it's more like a truth nest. And I'd imagine it's like the Matrix (since I watched it last night). Do you want to keep living in your world not knowing the truth but being happy or learn the truth which may be worse than your current reality?

Plan B said:

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Old RV Ag said:

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Duncan Idaho said:

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AggieLumberjack said:

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My dad's mother left after he was born and just disappeared. It was a big family secret that no one ever talked about. Sixty years later and my dad does the DNA test and it comes back 25% Asian. We figured it was a mistake. Three years later (this January) he gets a hit from someone that could be a 1st cousin. Through that connection I found out my dad's mom was half Chinese and still alive in Phoenix. I showed up at her door back in April and she denied it even though it was confirmed by her brother. I send her cards about once a month and am determined to break her down eventually.

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This is just messed up. Let the old bat be.

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Wow, I agree with Duncan. Let the lady be - sending her cards is one thing but to have the attitude of "to break her down...." is creepy.

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Totally disagree.

Kick your grandma in the nuts as often as possible, but make sure to send her normal grandma stuff also to even it out.

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She also can take out a restraining order if he keeps harassing her. Yes, restraining orders can be against relatives, which everyone knows, but I'm just stating here so that it's clear, kind of like getting expresswrittenconsent onboard something so there are no misunderstandings. Also, what's the guy's point in doing this - just be a jackass? It's not like it's his mom.

Is there one DNA test more comprehensive then the others?

The article I read this weekend was about a woman who had take on the unofficial position of being her family's historian. The family tree had been started by her great-grandmother who had passed on. This woman had taken a DNA along with some of her cousins. She was also member of one of the online genealogy communities sharing information. At some point she was contacted by another woman looking for information on her family because she had been adopted and some of her DNA matched with the family. Come to find out these two women were half-sisters because their dad had a side piece. The women became friends, but the other siblings were very hesitant to meet their new half-sibling for a lot of reasons. (Ie. "What does she want from us?")

BeastmodeAg said:

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I don't trust people with my DNA.

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Sho nuff!!!!

Flashdiaz said:

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it's more like a truth nest. And I'd imagine it's like the Matrix (since I watched it last night). Do you want to keep living in your world not knowing the truth but being happy or learn the truth which may be worse than your current reality?

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That's basically how I think of it, except you eat the red pill by accident because it was hidden in some food.

More than anything I guess it's nice to know that I have living relatives because otherwise most all of mine died off already, especially the ones who were close.

I've always suspected we were part Black somewhere in history.

Old man does his DNA and we get part Tuareg and part Nigerian.

Not through DNA testing, but through Ancestry.com research... In putting my tree together, I reached a dead end at my Great Grandfather (Dad's Mom's Dad) who I knew immigrated from Norway and then fought in World War 1 for the US, but all records I could find seemed show him living with a family not related to him as a young man. I found another person through Ancestry.com with him in their tree and she was able to fill in the blanks that he was a 1/2 brother of her grandfather (my great grandfather's mother had apparently (re)married before coming to the US) and she even had photos of him in his WWI uniform and a copy of his obituary that she sent me. That family group (my great grandfather and this woman's grandfather) had last lived together in central Minnesota. She lives in Fort Worth, and I'm in Dallas.

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Why do you give a crap about her?

I never understood this. Don't know my biological father. Don't care to. I don't try to get to know random people I see on the street. How's he any different? Medical info would be the only thing worth knowing.

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This! i'm adopted, and medical info is really the only thing I want to know.

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Do they really give good information? I saw someone's results one time and it was full of a bunch of useless information like "you're 95% more likely to sleep on your left side at night". Who cares?

The test like 23 & Me and others are not in depth complex accurate DNA tests. You be better off going to a legit DNA and getting a test done.

Places like 23 & Me don't share their data with independent evaluators, and their methods are not validated by an independent group of scientists and there are not agreed upon standards of accuracy. People have sent their DNA to several of these companies and found differences in the results.

histag10 said:

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Drawkcab said:

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Why do you give a crap about her?

I never understood this. Don't know my biological father. Don't care to. I don't try to get to know random people I see on the street. How's he any different? Medical info would be the only thing worth knowing.

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This! i'm adopted, and medical info is really the only thing I want to know.

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I thought that, then ...

BlueAg2003 said:

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Quote:

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Why do you give a crap about her?

I never understood this. Don't know my biological father. Don't care to. I don't try to get to know random people I see on the street. How's he any different? Medical info would be the only thing worth knowing.

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This! i'm adopted, and medical info is really the only thing I want to know.

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Do they really give good information? I saw someone's results one time and it was full of a bunch of useless information like "you're 95% more likely to sleep on your left side at night". Who cares?

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I mean the only thing family history wise that I would want to know. The person I responded to said they have no interest in getting to know their biological father. I also have no desire to know anything about my biological family other than medical history. Some of it can be told through genetics, and I have done those tests (as in I'm not a carrier for certain things). Some of it can likely only be told through medical records or sitting down with someone.

For us olds

Old RV Ag said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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boboguitar said:

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No because I'm not dumb enough to give a private corp my DNA.

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Are you afraid they're going to clone you and open a theme park of you's?

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You do know that law enforcement can access it without a warrant as you gave it freely. Mistakes are made by law enforcement all the time - do you want to help them increase their chances of making a mistake. They've also used these results in cold cases as they can find out someone wanted is a relative and then catch them.

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23 & Me and Ancestry utilize private databases. They require a warrant before law enforcement can obtain the information. This is similar to how Microsoft or Apple handle your data, it is not publicly available and the police do not have free access without requesting it specifically from the database holder. Of course, one of them can violate their terms of service and hand it over freely without a warrant, but once that happens one time and it gets publicized by somebody's defense attorney, those companies would lose a lot of business. There's little doubt they would comply with a warrant and they don't have to tell you if they get served one.

There is one particular site, and I cannot remember the name off the top of my head, where the entire database IS public and that is the database the police used to catch the Golden State Killer. There's a great book called "Evil Has a Name" that describes their process in detail. It wasn't exactly quick or easy to do.

I'm not sure what the future will hold in terms of police being able to compare your DNA to Ancestry or 23andMe, but it isn't a simple as it sounds right now. A lot of the Fourth Amendment issues are still being played out.

Cactus Jack said:

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Old RV Ag said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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boboguitar said:

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No because I'm not dumb enough to give a private corp my DNA.

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Are you afraid they're going to clone you and open a theme park of you's?

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You do know that law enforcement can access it without a warrant as you gave it freely. Mistakes are made by law enforcement all the time - do you want to help them increase their chances of making a mistake. They've also used these results in cold cases as they can find out someone wanted is a relative and then catch them.

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23 & Me and Ancestry utilize private databases. They require a warrant before law enforcement can obtain the information. This is similar to how Microsoft or Apple handle your data, it is not publicly available and the police do not have free access without requesting it specifically from the database holder. Of course, one of them can violate their terms of service and hand it over freely without a warrant, but once that happens one time and it gets publicized by somebody's defense attorney, those companies would lose a lot of business. There's little doubt they would comply with a warrant and they don't have to tell you if they get served one.

There is one particular site, and I cannot remember the name off the top of my head, where the entire database IS public and that is the database the police used to catch the Golden State Killer. There's a great book called "Evil Has a Name" that describes their process in detail. It wasn't exactly quick or easy to do.

I'm not sure what the future will hold in terms of police being able to compare your DNA to Ancestry or 23andMe, but it isn't a simple as it sounds right now. A lot of the Fourth Amendment issues are still being played out.

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You gotta love Texags. I think it started as wanting to know why she would just abandon my dad and uncle after 7+ years with my granddad. I ended up finding out all I needed from her brother. She was basically a ho. I'll probably let it go now but was trying to give her a chance to reconcile before she kicked the bucket.

My dad found out about a half-sister. Basically his dad divorced his mom, slept around and had a kid that no one knew about (was put up for adoption back in the 50's when no one really asked questions), remarried and had another passel of kids.

Doesn't really matter to Grandpa since he's now up to 8 kids and there's no inheritance anyways. The half-sister was very very grateful to meet her birth family.

My dad has always been cagey about his past so I wouldn't be surprised to find a hidden sibling of my own, but surprisingly nothing yet.

jopatura said:

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My dad found out about a half-sister. Basically his dad divorced his mom, slept around and had a kid that no one knew about (was put up for adoption back in the 50's when no one really asked questions), remarried and had another passel of kids.

Doesn't really matter to Grandpa since he's now up to 8 kids and there's no inheritance anyways. The half-sister was very very grateful to meet her birth family.

My dad has always been cagey about his past so I wouldn't be surprised to find a hidden sibling of my own, but surprisingly nothing yet.

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We had a kind of inverse situation in our family. My dad's first cousin was thought to lead a wild life. He got married, and his mother did not approve of the woman he married. His mother always claimed the woman had a bad reputation. They had a daughter together, but his mother (the child's grandmother) refused to acknowledge her, claiming the son's wife had to have had relations with other men. The son died an untimely death soon thereafter, and his widow had no one to defend her honor. We all could tell by looking at the little girl who her daddy was and that she was legitimate. Grandmother went to her grave denying her granddaughter, but left her a token amount in her will so she could not contest it.

The real unfortunate part is that this distant cousin has been a real pain in the ass when it comes to other family issues because of the way she was treated by my great-aunt (her grandmother).

Burdizzo said:

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jopatura said:

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My dad found out about a half-sister. Basically his dad divorced his mom, slept around and had a kid that no one knew about (was put up for adoption back in the 50's when no one really asked questions), remarried and had another passel of kids.

Doesn't really matter to Grandpa since he's now up to 8 kids and there's no inheritance anyways. The half-sister was very very grateful to meet her birth family.

My dad has always been cagey about his past so I wouldn't be surprised to find a hidden sibling of my own, but surprisingly nothing yet.

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We had a kind of inverse situation in our family. My dad's first cousin was thought to lead a wild life. He got married, and his mother did not approve of the woman he married. His mother always claimed the woman had a bad reputation. They had a daughter together, but his mother (the child's grandmother) refused to acknowledge her, claiming the son's wife had to have had relations with other men. The son died an untimely death soon thereafter, and his widow had no one to defend her honor. We all could tell by looking at the little girl who her daddy was and that she was legitimate. Grandmother went to her grave denying her granddaughter, but left her a token amount in her will so she could not contest it.

The real unfortunate part is that this distant cousin has been a real pain in the ass when it comes to other family issues because of the way she was treated by my great-aunt (her grandmother).

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Real easy solution to that....cut her out of family activities.

She did that on a social level on her own. Problem was some other childless relatives did include her in their wills which included undivided interest in real estate. Those are hard enough to deal with when everyone gets along.

Smartass