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23 and Us, or, We are family? Really........?

Last September while we were visiting in Hawaii with Sandy, Justine, Sean and Brandy, Sandy had given myself and Stacy as well as Sean, a 23andMe kit to send off on our return home. So Stacy and I got home and after a few days decided to go for it to see what came of it.
We registered online and over two days we did the spit and sent off the little tubes of DNA to wait for the results. 
At the time, the online connection said to wait at least 4 to 6 weeks after the email notification of receipt of the samples to start getting results. Some of Stacy's results came in somewhat early of the 4 weeks but the 'meat and potatoes' results and my results took the entire 6 weeks to the day to come back.
This also was when one could still get the genetic health profile which to me you should take with a genetic grain of salt, but enough people got scared and took it as their genetic bible of what their future must be holding, so the company got in hot water for those results and were ordered to stop releasing that info, for now anyway.
Hopefully sometime down the road all that info will be available to all that want to see it. They have constant warnings that it is not for health diagnostics, it is, like all things when in future tense, genetic "possibilities" not predictions of what to expect.

The results were surprising to say the least!

In my results I was somewhat surprised to find a 98.2% overall European composition consisting of 56.7% nonspecific Northern European, 12.1% nonspecific European, 27.6% British and Irish, 1.2% French and German and 0.6% Scandinavian ancestory. 

My US connection, which I was always told was supposed to be approximately a third of my heritage turned out to be a meager 0.3% Native American.
 
So Cherokee,........ Scotch........... and Irish,........nope! 
Well,..........maybe,........ but not to the degree I'd always thought, or they would have thought either.  The results further go on to say I have a 'percentile' result that traces back to Scottish royality. Stacy wasn't happy about that, but I can easily assure her it changes nothing. 

Another big surprise was the new 989 (and counting) DNA relatives I now have. I'm calling them the "percentiles" because that's all they are to me. While fascinating, an unknown person with 0.65% shared DNA and 4 segments doesn't get me exactly all warm and fuzzy. And the number grows as more people get their own DNA testing and the segments link us in the databases. 

I read on the site that families have reconnected, stories have merged, family mysteries have been solved, I believe it too. I may find out more about some of my new 'relatives' over time, I have been in contact with one so far, they are looking to iron out their own family lineage with the differences thrown in through their DNA tests. 

You may notice I didn't list Stacy's results, well they're hers and maybe I could get her to post something about it. 

I think that if you can get this done do so. The companies involved in doing the testing generally go for the heritage aspect of it, and I don't think there's anything wrong in that. I read some of the 'foil hat' society of everyone is out to get them, and their fears of all this DNA information being used to classify humanity and inslave us all, but I disagree. I think it will be the rise of the robots and "Battlestar Galactica" before that were to happen. 

Till next time, Tad



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