DNA Testing

[discoversmatch]

If there is a sibling group of four children and they want to do a DNA test, do they need to do one each or will they all come back the same (they are definitely full siblings).

If they just decide to do just one between them, is it preferable for the male or female sibling to do it? Apparently one or the other may give more detailed results!

Your ethnicity profiles will be slightly different as you would of inherited different genes from your parents and for very distant relatives matches there maybe some differences again having slightly different dna.

Thanks. I can't quite get my head round that if they are full siblings.

If they all had exactly the same DNA they would all be the same sex, have the same hair colour etc. etc. Just like identical twins have.
I am no biologist, but I think of it as each human DNA strand as having two different copies of the gene that gives you hair colour, the gene that gives you foot size, tendency to hate carrots and so on. The egg and sperm have only one copy of each of these genes but the copy they get is random.
So one of your eggs could have likes carrots, has huge feet, has red hair. One could have likes carrots, has tiny feet, has red hair...
Then a sperm has the same mix.
Stick them together - the carrot genes for instance. One kid could have 2 genes for liking carrots and be demanding them for every meal. One kid could have one for liking and one for hating and be indifferent. One would puke at the very sight of a carrot. But they'd still be full siblings.

Thank you.

I'm very naive on this. Will they all come back showing they have the exact same breakdown of ethnicity and also find the same family members?

They will be slightly different. My mum and one of her sisters both did one and were different.

I've no idea how it works. You'd think that children with the same parents would have the same results, but nope!

https://whoareyoumadeof.com/blog/why-siblings-show-different-ethnicity-percentages/

There is no benefit on Ancestry testing to having the male or female line done. If you’re looking for relatives, the same ones as 4th cousins or closer should come up, but with varying degrees of shared DNA, more distant may vary.

Theoretically two siblings could have zero genes in common. They each inherit 50% of their genes from each parent but it doesn't have to be the same 50%.

Say one parent has a brown-eyed gene and a blue-eyed gene. One child could inherit one and the second child the other.

In reality obviously it's more likely to be a mix where you share some genes (but not all) with your siblings. As an exemple, my kids all have blue eyes but their have different textures/colour for their hair (ranging from white blond to golden brown).

If there's any doubt regarding parentage all siblings might want to take the test as you do not, in fact, know for sure they're full siblings...

It depends on your objective. Are you trying to find out "where you're from"? In which case, view it as a bit of fun which will give you a good indication but only going back 200 years.

If you're looking for missing relatives, the best person to test would be a parent who's on the side you're looking at as they'll have double that DNA compared to any of the children.

If it's just the four siblings, it depends on how far removed the missing person is. A grandparent, first cousin, or half sibling ?....any of the four siblings can be tested to pick this up.

Think of salt and pepper.

Mum is salt, dad is pepper. Each child is a mix of both salt and pepper but no matter how hard you tried you would not get exactly the same exact mix shaking salt and pepper pots out..

Genetics is more like doing that with 100s of different salts and peppers.