Careful With Those DNA Tests!

[bbb]

I don't care about any of the DNA stuff, I just want to know who my grandfather was and who I might have on that side of the family.  My father was born out of wedlock in 1923, and my grandmother never said anything about his father except "he's out of the picture!"................My father never seemed to care that much about, or was intimidated by my grandmother, but now I'd like to know.

 

Are there any free places to just see birth records while I'm screwing around taking breaks from work (like I am right now) or does anybody have any other ideas like that? 

[RochesterRob]

39 minutes ago, Buffalo716 said:

What do you believe is your ethnicity?

 

i majored in history so have a good grasp of the time frame and European history 

  Nominally German but I certainly have other influences.  My father's family traces to being from near Dresden but not much known prior to that.  They moved to the Sudetenland sometime in the late 19th century but my grandfather was in the US at the start of the 20th Century before WWI and the fallout that came from that.  Mom's side was mainly Irish and English with the Irish side originating from Scotland.  I'm thinking some Dutch and a tiny bit Polish mixed in.  I don't know how the gene strains will all sort out until I see a test and understand that the test is not 100 percent foolproof.  Something tells me there might be a teeny tiny piece of Italian via the Romans sweeping into Britain.  Paternal grandparents would not hear of any talk of being anything besides German and mom's family pretty much talked up the Irish part.  Probably some feud played into anything else not being mentioned much .  Like a lot of families certain things were swept aside for the most positive aspects.

Edited December 7, 2018 by RochesterRob

[Buffalo716]

11 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Nominally German but I certainly have other influences.  My father's family traces to being from near Dresden but not much known prior to that.  They moved to the Sudetenland sometime in the late 19th century but my grandfather was in the US at the start of the 20th Century before WWI and the fallout that came from that.  Mom's side was mainly Irish and English with the Irish side originating from Scotland.  I'm thinking some Dutch and a tiny bit Polish mixed in.  I don't know how the gene strains will all sort out until I see a test and understand that the test is not 100 percent foolproof.  Something tells me there might be a teeny tiny piece of Italian via the Romans sweeping into Britain.  Paternal grandparents would not hear of any talk of being anything besides German and mom's family pretty much talked up the Irish part.  Probably some feud played into anything else not being mentioned much .  Like a lot of families certain things were swept aside for the most positive aspects.

My mother’s side was the same way on her fathers side.. They were 1st generation Germans and that’s all they would hear...

 

i was always curious if there was a Roman influence because our whole german family had brown hair and Amber brown eyes

 

DNA tests pretty much confirmed that they were majority Scandinavian and Slavic from her mothers side

[KD in CA]

16 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

It's also worth knowing these DNA companies share your results with law enforcement, whether you're a suspect of a crime or not. They just add you to their database 

 

And the results have been pretty amazing so far, highlighted by the capture of the Golden State Killer, who had 0% chance of ever been caught otherwise.

[PromoTheRobot]

6 hours ago, KD in CA said:

 

And the results have been pretty amazing so far, highlighted by the capture of the Golden State Killer, who had 0% chance of ever been caught otherwise.

 

Pluses and minuses to everything. They cracked a cold murder case here in NH the same way. But it also means that your genome can be used against you in other ways. Insurance coverage for one. It's a brave new world.

[Joe Miner]

Why are all these stories about spitting in the DNA tubes?

 

That's not how I did it...

[/dev/null]

1 hour ago, Joe Miner said:

Why are all these stories about spitting in the DNA tubes?

 

That's not how I did it...

Was your test administered by a Catholic priest?

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

On 12/5/2018 at 3:17 PM, Nanker said:

NSFW. NSFW. NSFW.

Oh, it's NSFW.

 

thats a classic  

    

 

On 12/5/2018 at 7:28 PM, That's No Moon said:

Your grandparents might have moved from Sicily but given the sheer number of times Sicily has been conquered and held by different groups along with it's positioning along so many major trade routes I think it's extremely that your DNA is a very interesting mishmash.

 

Mine is similar.  My great grandparents were from Cornwall, Norway, and Poland.  Given that Vikings went all over Gods green Earth and Slavic peoples are subject to influences from all over the place, and the Cornish were conquered multiple times as well including by the Romans it's REALLY unlikely that my DNA will pop up as purely Northern European.

 

this can be said for most societies. 

Wouldn't it account for or classify that Sicilians are all of those?  

 

 

Then there is the "theory" that we all evolved from Africa.  So...  there's that too

[KD in CA]

3 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Pluses and minuses to everything. They cracked a cold murder case here in NH the same way. But it also means that your genome can be used against you in other ways. Insurance coverage for one. It's a brave new world.

 

Indeed it is.

 

Ten years ago people figured if you stayed off Facebook your privacy was still intact.  No longer.  DNA, cell phone tracking, web search tracking, credit card purchase patterns, health records, etc., etc.   Big data links it all together and your detailed profile is there for anyone to buy.

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

13 minutes ago, KD in CA said:

 

Indeed it is.

 

Ten years ago people figured if you stayed off Facebook your privacy was still intact.  No longer.  DNA, cell phone tracking, web search tracking, credit card purchase patterns, health records, etc., etc.   Big data links it all together and your detailed profile is there for anyone to buy.

 

I was on a non sports site yesterday and images of Josh Allen kept popping up.  

I ordered a christmas gift online for my daughter last week and a picture of it also popped up.  

 

There's no where to hide except in a cave with no electronics. 

[Saxum]

On 12/5/2018 at 11:40 AM, RochesterRob said:

  Fact is with all the invasions that have happened throughout humanity to all places on Earth the DNA was going to get mixed.  I've heard plenty of stories where some person is very disappointed that they are not what they thought they were.  A nephew of mine thought he had a lot of Italian blood to find out it is around 5 percent of his composition.  No doubt the result of the barbarians sweeping down into Italy as the Roman Empire was dying.  

 

Had a coworker take the test. Found out that he was a child of a Mongol invader and now is trying to see if he is related the Genghis Khan. 

[DCOrange]

This is bringing back my interest in doing a test like this. My family started using one of those ancestry websites to create a family tree a few years back, and among other things, we discovered:

1. Our relatives were pretty much all from England or Wales, so nothing exciting there
2. If we went REALLY far back (like multiple centuries), it looked like we had some Russian and Jewish in us.
3. We discovered that my grandfather is a year older than he thought, that he had a sibling he didn't know about, and that his mother took the kids (including him) and ran, changed their identities, and started a new family. So my family name isn't actually my family name at all.

[/dev/null]

2 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Had a coworker take the test. Found out that he was a child of a Mongol invader and now is trying to see if he is related the Genghis Khan. 

 

I read somewhere that like 1% of the worlds population is descended from Ghengis Khan

 

On a similar note, something like 1% of the American population(myself included) is descended from a Mayflower passenger John Howland who fell overboard during the crossing and almost didn't make it ashore

[RochesterRob]

12 minutes ago, /dev/null said:

 

I read somewhere that like 1% of the worlds population is descended from Ghengis Khan

 

On a similar note, something like 1% of the American population(myself included) is descended from a Mayflower passenger John Howland who fell overboard during the crossing and almost didn't make it ashore

  I've always had this weird feeling that I have some DNA from Julius Caesar.  As far as Howland goes that is a lot of procreating over the years.  Same for Khan.

[/dev/null]

6 hours ago, RochesterRob said:

  I've always had this weird feeling that I have some DNA from Julius Caesar.  As far as Howland goes that is a lot of procreating over the years.  Same for Khan.

That would be odd if you had DNA from Julius Caesar.  His daughter Julia died in childbirth and bastard son Casarian (whose claim can be questioned) died childless

[RochesterRob]

1 hour ago, /dev/null said:

That would be odd if you had DNA from Julius Caesar.  His daughter Julia died in childbirth and bastard son Casarian (whose claim can be questioned) died childless

  More bastard sons?  After all, the Romans loved their orgies.  Also, the world still hummed to a primitive nature regarding procreation then.  I suppose as long as the bastard children did not come seeking an inheritance they had a chance to survive.

[Augie]

For some reason, this doesn’t matter to me at all. I’m here, I am what I am, I have my family, and we all look forward more than backward. Why should I care about that kind of history? I’m not pissing on it, my wife would probably love to look into it (in fact, I think she HAS done this), but personally I just don’t get the fascination. I also prefer chocolate to vanilla, so whatever...

[/dev/null]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits-twins-marketplace-1.4980976

 

[BADOLBILZ]

 

I've enjoyed reading about those cold cases being solved by dopey distant relatives getting DNA tests to giggle about so I encourage you all to keep it up!

[Augie]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

I've enjoyed reading about those cold cases being solved by dopey distant relatives getting DNA tests to giggle about so I encourage you all to keep it up!

 

Amen! If it means justice it’s a good thing.