Calico said:
I will not be providing my DNA to anyone. Bloomberg article, 2/1/19: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-company-is-sharing-genetic-data-with-the-fbi

The latest arrangement marks the first time a commercial testing company has voluntarily given law enforcement access to user data.” (emphasis mine)
Click to expand...

I think this is a little sensationalistic. What the article says is really going on is a lot less... fraught. Basically on a case by case basis FTDNA will test DNA samples provided by the FBI and then upload them to its database allowing the FBI to see the same match information that any other user would see. That is the FBI wouldn't see any more information on matches that I see when I log into FTDNA.

The reality is that genetic information can be used to track down someone. That has been true for awhile. It is just that now the mass of evidence is large enough to make this practical. The most famous example is when Gedmatch was used to help track down the Golden State Killer. I tend to think that was a public service.

If I have had my DNA tested and I share some amount of DNA with some criminal where law enforcement has their DNA I don't feel that I have any risk. I mean there is no danger of law enforcement thinking it was me unless I am an identical twin to the person whose DNA they have.
 
Katsmeow said:
If I have had my DNA tested and I share some amount of DNA with some criminal where law enforcement has their DNA I don't feel that I have any risk. I mean there is no danger of law enforcement thinking it was me unless I am an identical twin to the person whose DNA they have.
Click to expand...
If you and your 3rd cousin live in the same area and have similar patterns, you may both be at the top of their list of surveillance for some case. Your garbage may be looked at. You may be followed. I'm sure there are other things happening we don't understand that they can legally do without search warrants.

You will likely be eliminated for that case once they eventually find your DNA through something "discarded." True.

So what if your nephew's bum friend decided that was a good time to throw away his kiddie porn CDs, in your garbage, the day they decided it would be a good time to check your trash in their investigation. Now what? I'll tell you what. You will likely (hopefully!) be exonerated on that, but it will be a painful and possibly expensive process.

Sorry, I'm just not liking this trend.
 
OT - I love your thread title.

So I'm not the only one on a retirement board who likes Youth Fiction. LOL
 
gretah said:
OT - I love your thread title.

So I'm not the only one on a retirement board who likes Youth Fiction. LOL
Click to expand...

Thanks, but I didn't know about the youth fiction reference.

I was referring to the problem of infinite regress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down) as a clumsy way of trying to point out that to find out if I'm Scottish, we compare my DNA to a group of Scottish people's DNA, but we then have to identify that group's DNA, I guess by comparing it to other DNA. At some point you have to say "This person is our base case Scottish DNA".

The thread has gone in different directions, which I haven't minded, but that's what I was thinking with the title.
 
SecondCor521 said:
Thanks, but I didn't know about the youth fiction reference.

I was referring to the problem of infinite regress as a clumsy way of trying to point out that to find out if I'm Scottish, we compare my DNA to a group of Scottish people's DNA, but we then have to identify that group's DNA, I guess by comparing it to other DNA. At some point you have to say "This person is our base case Scottish DNA".

The thread has gone in different directions, which I haven't minded, but that's what I was thinking with the title.
Click to expand...

I believe it was a reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who have been fighting crime in since the 1980's.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
Do you listen to younger people?
2 3
Replies
54
Views
3K
gwill1010
G
Ready-4-ER-at-14
How Kids Develop Knowing the Early Retirement Mentality
Replies
7
Views
569
ncbill
N
P
So disappointed with my Honda experience
2 3 4
Replies
77
Views
5K
Koolau
Koolau
M
Nursing - in the end, is humanity
2
Replies
27
Views
2K
Koolau
Koolau
ShokWaveRider
For Florida Beach Bums Only - How do you like where you live and why?
2 3
Replies
66
Views
8K
Shanky
S

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom