DNA Test Services

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

I have taken the test along with the rest of our family and I think they are great and recommend them without reservation. Autosomal, MTDNA, YDNA, all of them. Women should want to better understand their matriarchal lineage and men should seek out their patriarchal lineage. That we can is a tremendous blessing if not a modern miracle! Autosomal is irreplaceable in genealogy.

I saw a Science Fiction movie once where a guy shaved his head and every other bit of hair on his body as well as constantly taking tape to his skin to exfoliate in order to try and secure his DNA. In the end even for him it was fruitless. The DNA already out there can peg practically anybody. We take no thought about leaving fingerprints behind or our walk or facial features so why pretend that we can secure our DNA, especially when it is so useful to us to test it?

In fact the safest way to secure your DNA is to own it (it is unique to you).

Let alone the useful information you can glean from it in terms of health effects. Anybody that has taken an autosomal test can upload their raw file to Promethease.com and for $5 find out every relevant thing currently knowable from your DNA. Their site will show you sample reports that might surprise you by what they can tell about you.

You can triangulate using your DNA to find relatives and even phase kits to create kits for people who are deceased (siblings and one parent can compare and almost entirely re-constitute the deceased father's DNA etc...).

Sure DNA will not tell you where you are from since DNA does not imprint on where it has been, but it can give you clues about origins. Also DNA does change over time on some level and can even be absorbed from other people (including children's DNA absorbing into the mother in utero as well as sexual partners).

The field is still young but well enough established that the time to wait is over.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Just search for "twins taking dna tests" and you'll quickly see that these tests are wildly inaccurate and virtually meaningless. More likely they just look up you last name and use that as a starting point and then throw in a few interesting things. It's a scam at this point in the science, at least for home tests.

Last names mean nothing if you are adopted. Also, one can use these tests to find relatives, as the woman in the link did to discover the father of her child:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-find ... anonymity/

The problem may be that we tend to think of nations as ethnicities, but that doesn't work so well in the case of Europe. England had its genetics upgraded by large influxes of Vikings and Irish over the centuries. Southern France is actually more Spanish or Iberian while the eastern areas of modern-day Germany is highly influenced by Slavic peoples. Also, nobody really has an idea of what constitutes "Jewish" DNA. However, if a test says you are Iberian you can figure you have ancestors from Spain or Portugal, at least originally, or Scandinavian means your ancestors originated in what is today Denmark, Norway or Sweden.

The Silk Road began mixing genes so long ago that the definition of the ethnicities anywhere along it's corridors is highly questionable as to what they really are. Then there is Genghis Khan!!!:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/history/ ... modern-men
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/ ... otEMOeUthE
https://bumpreveal.com/blogs/statistics ... escendants

[capctr]

Part of me REALLY wants to do the dna test that would allow me to find my bio parents, if for no other reason than to have a more comprehensive medical history(though it would be nice to finally meet my bio dad-the second handsomest man on earth); the paranoid part of me rants about giving TPTB my dna; the logical part says:"hey genius, settle down. TPTB have had that since you had your first blood test at the doctor's years ago."
So yeah, I am kind of stuck in the land if indecision here. Help a brother out?

[Fiannan]

Part of me REALLY wants to do the dna test that would allow me to find my bio parents, if for no other reason than to have a more comprehensive medical history(though it would be nice to finally meet my bio dad-the second handsomest man on earth); the paranoid part of me rants about giving TPTB my dna; the logical part says:"hey genius, settle down. TPTB have had that since you had your first blood test at the doctor's years ago."
So yeah, I am kind of stuck in the land if indecision here. Help a brother out?

Isn't the Church getting involved in this?

https://www.lds.org/church/news/how-dna ... y?lang=eng

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Part of me REALLY wants to do the dna test that would allow me to find my bio parents, if for no other reason than to have a more comprehensive medical history(though it would be nice to finally meet my bio dad-the second handsomest man on earth); the paranoid part of me rants about giving TPTB my dna; the logical part says:"hey genius, settle down. TPTB have had that since you had your first blood test at the doctor's years ago."
So yeah, I am kind of stuck in the land if indecision here. Help a brother out?

Maybe this will help you out from FTDNA:

Dear Customers:

I am writing to address the news that our Gene-by-Gene laboratory, which processes genetic tests for several commercial clients in addition to all of the FamilyTreeDNA tests, has processed a handful of DNA samples for cold cases from the F.B.I. In many cases, the news reports contained false or misleading information.

Let me start with this categorical statement:

LAW ENFORCEMENT DOES NOT HAVE OPEN ACCESS TO THE FTDNA DATABASE.

They cannot search or “dig through” FTDNA profiles any more than an ordinary user can. As with all other genetic genealogy services, law enforcement must provide valid legal process, such as a subpoena or search warrant to receive any information beyond that which any other user can access.

I have been an avid genealogist since I was twelve years old. FamilyTreeDNA is not just a business, it is my passion. I fully understand your privacy concerns on a personal level.

Law enforcement has the ability to test DNA samples from crime scenes and upload the results into databases, like any other customer can, and it appears they have been doing it at other companies for the past year. The distinction is that, according to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, we expect the FBI and law enforcement agencies to let us know when they submit something to our database. We moved to something transparent, rather than having them work in a stealthy way. Other than that, nothing changed that affects the privacy of our customers.

FamilyTreeDNA has always taken your privacy seriously and will continue to do so. We’ve remained steadfast, always, refusing to sell your data to pharmaceutical companies and other third parties.

One of the key reasons law enforcement wanted to submit their samples to us is the same reason many of you have: out of all the major companies, FamilyTreeDNA is the only one that has its own lab, and our customers’ samples never leave our company.

As previously stated, law enforcement can only receive information beyond that which is accessible to the standard user by providing FamilyTreeDNA with valid legal process, such as a subpoena or a search warrant. Again, this is specified in FamilyTreeDNA’s Terms of Service, just as with all other companies.

ABOUT OUR TERMS OF SERVICE

The Terms of Service were changed in May of 2018 to reflect GDPR requirements, and we informed our customers about the update at that time. Those changes included a paragraph that required law enforcement to receive our permission to enter the database and since it was a part of the overall update, notice was sent to every FTDNA customer. Without infringing upon our customers’ privacy, the language in the paragraph referring to law enforcement was updated in December, although nothing changed in the actual handling of such requests. It was an oversight that notice of the revision was not sent to you and that is our mistake. Therefore, we are reverting our TOS to our May 2018 version, and any future changes will be communicated to you in a timely manner.

This is the May 2018, GDPR-compliant version, communicated to you at that time: “You agree to not use the Services for any law enforcement purposes, forensic examinations, criminal investigations, and/or similar purposes without the required legal documentation and written permission from FamilyTreeDNA.”

WE WILL DO A BETTER JOB OF COMMUNICATING WITH YOU.

I am genuinely sorry for not having handled our communications with you as we should have.

We’ve received an incredible amount of support from those of you who believe this is an opportunity for honest, law-abiding citizens to help catch bad guys and bring closure to devastated families. We want you to understand, as many of you already do, that you have the same protections that you’ve always had and that you have nothing to fear.

We’ve also heard from supporters offering ideas and solutions to make the FamilyTreeDNA experience a more comfortable one in light of this new information.

We are listening. Our plan is to create a panel of citizen genealogist advisors who will work with us as we focus on how to make your FamilyTreeDNA experience the best one available.

Sincerely,

Bennett Greenspan
President
FamilyTreeDNA.com

“History Unearthed Daily"

[Elizabeth]

DNA testing is unreliable and misleading :

Chimerism is a very rare condition where a person is born with not one, but two sets of DNA (genomes). One genome can be found in one region of the body and comprising tissue of certain organs, and the other can be predominant in other organs. Thus, allowing for an individual to have a set of DNA passed to their children that is not the same as the DNA they would provide to be sampled during a DNA test.

Most cases of human Chimerism are caused by a twin pregnancy which, in the very early stages of development, causes the twins to fuse into a single baby.
The phenomenon is called, “The Vanishing Twin Syndrome”. It occurs when one embryo can’t survive and the second embryo absorbs it in utero.
The remaining embryo now has his twin’s DNA, as well as its own, and the two are absorbed into different tissues and organs in the body.

[Fiannan]

Did you know that when a woman gets pregnant she absorbs some of the baby's DNA into her body, thus a woman has the DNA of her male partner all her life? I wonder if this could act as an identification key in the resurrection when a man and woman might have to find each other.

[Sunain]

Do not use any of the DNA test services. Stick to traditional methods of genealogical research. Between the privacy and legal issues, they're not really useful.

Yet another reason to stay away from DNA testing for genealogy.

DNA Databases Are a National Security Leak Waiting To Happen
A private DNA ancestry database that’s been used by police to catch criminals is a security risk from which a nation-state could steal DNA data on a million Americans, according to security researchers.

Security flaws in the service, called GEDmatch, not only risk exposing people’s genetic health information but could let an adversary such as China or Russia create a powerful biometric database useful for identifying nearly any American from a DNA sample.

GEDMatch, which crowdsources DNA profiles, was created by genealogy enthusiasts to let people search for relatives and is run entirely by volunteers. It shows how a trend toward sharing DNA data online can create privacy risks affecting everyone, even people who don’t choose to share their own information.

[Fiannan]

Let alone the useful information you can glean from it in terms of health effects. Anybody that has taken an autosomal test can upload their raw file to Promethease.com and for $5 find out every relevant thing currently knowable from your DNA. Their site will show you sample reports that might surprise you by what they can tell about you.

What do you mean by raw file? When I took a DNA test it just showed my ethnicity results.

[MMbelieve]

Let alone the useful information you can glean from it in terms of health effects. Anybody that has taken an autosomal test can upload their raw file to Promethease.com and for $5 find out every relevant thing currently knowable from your DNA. Their site will show you sample reports that might surprise you by what they can tell about you.

What do you mean by raw file? When I took a DNA test it just showed my ethnicity results.

In 23andMe it’s up in the right corner and you can download your raw data, your dna. I don’t know about ancestry or FTDna

Promethease is pretty cool and all you need to do is save it once they give you your report.