Warning on Ancestry (and other) DNA tests?

[MLMshouldbeillegal]

Ancestry, My Heritage and the other DNA testing companies are all pushing their tests as the ideal Christmas gift, and they are cheaper than ever. Ancestry had a black Friday offer for £50, My Heritage even cheaper at £39.

AIBU to think these tests should come with a wee health warning? That although it's marketed as a "find out your ethnicity" tool, in fact it might reveal some long-hidden family secrets?

I have tested with Ancestry and uploaded my data to other sites too. No surprises on my tree, matches with distant cousins who all fit into the picture as I know it. But I also go genealogical client work and I'm currently working with a man in his 70s who was given one of the tests for father's day back in June and is trying to process the fact that he is not matching with other descendants of his grandfather. Or at least the man he thought was his grandfather. So in later life, he's trying to come to terms with his much loved grandfather, who his father absolutely adored, is probably not his biological relative. It's a lot to deal with.

The testing companies really push the "find out if you're part Viking, part Native American" in their marketing but that aspect isn't really very accurate - My Heritage says I'm >2% Iraq/Iran/Turkey and I'm definitely not. Ancestry is more accurate given what I know about my tree.

Taking one of these tests could open up a whole can of worms in terms of relationships in the family, in this generation or further back with people who are long dead, and who you can't get answers from. For some people it can be a lot to process and I dont think the implications are properly laid out.

Agreed. A friend bought one for every member of her family as a Christmas gift!!
But I have an adult cousin who doesn't know that her dad isn't her birth father. It would be catastrophic to find out without him getting a chance to tell her first.
Very dangerous!

Several years ago I was building a family tree on Genes Reunited and I got contacted by a woman who ended up being my half sister. My mum had her at 16 and gave her up for adoption. Absolutely no one in the family knew (grandparents had passed away by this point). So that was a shock!

@MLMshouldbeillegal

I don't think people shouldn't do them, *@TreeSmuggler*. I do think though that the risks need to be clearly spelled out.

I understood those risks and implications which was why I was happy enough to go ahead and submit my DNA for testing.

OK but if you understand, why assume everyone else getting the test can't understand and consent also?

I have a horrible feeling my DFIL might find out his brother is in fact a half brother and both parents are dead so couldn't even try and find anything out! I told my DH it was a bad idea (they all wanted to do them). DH wanted me to do one but I don't want to do it because I don't want to find out anything that could cause massive upset, I would rather be blissfully ignorant! People should be more careful!

@PinkWednesdays

My Heritage says I'm >2% Iraq/Iran/Turkey and I'm definitely not

But how do you know? Less than 2% is really small, so either it goes back many centuries that you haven’t identified yet, or a male ancestor isn’t actually your ancestor?

Well the discrepancy between estimates on two separate websites is the big clue that My Heritage is probably wrong saying I have 2% middle eastern.

These are autosomal DNA tests which look at your DNA from both parents. Autosomal DNA really can only take you back 6 to 8 generations at the very most as beyond that the percentages of DNA are so tiny. Also because of the way DNA recombines - you won't have exactly 25% from each grandparent - by the time you get back to several times great grandparents there might be no detectable DNA link at all.

Without getting too technical, the better option here is for men to take a Y DNA test which traces the son to father link. Because Y doesn't mutate much between generations, it can go back very far indeed.

I sincerely hope that is a typo for public.

Ooops! Yes, typo for public.

A friend of mine found out that he had a daughter he'd never known of. He couldn't be happier .

My mums did, literally said something along the lines of finding skeletons in the closet.

God, hopefully the adult DS of a friend of mine never does one. His dad is not his bio dad, and he has no clue!
Even if he read a warning I don't think for one second he would think that would be him. He has no reason to think his dad is not his bio dad.

I had one for Xmas last year. I have spent nearly 20 years on my family tree and have a huge worry of that if one person is not correct, then huge swathes of it could be wrong, so it's put me off doing it a bit. I should sent mine off.

My brother did one. All fun and games until he was contacted by someone who’d been adopted and was trying to locate her birth mother. Yes, our mum’s cousin. What a ruckus. All the decisions about whether to help, how to help, and what to say/divulge. Not so fun. He agreed to send a letter from the daughter to the mum. The daughter told him that the mum wrote back saying “I don’t want to know you.” So now we all know that as well. The daughter is in a different country and, coincidentally, our aunty is there too, so that’s been a nice outcome - for her to meet someone connected.
I agree that the “a bit of fun” should be tempered.

I'm often shot down on mumsnet as being a tin foil hat wearer but don't do these tests!! They give all your DNA data to a private company and very alarmingly with your Genome they'll know all your genetic disorders etc. When it comes to health insurance / travel insurance they'll void it if you have an underlying condition and don't declare it. I KNOW there's the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act prevents insurance companies obtaining genetic information but yeah like companies don't sell your data...

I agree it’s not appropriate present and should only be done if you’ve chosen to. I had no idea they did the family testing before reading it on here so it’s probably true that their general marketing isn’t geared towards that, I don’t know what happens when you actually sign up though.
Personally I don’t want my DNA on some private companies register and won’t be partaking!

I would like to do one because I have so many ethnicities in my family.
Neither parents or grandparents came from the same 2 countries.

However I really don’t want to be contacted by anyone. I am NC with my family and I have done years of work in making myself untraceable.

BTW if you do any sort of investigations into your family tree then you are bound to find something distressing or potentially distressing. I've found out that my dad and his older brother don't have the same father, other aunts/uncles have had stillbirths, my grandmother's first husband died of syphilis, another ancestor was transported for having sex with a sheep(!), another was found guilty of manslaughter, another was sentenced to death for theft. And lots more. I'm just waiting to find the witches in the family.

If anyone does their family tree you really have to be prepared for shocks/surprises.

I will do the DNA BTW as l can't find my grandfather by the usual routes.

It is something you purchase.
No requirement to
Surely that when you purchase you know what you are buying - trying to find out information about your family history, so surely you must know that you may find out information you didn't previously know and yes... that may be surprising / upsetting etc

Perhaps they just come with a warning...

YOU MAY FIND OUT SOMETHING YOU DID NOT WANT TO KNOW!

I've not taken a test but based on what I was told at school I'm related to Adam AND Eve!

And they got a shout out (whatever that is) in the bible!

loislovesstewie: very true.

Kenny pretty sure you can have anonymous settings.

I have a positive story about Ancestry.

DH’s parents divorced when he was very young and his father moved on and appeared to have made no attempt to stay in contact. DH knew his father had remarried and had a daughter but no details of when or where. I had bought us both a DNA kit, out of curiosity, and very quickly he got result indicating a very close match of a sibling with a potentially shared parent.

We thought long and hard about whether to contact this woman as we didn’t want to open a can of worms for her as we weren’t sure if she even knew of her older brother’s existence. Adult DD was very keen and composed a beautiful email explaining the background but that if she didn’t want to make contact, we would understand too. By sheer coincidence, DH’s half sibling was going through exactly the same dilemma and her email literally crossed with ours. All the generation that had been involved in the originally break up had died so we felt the time was right.

We’ve met up and gained another branch of the family. Everyone gets on so well and it’s actually spooky how parallel our lives have been without knowing each other. We also discovered that DH’s dad had tried on many occasions to contact him but had been prevented by circumstances so sadly, he never got to know of his two grandchildren.

The ethnicity has been a bit off though. DH’s grandmother was definitely Spanish and there is a clear family line plus photos etc but his DNA says he has only Northern European and no Southern European ancestry whatsoever - which we know isn’t a fact,

AIBU to think these tests should come with a wee health warning? That although it's marketed as a "find out your ethnicity" tool, in fact it might reveal some long-hidden family secrets?

Because it's painstakingly, blindingly obvious?

I love all of this stuff, absolutely fascinating. I've started helping others with their family trees and DNA results as a hobby.

The ethnicity stuff is very unreliable. And there's a bit of a misunderstanding that it tells you where your ancestors came from. That's not quite true, it tells you where people with common DNA as you are currently living. They use a panels of people who meet certain geographical requirements, as representatives of certain areas. Ancestry has me pin-pointed accurately to one area of my home county.

I would be delighted to know a family secret/discovering true genetics. Honesty at last!

Yabu it all comes with disclaimers and warnings. So people should use their own brain and decide what they wanna do/know.

I agree. I'd only give a gift of one of these to someone that had either asked for it and was aware of what could happen, or was certain of at least their immediate family history.

A friend of mine was adopted by family members after her mother gave her up, but she has known both her parents throughout her life, although never lived with them. She got an Ancestry kit for Christmas, just to find out her ethnic makeup really and it was exactly as she expected.

Shortly afterwards she got a notification of a match that said she was a cousin of someone, or possibly (more unlikely) as a half-sibling. New contact got in touch with her and it transpired that they were half siblings. After her mother had given my friend up for adoption within the family, she'd had another daughter a couple of years later who she'd given up for adoption to the authorities. The new sister knew nothing of her family history, and her bio mum is long dead, but she has been able to get in contact with her other half siblings (there are a few!) and a great new blended family has emerged.

In my friend's case it didn't come as a huge surprise given her mum's past, but in other families that could have dropped a massive bombshell.