BS: Ancestry DNA fun

Subject: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 07:39 AM

I submitted a DNA test to the Ancestry people a few weeks ago and got the results recently. No surprises (48% English, 24% Western Europe, 16% Scottish & Irish, etc.), but it was interesting to see 3% European Jewish in the mix. Armed with this info, I had a nice email conversation with Rob W, my oldest and best buddy (100% Jewish) as follows:

WF to RW: Hi Rob - Mazel tov! Just discovered I'm 3% Jewish. Hi Bro!

RW to WF: Naught boy, sending me an email on a Friday - it's Shabbut! Shall I arrange for the circumsion?

WF to RW: Yes, but only 3% off it, please...

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 07:40 AM

And please excuse iPad typing!

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 07:54 AM

My reserve regarding Ancestry DNA service is who do they share it with.

I know some will say if you have nothing to hide it's not a problem but I can't help but think it may be the start of a very slippery slope.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 08:38 AM

As far as I'm aware, it's entirely up to the DNA holders whether they wish to be connected to or make contact with others sharing part of the DNA. I've spent the best part of 40 years doing my family history - going back to the 14th century in some lines - so I wasn't particularly surprised at the results or have any burning ambition to connect to the 88 4th cousins they've identified!

Interesting to see the odds and ends of the markers, though- 3% Jewish, 4% Eastern European, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 08:56 AM

I was more thinking the authorities.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 10:05 AM

This year my siblings and I are each taking a different DNA test, we're looking for the march across Europe information, the cultural mix, etc. My brother is also interested in finding distant cousins, so between the test my son is taking (we only had one XY rep unless I drafted my son) and my sister (via Ancestry) we should get some interesting maps to share. We already have some fairly extensive genealogical research that was done by my mother and by a cousin of my father's.

This year we're sharing information for the holidays. Amongst ourselves. These companies will let you download DNA results and will let you upload DNA results, so I think we'll have to each decide if there is a site we want to subscribe to for more research and go from there.

We didn't request any health surveys, at least no one has so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 10:27 AM

I was more thinking the authorities.

Which authorities might that be? The Deep State?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 10:39 AM

As long as its for fun because the DNA ancestry gig is a 97% fraud.

The 3% means it takes 33 1/3 goys to make one Jew

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 10:50 AM

Acme's approach is sound enough to be interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 01:17 PM

Don, that is our goal - an interesting exchange of information. A gift for all of us, in particular for the kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 02:49 PM

A gift possibly for the Police to.

Sorry to be so negative but I can't help but think this a backdoor way of gaining personal information.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 06:16 PM

Yup, I'd sure hate for the Gummint to know that I was 3% Jewish. Pretty scary!

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 07:12 PM

at a mere 25% Jewish, I most probably wouldn't have survived under a mid 20th Century German Govt...

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Nov 17 - 09:44 PM

Good ting we don't got a mid-20th Century German gummint now, innit then?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 03:44 AM

excepting... you yanks may be rapidly on the way to a govt that's very similar...????

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 07:14 AM

Pure Staffordshire me. An' I bain't no terrier. Owr kid.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 08:09 AM

Wonner feyt?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 08:35 AM

you yanks may be rapidly on the way to a govt that's very similar...????

No worries - this current gang of assholes are fortunately pretty much inept - can't chew gum & walk at the same time.

;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 10:02 AM

If you are white European you are most likely to have Neanderthal DNA traceable via fore-mothers DNA. More than first realized. For those who fear a Jewish ancestry, shame on you. You are passing a great ignorance of the ages .

Southern and Western European Ashkenazi Jews have been present for at least 2 thousand years. Germanic Yiddish speaking Jews are also very old Ashkenazi Jews.

The IQ of these people are much higher than non Jewish ancestry. I do not know if it is mostly cultural or not. Nor have many Jews organize a system of thinking like Einstein.

Do you prefer a Neanderthal cave man intellect or a Jewish intellect ?
Some of you even look Neanderthal Some of you sound like it.

IQ of the Chinese is also without the Neanderthal ancestry.

All in all it doesn't matter that much with the degree of diversity we have encountered in the blender of time.

Am I a bigot against the Neanderthal? I prefer to think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 10:16 AM

Once upon a time there were clearly NILF.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 11:07 AM

I did mine, hoping for a surprise. All white European (including British), except a small percentage of DNA from the vicinity of Afghanistan. Pretty much boring.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 11:18 AM

Ancestry DNA is pretty much a commercial rip off. Mitochondrial DNA will be revealing

There is no such thing as Afghani DNA any more than there is Texas DNA or Cornwall.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 11:34 AM

I didn't do Ancestry. They map out where in the world your ancestors likely came from. It's about the geography. We just happen to call that place "Afghanistan" now.

Go after somebody else.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 12:04 PM

Ancestry DNA, while not as detailed as more extensive (and expensive) tests, is not a rip off. It gives broad indicators of ethnicity, based on a series of analyses of the sample provided. We have to remember that each parent passes on a random 50% of their DNA to an offspring. And that offspring passes on 50%, etc. So, over time, predominant markers will appear more frequently than less dominant ones.

In my case, my own family research through various family strands, backs up the ethnicity results at a broad level - with one or two surprises here and there. As I said, just a bit of fun.

Gevalt!

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 05:36 PM

I wanted to do it for my wife's 90 year old mother. But I got a resounding no and my mother in law died a month later.

No one is foolish for using DNA Heritage sites, there are better more expensive means that go back further is all.

I'm chicken. I don't want to find out a relation to Gen. Custer or the butcher of Versailles.
I think this is why the quick and dirty geographical methods are popular.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 07:51 PM

I have enough links without spending $$$ on DNA. Because my father came from an area in Pennsylvania where records were kept, I found that some of my family can be traced directly back to New Jersey, Delaware, Mass.   etc., during the early colonies. There are pretty good records of that small group of early settlers, so just by luck I can trace several lines back to England, Scotland, Wales, France, Netherlands... and even to Germany. It seems I am distantly related to a couple governors of Mass. Bay colony (Dudley & Bradstreet) and to Winston Churchill, the Windsors, a couple sheriffs of Nottingham and several other 'names'... almost always by 3rd daughters and 4th sons....etc. *IF* all the links I found prove accurate, a couple lines go back to the 1200s & 1300s.
   It seems once you get 'X' far back with some prominent name, there were good records going back further. In my Pennsylvania links, 3 or 4 names were the ones which mattered. Axtell, Clutter, Wade, Sanders,..and away we go!

This page http://ancestortracks.com/WashingtonCo1856.html got me to this map http://ancestortracks.com/WashingtonCo,Barker_1856/MorrisTwp.jpg, which has actual locations of some of my family.

If you know (in the USA)(and in the UK) where various ancestors are buried, there are cemetery photos and links to help.

All of this is, of course, a departure from 'fun with DNA', but genealogy in general is fascinating if you are fortunate to have a starting point.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 09:04 PM

It turns out I now know more about my 25% Polish Jewish ancestory than I do about my 75% Anglo Saxon British

My sister had a fad back in the 1990s to do that part of the family tree,
making contact with 'family' dispersed all over the world.
I had nothing to do with it, because my sister was an obsessive serial faddist - another 9 day wonder I thought...

A few years ago when I was sorting out her effects after she died,
I rediscovered the links to the extensively documented Jewish branch website going back a couple of hundred years or more.

By comparison I know nothing about my 'real' family earlier than my grandparents and one great grandad.

Apparently, according to my late dad's unreliable accounts we may have had more than our fair share of clergymen,
and a murderer who fled to America.....?????

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 17 - 09:19 PM

Bill, Governors sound good. Were there any villains?
I wouldn't want to find any Confederates in my tree. i.e. slaveowners

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 13 Nov 17 - 06:29 AM

Unless you trace your maternal line back you can never be certain, and even then you get skeletons in the closet, such as grandchildren being passed off as children to avoid social stigma.

Just saying,

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 17 - 08:43 AM

Don... I had ONE slaveowner... on my mother's side. In 1840 in Virginia was this Abraham Martin

Of course, in the early 1800s there 'could' have been others in the Virginia area, but almost no others seemed to even be able to afford it.

On my father's side, I find no evidence of any slaves... and in Penn., that was the norm.

As to villains... the 'Indians' considered Thomas Pratt to be one! A couple of others were in 'land disputes' in the colonies and very quaint records of the resolution appear in some old records.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Nov 17 - 03:32 PM

On the hilarious side I find it, well, hilarious, that the officially White Racists, i.e. neo Nazis have long made an issue of racial 'purity' with no real definition of what that means for whites other than they follow the old 'one drop' rule of ANY smidgen of black heritage rendering the whole descendant 'black' (including I surmise even a sideways glance). This has been ill enough defined that when the recent news of Neanderthal DNA admixed to Cro-Magnon practically everywhere in Europe versus relatively pure African heritage came about, the racists reversed their position and now evidence of Neanderthal input renders one's white antecedants more credible. Nothing could indicate the pure bullsh*t of the white racist position more nakedly, yet they flip the message and go right on with their true believer attitudes.

On the serious side I believe we are in early days in understanding that any of this means. I believe the results and finding of the Ancestry DNA folks and their competitors is a lot less scientific than all of us suppose and doesn't really define us as we might think.

I enjoy watching the PBS show 'finding your roots' but I think we should watch it for entertaining and freeing up our minds rather than deep human/ historical insights.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: michaelr
Date: 13 Nov 17 - 07:42 PM

I certainly found it entertaining that Bill Maher and Bill O'Reilly are related.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 02:53 PM

Yeah, and s'posedly Larry David and Bernie Sanders, distantly, but as I writ already, I take it with a humongous pinch of sodium chloride.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 04:05 PM

Thats what I've been saying. Blacks do not have our cave man blood.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 04:06 PM

Episode 2 of season four (this year) featured Fred Armisen, Christopher Walken, and Carly Simon and was frankly the most fascinating hour of television I can remember watching in a very long time. (You may have to poke around or scroll down to find the particular episode I'm referring to).

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 12:16 AM

If you're of European ancestry, you're descended from Charlemagne.

Mike

https://www.theguardian.com/science/commentisfree/2015/may/24/business-genetic-ancestry-charlemagne-adam-rutherford

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: Thompson
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 11:24 AM

If you're Irish you're likely as not descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages (and eight mickeys, from the way he got around).

The worry isn't that you have Jewish blood, or Neanderthal blood either - I'd be glad to find both. The worry is that whatever your DNA is, it lays you open to others' bigotry.

But I have a sneaking wondering? what if you sent identical DNA samples to one of these companies from different names and different poste restante boxes??would you get the same results?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 10:14 PM

Sounds like a job for Consumer Reports. . .

"As you can see from our May issue cover, we had identical twins send in their inside cheek smears to iDivineNewAge to provide genotype information. TwinA signed his application Mohammed Ebony X and TwinB signed his application Henry Ford Chase IV. TwinA received a pie chart indicating he was Bantu with Seminole rising. TwinB received a form from Ireland demanding an apology for the Viking raids."

Subject: RE: BS: Ancestry DNA fun
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 10:48 PM

Are all worldwide gingers related...???

Btw.. There's a creepy 1970s porno movie* set free on the dodgier reaches of the internet,
every 'performer' in it is a ginger, and they all look somehow related...!!!???

[*Viewed for scientific research purposes... obviously.....]