My Ancestry DNA kit arrives tomorrow...

[Arlanymor]

... I was inspired to buy one because my late uncle was really interested in genealogy and did a lot to track back his family line - this was before DNA tests were commercially available. I have often thought how interesting it would be to pick up where he left off and a random conversation with a BT engineer (!) a couple of weeks ago convinced me to do it. Obviously - and egotistically! - the starting point is me and working out what my initial results tell me. I think something like 80% Welsh, 20% English - but with some Irish chucked in for good measure - just based on knowing where great and great-great grandparents came from. If you've done it, do you have any advice on next steps? I know our family are on Ancestry and I will now have my own log in. But I am very much a novice. If it turns out I am 99% Viking I may have to talk to my parents (!) but truly I am just interested in tracking a trail back through history. I used to work in archaeology, so I've always been very interested in this area.

DM has been doing our family tree for 40 years, as well as my SIL's and my DH's.

We started DH's as his late father was adopted at birth, and his Stepmum was born out of wedlock and never knew who her father was. MIL's came back with around 10 or so half brothers and sisters, as well as easily then finding out who her birth father was. He was an American airman and seemingly got around a bit! 😅She's never wanted to do anything with the information, other than know where she came from.

For FIL, we managed to find his birth mother and two half siblings. I have even spoken to the daughter of one of the half siblings.

We cannot get anywhere near close to identifying the birth father though. BIL really wants his birth GP to be Italian so he can get Italian residency!!! 😆

It's fascinating stuff and honestly, none of us from whichever family have the desire to upset/disrupt anyone's lives, but I can see how it can happen.

It can become incredibly time consuming once you go down the rabbit hole of DNA matches, and it quickly becomes addictive.

Enjoy! 😁

But you might get close matches, if not half siblings then half-first and second cousins, which make absolutely no sense. Ancestry is pretty accurate at that level, they will be close relatives of some description. It's not hard to see how it can turn a person's perception of their own family and forebears upside-down.

I’m so sorry this has happened to you. Its an awful situation for you to be in.

Two of my new found half siblings found themselves in the same situation. My sister (I don’t refer to them as half siblings) was told by her grandma shortly before she died that the man who had brought her up wasn’t her ‘real’ father, it was someone else entirely, a man called ..,…,..

Then just two years ago a young lad of 21 contacted me and said we are related but I don’t understand how. Anyway I had a look at the information and i could see there was something not quite right about it so I didn’t reply to him. Instead, I did some investigation which included copies of his dad’s birth certificate and the marriage and death records of his paternal grandparents. It was obvious his granny had had an affair with my birth father and her husband had brought my birth father’s child up as his own. To this day I’ve no idea who knew what and I eventually replied to my nephew saying given his age I would prefer him to talk to his dad before anything else. My nephew is also autistic, high functioning and that was another reason why I decided against discussing anything else. I found that information on his FB page and as I’m also the mum to someone on the spectrum I knew I had to tread very carefully with his emotional and mental health. I have never heard from my (half) brother so I’ve no idea what happened when my nephew received the last message from me and truth be told I’m letting sleeping dogs lie. However, if he ever wanted to contact me I’d welcome him into my life with open arms just as I’ve done with all of the others. My birth father on the other hand has never been man enough to own up to his children. He’s an absolute disgrace and I’m happy I’ve only been in contact with him 4 times in 50 years.

"Nothing can be done with DNA other than the two things I've already mentioned"

I haven't quoted the entire post because it is quite long, and the 'two things' the pp mentioned were: identifying people via their DNA (eg crime) and for finding & confirming family links on sites such as Ancestry and elsewhere.

There are other things that can be done with DNA, one of which is something a life insurance broker friend of mine told me. Your DNA can contain markers showing inherited traits with regard to your health, and whether you are more likely to develop life-threatening illnesses. Should your DNA become available to insurance companies (by fair means or foul, or indeed changes in the law), this could have adverse consequences on your ability to obtain any kind of insurance or loan. You will be deemed too high a risk, and even if they allow you to take out a policy, there will be many exclusions and the premiums would be astronomical. My insurer friend was not in favour of voluntary DNA testing.

On the other hand, finding that health information out early might save your life.

One more thing - for the OP really. This genealogy board has a lot of experienced genealogists on it who really know their stuff, and many of them have been conducting research for years before the explosion of online data now available. Much of that data has been transcribed from handwritten records by people who may not be all that familiar with the language of the records they are transcribing. There's an awful lot more to family history research than collecting Ancestry DNA matches and linking to other people's trees.

Regarding insurance-it’s based on risk factors and you pay accordingly. So if you take out a policy knowing you have higher risk factor than you are revealing that is fraudulent and immoral and hikes up premiums for the honest customers.

Like you I’m waiting for the results of my spitty tube to come back. I’m interested in my origins and feel ok about any new discoveries as my parents have passed. Interestingly I have been researching my family tree for years and was contacted by a random Australian telling me my grandfather committed bigamy in the 1920s. It was good to be able to tell her that I already knew thanks to the 1911 census and a US marriage certificate. Good luck with your search OP. Hopefully you’ll receive some fascinating insights 😊

Yes I know it is. You've missed the point, which is that if insurance companies get their hands on your DNA, they might start using that to calculate your risk factor, to your considerable disadvantage.

It is fairly patronising and rude to insinuate that I am opening up a cupboard of skeletons. I know my family ten times better than anyone on here and it was the relentlessness that was upsetting and actually verging on abusive. I’m not doing anything wrong, not remotely. Few people were giving me the benefit of their experience, most of them were trying to shill a random podcast. I start a light hearted thread and I get scare mongerers who refused to take no for an answer the first time I said it. An avalanche of self-righteous pomposity, with a few chinks of light from decent posters - on both sides of the fence (although last time I looked this wasn’t AIBU and I wasn’t asking for opinions) - of course there are people who have had bad experiences. And I am so sorry that they have. But it’s a bit like posting you’re going on holiday to Tenerife and have everyone who has ever had a bad experience in Tenerife piling on. Fair play if my post was asking if it should do it. But it wasn’t, was it? I stand by all of my posts on this thread, I didn’t do anything remotely wrong and it’s completely fine, normal, reasonable and rational to call attention to the pile on.

Thanks lovely! My spitty tube has been received so results pending in six weeks! I’ve also done a fair amount of paperwork before getting to this point - we’re all very boring! But that’s not a bad thing! I am very interested in where we might all originate from back across centuries. Dad is Welsh but his dad was from Somerset, so there will be some English in there. Mum is Welsh and all of her family as far back as I could trace - we have a great, great uncle called Merlin! But I think her grandmother was Irish - Mullins - so we’re probably spread across the UK like a margarine family! Thanks for your lovely message xxx

You do seem a bit over invested. It’s just a rough guide to your matches against other people who have been tested. It’s not like they have the blueprint for TRUE WELSH BLOOD and test you against it. You’re just another mixed Northern European. You talk as if Welsh and English are different species. It’s just geographical variance.

Over invested how? I don’t need to be related to Owain Glyndŵr. There are differences between the English and the Welsh - we’re not Anglo Saxon for a start. Not right or wrong, just different. Seems like you have more of a chip on your shoulder than I do. I literally said my dad’s family are from Somerset… which the last time I looked was in England. Or did they move it?

I'd say it's more like posting you are going to Tenerife and people pointing out that the entire island is a giant volcano. Chances are it won't go off when you're there, but there's no harm in knowing, just in case. 😁

@Arlanymor of course there are people who have had bad experiences

None of my (half) siblings all born to different mothers over the years have been a bad experience. They’ve enriched my life with love and shown me just what I’m capable of as a human being. There existence also proved I was right about my birth father since I was a little girl - that he was horrible, and seeing him only twice in the last 50 odd years was a very wise decision. It also takes a lot for someone to be able to clean up their birth father’s mess and to validate siblings who grew up with stigma attached to their existence because of gossip. I love my siblings and when people ask me but what would your (dead) mum say about this, and the fact they’re in your life, my answer is very simple - I’m my mothers daughter, she made me who I am.

Right now I’m on day 10 of a two week holiday in my country of birth staying with my (half) brother and sister in law. We’re very happy together.

Hmm, but volcanoes give signs that they are likely to erupt don't they? So according to that analogy, where are the signs that me spitting in a tube might implode my family..? There are none, because we're very boring and we talk to each other. The likelihood of anything odd coming up will be going back literal centuries - which is ironic as the last time there was a volcanic eruption in Tenerife it was 1909!

I think you have a very healthy attitude. Enjoy your trip.

I wouldn't worry too much about skeletons in the cupboard. I did mine and at first seemed fascinating but now it's very restrictive without paying a subscription fee. There used to be weekends with free unrestricted information but now everything is locked. I know I have German ancestry, but this hasn't shown up on results. Not sure of the reason. My daughter is known to have Spanish/French ancestry, did show Basque at one time, then disappeared. We just saw it as a bit of fun, nothing else.

Totally agree with you. I'm not remotely worried about skeletons, but amazing how many people are worried on my behalf. Without knowing me from a bar of soap! It's interesting, but it won't be life-defining!

Mt Teide usually erupts around every 50-70 years, so it is now long overdue for another one.

Which I already knew and is why I mentioned it in the first place.

It's not though, that's not how volcanoes work. It's really outmoded idea that volcanoes have to erupt at certain intervals. Yellowstone being an excellent example - I think the longest interval between eruptions has been about 700,000 years? It's old-fashioned thinking - volcanology has moved on massively since the notion that pressure building means that volcanoes are overdue eruptions. Science is much smarter now. Plus as I said before - there would be signs - increased seismic activity, cracks in the ground surface, smoke... none of these are evident. So not overdue and not due to erupt! This is a good article: https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-recent-eruptions-of-teide/

Not very active is the conclusion.

Is that cute little website the best you could come up with?

By the way, the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma in the Canaries erupted in 2021 just over a week after an earthquake swarm first warned of it. So you don't always get all that much warning.

@chisanunian maybe you should just start a volcano thread. Honestly.

You don’t want to be so open minded that your brain falls out!

To be fair you have to have a brain in the first place.

Germany and France have very restrictive laws around 'recreational' DNA testing, so not many people in those countries do the tests with online providers. So the firms probably don't have the data to compare your DNA to. I don't have any French or German matches come to think of it, an absolute ton from Scandinavia on My Heritage though, bafflingly.