A Strange Thing To Advertise

[albaqwerty]

as an xmas gift surely?
30% off. (think it was 23dna.co.uk)
A DNA kit ''an ideal family gift'' according to the blurb on the advert !!

Naturally, all family members sit around the xmas table and by the time it comes to the cheese and crackers, no-one is related :-)))

[Prudie]

I have just this minute seen that ad! There was an article on BBC news the other day about the present that broke up families as people were finding they weren't related to both parents after all!

[marval]

I don't think it is a gift I would want.

[Peter Pedant]

// the present that broke up families as people were finding they weren't related to both parents after all!//

in the good old early days of kidney transplants, one genetics trial on HLA ( big for determining success of transplants ) was abandoned on the grounds that 50% of the kids didnt belong to one parent.

one of my in laws got terribly upset because an uncle turned out to be a half-brother. My own view was so what?

[Peter Pedant]

There was one long lost prog
where an onlooker in a cafe
ahahahaha there was one where the orphan loner was told by a stranger in the street where she MIGHT have come from: "your half-sister still lives where she always did"

and another was told by a stranger - well your mum was always up the road with the road sweeper - we sort of knew why because new children kept appearing

and she shocked asked how he knew so much about randy Mrs so and so and he replied

because I am your half-brother

[pastafreak]

I'm the odd one out
I'd be quite happy with that.
In fact I've bought a Family tree DNA kit for myself. Nothing odd if the recipient has expressed a desire to look into their roots.

[Prudie]

I'm with you pasta, if you recall I got it for my daughter and there was a surprise in the results (no Italian) and I certainly fancy it for myself.

[tamborine]

my nephew did this & discovered his dna didnt match his father, my brother. We still dont know who sired the nephew :(

[Old_Geezer]

Amazing gift. Let a commercial company gather info on your DNA to use as they wish. Inform your relatives the company now has personal info related to them whether they like it or not.

[pastafreak]

I don't know where you get your information from, O_G, but this is what one company says...

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/legal/PrivacyForAncestryDNATesting

[1ozzy]

The results of the testing could be inserted into the Christmas crackers.

A whole new style of crappy jokes, hee, hee.

[1ozzy]

Sort of "who's yer Daddy"

[woofgang]

I rememeber reading somewhere years ago that in theuk the percentage of children who were unknowingly not related to both of their parents was about 8% and this figure was more or less the same throughout society

[1ozzy]

Imagine what it must be like in the deep south of good 'ole USA
;-)

[emmie]

my father always said i wasn't his, lovely man, or not.....

[zebo]

Woofgang, I read that quickly as being not related to either parent!

[Peter Pedant]

yeah Grauniad has
you will have encountered many estimates, from 9% to more than 30%. The idea that almost one in three people might be the result of what we biologists rather matter-of-factl

30% apparently some old bagga at a conference in 1973, just tossing (!) it out as a one liner

the difficulty ( upping the standard of AB) is that the population you are testing it from are selected ( they kinda wanna know or suspect) and not the general population and arent representative

[theprof]

As an Oxbridge biochemistry professor, I often get asked my opinion of these kits as I'm told I know a thing or two about DNA. My advice is to stay well clear of them. The majority of labs use autosomal DNA testing (atDNA) for genealogical DNA testing. It's far from foolproof and in Europeans, tends to indicate that a high number of tested individuals are of Scandinavian origin. The reason this happens is beyond the scope of my reply here, but I can say that the state-of-the-art equipment that we use at uni has refuted a high percentage of these results when we performed a project to examine their accuracy. Haplogroup analysis is very tricky when used to determine the ethnic origin of an individual or the likely continent he or she came from. Lineage has always been best done with mtDNA or yDNA analysis. Using mtDNA analysis to make assumptions on distant ancestors is absolutely useless as the DNA will not have been inherited. I'll call it a day here as I'm getting too technical and my glass of Christmas Port has diminished!

[Baldric]

Mrs B and myself both had 'Ancestry' tests done a while back just to see what thay could confirm about our origins, going on known information they were quite accurate, not a great deal of Scandinavian by the way.
I have had a few people contact me since on email saying we could be cousins etc. I have done 60+ years not knowing them so they just get deleted.

[theprof]

As OG has said, the issue of privacy is a serious matter. The companies concerned will tell you they are legally obliged to retain records of clients. In these days of cyber security risks, one would ask if these decisions are likely to compromise an individual in the future.
Between two and three years ago ( I won't be more precise), I was asked to endorse a series of these kits, which could have been very financially lucrative. I can tell you I declined.

[-SharonA-]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6535547/Man-ruins-Christmas-buying-entire-family-AncestryDNA-kits.html