GEDmatch, DNA, genealogy. Help me Obi-wan Slarti

[Notorial Dissent]

Slarti, congrats, my best to you and your new found family.

[Flatpointhigh]

Dipping into family history.

My great great grandfather owned 16 slaves in 1860, ages 75 to 1 year, with 9 under the age of 10 years. 2 slave houses. Probably one of the small "breeder" operations that sold slaves to the larger plantations farther south. Family lore says his 2 oldest sons each bought a slave with their Confederate Army's enlistment bonuses. One survived the war with at least 6 injuries, the other didn't survive. This was North Carolina near Mount Airy, the real-life setting for Mayberry.

Also, the good sister sprung for the DNA testing. Pretty darn white.
IMG_5054.jpg

gotcha beat: According to AncestryDNA, I'm 100% EuroJew, which makes no sense since my father's family were French not Germanic/Eastern European, and there is also Iberian ancestry on my mother's side. I'm getting a fresh test with NatGeo's dna testing. and, I still get asked if I'm passing for white. or Puerto Rican/Domincan.

[Slarti the White]

Umm, so is she the daughter of your mom, or your dad?

Edit: When my best friend from high school got married, his wife converted to Judaism. She also learned to make a damn good matzoh ball soup.

She's my dad's daughter (I have two other half-siblings -- a 41-year-old brother and a 39-year-old sister -- through a third mother), so I'm guessing that I'm not going to get a damn good matzoh ball soup recipe out of it...



I have a 16-year-old niece too. also. and my birth parents gave me the name "David". Now I'm going to go and tell my little sister about Slarti's sordid saga (I'll move any more updates on this over there as well)...

Moar will be revealed.

[Slarti the White]

:sterngard: ,

You've obviously run afoul of one of the classic blunders. No, you didn't get involved in a land war in Asia or go up against a Sicilian when death was on the line, but only slightly less well known is:

Don't argue with Slarti's intuition unless you have the stone cold nuts.

Cultural heritage ain't enough. You have to live being a Jew.

Okay, let's see where I fall according to your criteria...

Of course, that means a lot of suffering,

You are personally aware of just a part of the suffering I've endured over the past couple of years -- which is only the tip of the iceberg. "A lot" isn't very quantitative, but I have certainly come to understand that life is pain and anyone who says different is selling something.

Next.

guilt

My (non-Jewish) father has been wracked with guilt every day of his life because he didn't get to raise me. My mother's parents forbade her to marry him because he wasn't' Jewish. In other words, just by being alive I was causing a great deal of guilt and if you don't understand why that causes guilt for me personally then maybe we need to question your Judaism.

and self-doubt.

This is a defining characteristic for a scientist and a trait that I've actively cultivated since reading the autobiography of Richard Feynman (a Jew, an atheist, and a Nobel Laureate) in high school.

But you have to do more than that.

Oh, I have...

You have to associate with other Jews and run an industry, such as banking, law, television, the movies .. . you get the idea . . .

Well, I'm about to make a move on the pharmaceutical industry, does that count? And I have a Jew as my consiglieri too. also. (as you well know) Not to mention several other of my most senior and respected mentors and advisors who are also Jews.

and go to delis a lot and eat Chinese on Christmas.

I'm totally down with delis and willing to learn to eat Chinese on Christmas.

There are other things, too, but they are sekrit so I can't tell you.

Okay, but I've got some intangibles too. also. Starting with my mother, who was from Israel (so presumably still has Israeli citizenship) and is a lawyer (or should that be "shyster"?).* Not to mention her parents, my grandparents, who apparently had those little tattoos that served as a reminder of their time in Auschwitz during the war.

* Yes, I know, you're very unhappy with how I punctuated that. In the words of George Carlin (quoting Thomas Jefferson), these are my rules, I make them up.

PS: there is something you have to be lacking below the waist, too, if you are male.

Not a problem.

Is that enough Jewish culture for you? I didn't know any of this when I made my original statement, but it sure seems like a pretty strong case to me. What do you think?

[RTH10260]

Dipping into family history.

My great great grandfather owned 16 slaves in 1860, ages 75 to 1 year, with 9 under the age of 10 years. 2 slave houses. Probably one of the small "breeder" operations that sold slaves to the larger plantations farther south. Family lore says his 2 oldest sons each bought a slave with their Confederate Army's enlistment bonuses. One survived the war with at least 6 injuries, the other didn't survive. This was North Carolina near Mount Airy, the real-life setting for Mayberry.

Also, the good sister sprung for the DNA testing. Pretty darn white.
IMG_5054.jpg

gotcha beat: According to AncestryDNA, I'm 100% EuroJew, which makes no sense since my father's family were French not Germanic/Eastern European, and there is also Iberian ancestry on my mother's side. I'm getting a fresh test with NatGeo's dna testing. and, I still get asked if I'm passing for white. or Puerto Rican/Domincan.

Any ancient Moorish Muslim blood in your Spanish heritage ?

[Dan1100]

Dipping into family history.

My great great grandfather owned 16 slaves in 1860, ages 75 to 1 year, with 9 under the age of 10 years. 2 slave houses. Probably one of the small "breeder" operations that sold slaves to the larger plantations farther south. Family lore says his 2 oldest sons each bought a slave with their Confederate Army's enlistment bonuses. One survived the war with at least 6 injuries, the other didn't survive. This was North Carolina near Mount Airy, the real-life setting for Mayberry.

Also, the good sister sprung for the DNA testing. Pretty darn white.
IMG_5054.jpg

gotcha beat: According to AncestryDNA, I'm 100% EuroJew, which makes no sense since my father's family were French not Germanic/Eastern European, and there is also Iberian ancestry on my mother's side. I'm getting a fresh test with NatGeo's dna testing. and, I still get asked if I'm passing for white. or Puerto Rican/Domincan.

My Irish Catholic very anti-English mother had her's done. It says she is almost half English. She said not to tell anyone.

[Flatpointhigh]

Dipping into family history.

My great great grandfather owned 16 slaves in 1860, ages 75 to 1 year, with 9 under the age of 10 years. 2 slave houses. Probably one of the small "breeder" operations that sold slaves to the larger plantations farther south. Family lore says his 2 oldest sons each bought a slave with their Confederate Army's enlistment bonuses. One survived the war with at least 6 injuries, the other didn't survive. This was North Carolina near Mount Airy, the real-life setting for Mayberry.

Also, the good sister sprung for the DNA testing. Pretty darn white.
IMG_5054.jpg

gotcha beat: According to AncestryDNA, I'm 100% EuroJew, which makes no sense since my father's family were French not Germanic/Eastern European, and there is also Iberian ancestry on my mother's side. I'm getting a fresh test with NatGeo's dna testing. and, I still get asked if I'm passing for white. or Puerto Rican/Domincan.

Any ancient Moorish Muslim blood in your Spanish heritage ?

Nah, but we were friends with El Cid, who led a Moorish army while in exile...

[Lani]

I think it was on this thread a couple of years ago when I considered a dna test because of interesting things I learned about my ancestors in the early British colonies. I decided to give my offspring the yes/no on the decision. The answer was no. Now this:

[quote]“We are nearing a de-facto national DNA database,” Natalie Ram, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore who specializes in bioethics and criminal justice, told BuzzFeed News. “We don’t choose our genetic relatives, and I cannot sever my genetic relation to them. There’s nothing voluntary about that.”[quote]
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/sa ... ssion=true

[Danraft]

Yes, we are essentially at the point of inferred genetic data using Slartibartfast tools.
But it isn't a database commonly accessible and will certainly get more accurate with time.

I'm in the process of learning the basics of causality and data analysis and am impressed by its utility.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I don’t need a DNA test to know I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on this day 38 years ago. Basking in pride and joy!

[Maybenaut]

I think it was on this thread a couple of years ago when I considered a dna test because of interesting things I learned about my ancestors in the early British colonies. I decided to give my offspring the yes/no on the decision. The answer was no. Now this:

“We are nearing a de-facto national DNA database,” Natalie Ram, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore who specializes in bioethics and criminal justice, told BuzzFeed News. “We don’t choose our genetic relatives, and I cannot sever my genetic relation to them. There’s nothing voluntary about that.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/sa ... ssion=true

I have no interest in having my DNA tested. My grandparents were all from the same small town in Ireland; beyond that, meh.

Having said that, though, I may be in the minority on this, but I am really not bothered by law-enforcement’s use of a subpoena to access the records of private DNA genaeology companies. They do that all the time in other contexts — phone records, bank records, etc. And I’m not bothered by a DNA company’s decision to share its information with law enforcement, so long as by doing so they don’t violate any term of the contract between them and their customers. I mean, seriously, you put your DNA out there, you lose control over it. Also, when you put your DNA out there, your’re also putting a bunch of information about your relatives out there. And I’m not really bothered by the idea of a “national database,” to the extent that people voluntarily submitting their DNA to private companies has created one. I can’t remember the exact stats, but I read a couple of years ago that the federal government had some 30,000,000 arrestee and offender profiles in the CODIS system. Add that to the 15 or 20 million profiles the Buzzfeed article says the private companies has... that’s a lot of folks. Even accounting for overlap, that’s more than 10 percent of the population. But I’m totally OK with law enforcement using that information as an investigative tool to narrow down a pool of suspects.

I realize this may sound inconsistent with my railing in the Hacienda Healthcare thread about law enforcement obtaining the DNA of all the male employees without individualized suspicion, but there really is a difference. The problem with the warrantless collection of DNA is that it is invasive. But I really don’t think a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their very identity. That’s why law enforcement does not need a warrant to take fingerprints, voice exemplars, writing samples, and photographs—they’re not invasive there is no expectation of privacy.

[NMgirl]

I don’t need a DNA test to know I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on this day 38 years ago. Basking in pride and joy!

[Foggy]

I don’t need a DNA test to know I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on this day 38 years ago. Basking in pride and joy!

They know what causes that now.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I don’t need a DNA test to know I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on this day 38 years ago. Basking in pride and joy!

They know what causes that now.

My obgyn offered to explain when I became pregnant with my SURPRISE second son 10 years later! (He was due on April 1).

[AndyinPA]

I don’t need a DNA test to know I gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on this day 38 years ago. Basking in pride and joy!

Congratulations to you and Happy Birthday to him!

[RTH10260]

Twins get some 'mystifying' results when they put 5 DNA ancestry kits to the test

Geneticist at a popular ancestry company admits it's 'kind of a science and an art'
One set of identical twins, two different ancestry profiles.

At least that's the suggestion from one of the world's largest ancestry DNA testing companies.

Last spring, Marketplace host Charlsie Agro and her twin sister, Carly, bought home kits from AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, and mailed samples of their DNA to each company for analysis.

Despite having virtually identical DNA, the twins did not receive matching results from any of the companies.

In most cases, the results from the same company traced each sister's ancestry to the same parts of the world — albeit by varying percentages.

But the results from California-based 23andMe seemed to suggest each twin had unique twists in their ancestry composition.

According to 23andMe's findings, Charlsie has nearly 10 per cent less "broadly European" ancestry than Carly. She also has French and German ancestry (2.6 per cent) that her sister doesn't share.

The identical twins also apparently have different degrees of Eastern European heritage — 28 per cent for Charlsie compared to 24.7 per cent for Carly. And while Carly's Eastern European ancestry was linked to Poland, the country was listed as "not detected" in Charlsie's results.

"The fact that they present different results for you and your sister, I find very mystifying," said Dr. Mark Gerstein, a computational biologist at Yale University.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna- ... -1.4980976

[RTH10260]

One Of The Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working With The FBI
The move is sure to raise privacy concerns as law enforcement gains the ability to match DNA from crime scenes to a vast library of possible relatives.

Salvador Hernandez
BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on January 31, 2019, at 8:52 p.m. ET

Family Tree DNA, one of the largest private genetic testing companies whose home-testing kits enable people to trace their ancestry and locate relatives, is working with the FBI and allowing agents to search its vast genealogy database in an effort to solve violent crime cases, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Federal and local law enforcement have used public genealogy databases for more than two years to solve cold cases, including the landmark capture of the suspected Golden State Killer, but the cooperation with Family Tree DNA and the FBI marks the first time a private firm has agreed to voluntarily allow law enforcement access to its database.

While the FBI does not have the ability to freely browse genetic profiles in the library, the move is sure to raise privacy concerns about law enforcement gaining the ability to look for DNA matches, or more likely, relatives linked by uploaded user data.

For law enforcement officials, the access could be the key to unlocking murders and rapes that have gone cold for years, opening up what many argue is the greatest investigative tactic since the advent of DNA identification. For privacy advocates, the FBI’s new ability to match the genetic profiles from a private company could set a dangerous precedent in a world where DNA test kits have become as common as a Christmas stocking stuffer.

The Houston-based company, which touts itself as a pioneer in the genetic testing industry and the first to offer a direct-to-consumer test kit, disclosed its relationship with the FBI to BuzzFeed News on Thursday, saying in a statement that allowing access “would help law enforcement agencies solve violent crimes faster than ever.”


https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sa ... gy-privacy

[Northland10]

I think it was on this thread a couple of years ago when I considered a dna test because of interesting things I learned about my ancestors in the early British colonies. I decided to give my offspring the yes/no on the decision. The answer was no. Now this:

“We are nearing a de-facto national DNA database,” Natalie Ram, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore who specializes in bioethics and criminal justice, told BuzzFeed News. “We don’t choose our genetic relatives, and I cannot sever my genetic relation to them. There’s nothing voluntary about that.”

I have no interest in having my DNA tested. My grandparents were all from the same small town in Ireland; beyond that, meh.

I had DNA testing done, but the main purpose at the time was to find a way through a 1720 wall in my direct male lineage. Various researchers, including myself, have been trying to get past an ancestor who was born in 1720ish Virginia but we cannot figure out the parents. DNA from enough direct male descendants, along with others, may help find a link to an earlier ancestor.

One result was confirmation that a family with the same name that tended to follow the same migration paths probably do not converge with my ancestors for a while back in England. Some people tend to list them as directly related to my ancestors. The DNA has proven that is incorrect (which also follows the known records).

[kate520]

The only reason I would want to test my DNA at this point in my life is to make sure I’m not related to any trumps.

[DejaMoo]

There were a couple of articles sometime last year about how even the DNA testing companies' staffs admit that the retail-level DNA testing they do is neither consistent nor substantially accurate: more fun than factual. Said articles included accounts by staffers telling how certain customers, dissatisfied with their DNA test results and insisting they couldn't have any African/Irish/Whatever background, would demand a do-over. The company would send them another kit, they'd do another test with (usually) different results and interpretations. Some of the customers still weren't satisfied, at which point the company's interpretation of the next test would be adjusted to align with the customer's expectations.

From that I concluded the retail-level DNA tests are about as functional and factual as those Name-A-Star businesses that will let you pick a star in the sky and name it whatever you want.

At some future point detailed, accurate DNA testing will become affordable to the masses; by that point, the masses may have wised up and realized that providing personal DNA samples to third parties to use as they wish isn't such a smart idea.

[vic]

There were a couple of articles sometime last year about how even the DNA testing companies' staffs admit that the retail-level DNA testing they do is neither consistent nor substantially accurate: more fun than factual. Said articles included accounts by staffers telling how certain customers, dissatisfied with their DNA test results and insisting they couldn't have any African/Irish/Whatever background, would demand a do-over. The company would send them another kit, they'd do another test with (usually) different results and interpretations. Some of the customers still weren't satisfied, at which point the company's interpretation of the next test would be adjusted to align with the customer's expectations.

From that I concluded the retail-level DNA tests are about as functional and factual as those Name-A-Star businesses that will let you pick a star in the sky and name it whatever you want.

At some future point detailed, accurate DNA testing will become affordable to the masses; by that point, the masses may have wised up and realized that providing personal DNA samples to third parties to use as they wish isn't such a smart idea.

I don't know how accurate the origin stuff is generally, but I tried both 23andMe and Ancestry, and the results were pretty much what I'd expect. My brother also took 23andMe, and there were only minor differences in origin (components on the order of 0.2 %). Both tests identified relatives (with different last names) which I knew, but more importantly to me, Ancestry found a 2nd cousin I never knew. She mentioned in a message where she lived, and I said that I had once visited some relative who lived in a house near there when I was about 7 years old; the only thing I remembered was that there was a hand pump for water in the kitchen by the sink. She said that was her grandfather's home!

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I don't know how accurate the origin stuff is generally, but I tried both 23andMe and Ancestry, and the results were pretty much what I'd expect. My brother also took 23andMe, and there were only minor differences in origin (components on the order of 0.2 %). Both tests identified relatives (with different last names) which I knew, but more importantly to me, Ancestry found a 2nd cousin I never knew. She mentioned in a message where she lived, and I said that I had once visited some relative who lived in a house near there when I was about 7 years old; the only thing I remembered was that there was a hand pump for water in the kitchen by the sink. She said that was her grandfather's home!

Good to see you posting, vic!

[RTH10260]

Aunt gets a DNA test, police connect a family member to a murder far away

[MsDaisy]

Is DNA Left on Envelopes Fair Game for Testing?
The genealogist’s dream of testing old, spit-laced artifacts is coming true—but raising questions about who controls dead people’s DNA.

Last fall, Gilad Japhet, the founder of a DNA-testing company, got up at an industry conference to talk about his grandmother Rosa’s love letters.

Japhet’s company, MyHeritage, sells cheek swabs to people interested in their family history. It now has 2.4 million people in its DNA database, making it the third largest behind 23andMe and AncestryDNA. But Japhet wasn’t satisfied with only testing the living; he wanted to test the dead. Which brings us to the love letters—or really, the envelopes they came in.

The envelopes were sealed by his grandmother, and the stamps on them presumably licked by her. “Maybe our ancestors did not realize it,” Japhet said, a smile growing on his face, “when they were licking those stamps and the envelope flats, they were sealing their precious DNA for you forever.” Then he made the big announcement: MyHeritage would soon begin offering DNA testing on old stamps and envelopes.

He didn’t stop there. If you can test the letters of your grandmother, why not those of historical figures? Japhet is a prodigious collector of autographs, and he revealed that he possessed handwritten letters from Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. In an intriguing if provocative PR move, he promised that “their DNA is coming to MyHeritage very, very soon.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ce/583636/