Ancestry.com To Add DNA Test Results 223
Spamicles writes "For less than $200 and a cheek-swiped cotton swab, you will soon be able to add DNA results to family tree Web sites. Ancestry.com plans to launch the DNA testing product by the end of summer, offering customers the possibility of finding DNA matches in the site's 24,000 genealogical databases. By taking a simple cheek-swab test and comparing results against DNA profiles in a test-results database, virtually anyone can uncover genealogical associations unimaginable just a few years ago. Users can easily connect with and discover lost or unknown relatives within a few generations, as well as gain insight into where their families originated thousands of years ago."
This has been available for a while (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
If it would help make the streets safer for our children, why would anyone have a problem with that?
Sorry, full of the snark this morning.
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
If the bum were to leave their DNA at a scene, you can clear your own name by giving a blood sample and just claiming that ancestory.com screwed up the samples.
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Informative)
OTOH, as long as a doctor is the one obtaining the DNA, there is a degree of doctor/patient confidentiality. On the gripping hand, the courts generally will still issue a subpoena to get DNA from medical records (again, with reasonable cause), and I suppose it's no different in this case.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or they could just ask RIAA to borrow their pretexting experts.
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:5, Informative)
Now... if you have no alibi for the time they're placing the crime at, and no good explanation whatsoever of why your DNA would be there... yes, the police may investigate you a little closer. Still doesn't mean they'll just skip the whole investigation and trial thing and just lock you up 'because the DNA said he did it'. If they tried, then lawyers these days are quite savvy enough to come up with some reasonable explanation of why your DNA might be there (even if you can't), and the cops, too, know they'll need a little more than that to convince a judge/jury.
I find automated bits and pieces just as scary as the next guy (probably a bit scarier because I've been detained at 3 separate events for carrying a camera with a suspicious looking lens (it's a fisheye) - one of which was a bomb scare - so yeah, I know how it feels to automatically be 'suspect'), but let's not blow things way out of proportion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was this problem of the lab using incorrect techniques and even worse apparently just saying the DNA evidence matched if the prosecution really wanted it too.
DNA evidence can be manipulated fairly easily apparently. It took close to a decade before they got caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's the worry, I think: law enforcement agencies could take a crime scene sample, run it against the entire Ancestry.com database, and decide that whoever comes up with the closest match must have done it.
The police can't even do this with their own database yet. The administrators of the DNA database only provide names for exact DNA matches. One of the network news shows (Dateline, 60 Minutes, etc) had a piece not too long ago where the police submitted DNA from crime scenes and found the database
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if doctor-patient confidentiality holds up against a subpoena with respect to physical evidence so much as things spoken between doctor and patient, but I could be wrong.
Still, this isn't particularly recent news. Ancestry.com has been promoting DNA testing for quite a while. I don't know if they had any particular "produ
Re: (Score:2)
It's 2007, FBI is irrelevant. Just issue a DMCA takedown notice for your DNA and crime clues to them and they gotta comply.
If they don't, sue their asses. That'll teach them. Amateurs.
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This has been available for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, but if you get someone with enough similarities to suggest a familial connection, you can go interview them about their family.
"Mrs. Scharffenberger, do you have any close relatives who live in the Mendocino area? Do you know where they were Saturday night?"
Re: (Score:2)
The world does not divide up into "good people" and "bad people." All good people do bad things, and all bad people do good things. All dumb people do smart things, and all smart people do dumb things. So I would suspect that you are absolutely wrong. And leaving your DNA
Re: (Score:2)
The world does not divide up into "good people" and "bad people." All good people do bad things, and all bad people do good things. All dumb people do smart things, and all smart people do dumb things. So I would suspect that you are absolutely wrong. And leaving your DNA at a crime scene does not mean you're guilty.
As someone who is "good people" I take a bit of offense at that kind of thinking. There most certainly are "bad people", who are distinctly different from "good people". I am no threat to society, because of my ethical standards and my sense of what is right. These standards coincide with what society expects of a law-abiding person. Because, it's the right thing to do. Criminals who have chosen to victimize members of society, on the other hand, I'm sorry, but they _are_ "bad people". The difference
Re: (Score:2)
The Parent post did not indicate anything in regards to "if there are good people, or bad people" but pointed out that being a "bad person" doesn't preclude you from doing the same things that a "good person" does on their off time. Being a "good person" doesn't preclude you from doing things that "bad people" do on their time off.
If you honestly think that the "bad people" out there just sit around being "bad" and thinking up new ways of being "bad", because they a
Re: (Score:2)
A criminal that steals may have been left with two choices: starve or steal. Lose their home or steal.
As much as this scenario is bandied about, it's extraordinarily rare. We don't live in the middle ages, where a man with no means of support can only beg or steal. Dozens of organizations, both government and private, operate hundreds of programs for (at the very least) getting food to the hungry. As for anyone who steals to pay their rent, I guarantee that anyone who's industrious enough to steal enough to pay their rent, is capable of holding down a job, but chooses not to. The "good man forced to crime
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that to say you've never lied, even a little bit? You've never once said a not so nice thing to someone? And that said, all bad people have never done a good thing? They never once held a door open for someone? They hold no compassion for anyone or anything?
Then you have completely missed my point. There is a huge difference between what you say above, and things like rape, murder, arson, etc. Those who commit the latter are the bad people. Those who do the former are merely imperfect and human.
Sorry, but there is no black and white, good and evil. Only shades of grey. A criminal that steals may have been left with two choices: starve or steal. Lose their home or steal. most "bad" people are the product of their environment, they weren't born that way, just as the "good" people were.
And now you're insulting all of those who live in the same circumstances who do not choose to become criminals.
It's a matter of circumstance, and while I consider myself a relatively good person, I take offense to the line of thinking that someone who commits a crime is simply a "bad person".
Likewise, you pretending there isn't an ethical decision made to victimize others, that it's just circumstances, is offensive.
It's a way of thinking that I'm sure makes your life easier, being able to split the world into two camps. But that's just not reality.
It absolutely is. C
Re: (Score:2)
Are we to understand you do bad things? Come along now. This won't hurt a bit...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It would likely be useless. (Score:3, Interesting)
The most extreme test available (67 Y-c
I hate the relatives I have (Score:5, Funny)
Other way around... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I look so much like my parents, I don't have much hope...
Re: (Score:2)
Watchout u may find you're related to the milkman (Score:2)
I tried to remember what that gene did, until I figured out what he meant.
Do you really want to find out that Dad isn't your father?
Privacy? (Score:5, Informative)
God only knows how something like ancestry.com manages to keep afloat with all the privacy concerns.
P.S. I would try to put my database back up and require registration for searching, but there is no way for me to validate any registration (to avoid identity theives), so the point is probably moot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it's an onerous task to do all that research. Security through obscurity and pain-in-the-assity actually works most of the time in the real world. It's when it becomes EASY to find that information that the amount of identity theft becomes a problem worth spending a ton of resources to defeat.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. However, the banks, etc., don't really care what answer you use for mother's maiden name; give them anything you want which you will remember if needed. This applies to any of these test questions; the answer need not have anything to do with reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Mother's maiden name? 'Upyours'.
Say somebody gets a hold of your account data, but not enough to do anything.. for that, they need to reset an e-mail addy or whatever, and for -that- they need to answer the secret question. Mother's maiden name? pfft.. they already know nearly all they need for full access to your account.. you think they won't know your mother's maiden name? So they enter it.. Johnson. *BUZZ* wrong, mister. And with any luck your ba
Re:Privacy? (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked at a data archive under the Department of Justice and the FBI in the late 90s/early 00s, and they were just making a switch to dowloads from distributing CDs full of data for the cost of the CD plus shipping. You see, the data was supposed to be a matter of public record. But if they wanted a copy, once upon a time it meant many, many days with a mimeograph. Or a punchcard machine. Or waiting for (and paying for) a CD to arrive in the mail. (All of these changes over the course of 20 years, after many decades of needing to visit!)
People finally had the bandwith to download. The biggest issue people at the archive struggled with? If it's too easy to use, any schmuck who wants to can get a copy. In the past you had to go to great, or at least greater, lengths to get the information. There was more resistance than you can imagine to making the website user friendly as opposed to intentional obfuscation(!) simply because "a matter of public record" has a very, very different meaning now than it did twenty years ago.
If the FBI wants your mother's maiden name (or diary) and have filled out all the appropriate paperwork, they can find out whether they have to go to the local archive (or your bedroom) or not. But if Joe Schmoe wants your mother's maiden name (or your diary), there's a difference between him making a special trip to an archive (or visiting your bedroom) and him typing your name into Google.
Which is not to say I don't think that "matter of public record" information shouldn't be on the internet. It should be. Information wants to be free and all that... but lots of very stupid people are going to suffer because they didn't realize that their blog wasn't private, and lots and lots of smart people are going to suffer because some credit companies only allow people to use things that are a matter of public record as passwords. It's going to take a while for people-- and especially for institutions-- to get used to the idea that public has a whole new meaning; that accessible is the new last word in privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Beyond that it is mostly public records.
Re:Privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
The saddest is what you ran into. If I remember what she told me correctly, it's either legally required, or just good form, to only publish those who are deceased or records older than 80 years. I'm probably off on that number though. Why I consider it sad is that I wouldn't know cousin Vinnie. He (the mythical Vinnie) could be a blood relation from a fork of our tree in 1500 Europe.
She wants, or needs, to show real documentation of the person and how they relate. She considers the accuracy of her work very important. Just because she finds (buys, borrows, whatever) someone else's tree doesn't mean that any of the information in it is accurate. Say our trees did cross. How is she to know without all the supporting documentation that the details are correct. Maybe that birth of Isaac on December 4 of 1606 was really April 12th of 1606. If she follows your tree without verification, she'll be following incorrect data to dead ends.
I do like the idea of being able to find real-world relations. For my family, we're friendly enough so I don't suspect there would be problems. I know some families aren't quite so nice. Just because cousin Vinnie is a billionaire, every distant cousin would be bugging him for some of his cash.
I'll probably be putting myself into the system. I'm curious to see who's out there. Maybe I have a distant cousin who's also a reader here, and we have a lot in common.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, they're family so you had to pull it down, but still.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is going to be interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But is that due to characteristics that you've picked up from your environment, or genetics?
So, you were raised with a miserable asocial misanthrope as a role model. Children learn from their environment, mainly their parents (or parental figures). Some mirror their role model. Some realize their role model is poor and go the opposite.
I've been an influence on several children over the years, and some of them act quite a bit like me (as good or bad as that may
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is going to be interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Can you provide a link to the study, I have often seen this quote, but never found a reliable source which shows the result of the study.
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds to me like a good working definition of an urban legend.
Non-paternity rate: reference (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/paternity [theatlantic.com]
From the article:
"When geneticists do large-scale studies of populations, they sometimes can't help but learn about the paternity of the research subjects. They rarely publish their findings, but the numbers are common knowledge within the genetics community. In graduate school, genetics students typically are taught that 5 to 15 percent of the men on birth certificates are not the biological fathers of their children. In other words, as many as one of every seven men who proudly carry their newborn children out of a hospital could be a cuckold."
"Non-paternity rates appear to be substantially lower in some populations. The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which is based in Salt Lake City, now has a genetic and genealogical database covering almost 100,000 volunteers, with an overrepresentation of people interested in genealogy. The non-paternity rate for a representative sample of its father-son pairs is less than 2 percent. But other reputed non-paternity rates are higher than the canonical numbers. One unpublished study of blood groups in a town in southeastern England indicated that 30 percent of the town's husbands could not have been the biological fathers of their children."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is going to be interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That reminds me of a joke I read some moons ago (Score:5, Funny)
they were willing to try it out. They were both very much in favor of it. The doctor set the pain transfer to 10% for starters, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced before.
But as the labor progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and bump it up a notch. The doctor then adjusted the machine to 20% pain transfer. The husband was still feeling fine. The doctor checked
the husband's blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. At this point they decided to try for 50%. The husband continued to feel quite well. Since the pain transfer was obviously helping out the wife considerably, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him. The wife deliverer a healthy baby with virtually no pain. She and her husband were ecstatic.
When they got home, the mailman was dead on the porch.
You insensitive clod... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, she'll beat it with numbers. Your pool boy, milk man, cable guy, neighbors, or phone tech should be successful any day now.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Then... there's the privacy aspect. But just because I didn't do anything, yet, doesn't mean....
It'll be interesting to see.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
# 1000 AD 0.25 Billion
# 1100 AD 0.30
# 1200 AD 0.36
# 1250 AD 0.40
# 1300 AD 0.36
# 1350 AD 0.44
# 1400 AD 0.35
# 1500 AD 0.43
# 1600 AD 0.55
# 1650 AD 0.47
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_cur
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why I was modded as funny, as I was very serious- this would be extremely interesting to see. Privacy aside, it's a fascinating concept.
hah.. (Score:2)
OMG..GATTICA..BIG BROTHER, ALIENS UP MY REAR END.. HARP.. CHENEYBUSHFIELDRICE..MOON LANDING..
etc.. you get the idea..
personally though, I would be interested in the results they can display on the web based no that.
Powered by the NSA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Insurance company - "We've found that your family has a higher risk of kidney disease. In the interest of sharing the risk we won't offer insurance for dialysis or kidney transplant".
I just hope they make the effort to educate people about the pro's and con's of making your dna public.
Your DNA is not public, just markers (Score:2, Informative)
Your DNA is not public, just the markers. When your DNA is profiled they will use a set number of markers (anywhere between 12 and 44) to determine your halpogroups (where your DNA originated from) and place you into a combination of groups. It is these markers that become public. Generally the testing sites will destroy your DNA after 6 months; it is kept this long incase you want to have other tests done like y-chromosome, mitochondrial, etc.
Chances are the testing is being contracted out to another o
Worst idea ever (Score:4, Interesting)
Excellent, now the last thing left is for someone to invent a practical cloning machine.
For less than $200 of course.
Anyone got a bittorent to Pamela Anderson's DNA?
Re: (Score:2)
Here's most of it (you can select other chromosomes for downloading through that interface):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/seq_reg.cgi?ta xid=9606&chr=1&from=1&to=247249719 [nih.gov]
The rest is just a matter of a few million mutations scattered throughout the genome. Oh, and the bits of the genome that are proving to be very difficult to sequence.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/seq_reg.cgi?ta [nih.gov] xid=9606&chr=1&from=1&to=247249719
The rest is just a matter of a few million mutations scattered throughout the genome. Oh, and the bits of the genome that are proving to be very difficult to sequence.
That's like painting a DELL white and calling it "Macintosh". No candy for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I'd rather make out with my Jessica Alba-bot.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you've not watched enough sci-fi movies, so I'll excuse your ignorance. But cloning machines have this little rotary knob on the side "age". It's right between "brains" and "boobs".
Personally, I'd rather make out with my Jessica Alba-bot.
So.. you'll need to be patient for quite a few years for the clone to grow up, unless you're into children, you sick pedo.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you've not watched enough sci-fi movies, so I'll excuse your ignorance. Robots, or 'bots', are machines, not clones, and only the truly advanced android models (i.e. ones I couldn't afford, and wouldn't want to in any case) start out as children and age like humans. The rest are built to the right age and stay that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Genetic traits over DNA (Score:4, Interesting)
For example part of my family is Swiss, about six generations back. Part of my wife's family is also Swiss, about four generations back. Her family happens to be from the part of Switzerland that has a wierd abnormality in a small percentage of their population. Sometimes their adult teeth don't develop. Because of this trait and research my wife was able to trace her family to an exact village.
Oh, and no ones privacy was ever in danger.
DNA on the other hand is still latereal in time and not verticle. Unless you want to test a corpse you can't go back many generations. A good tool to see what uncle Joe REALLY did on those "sales" trips in Vegas, but not much good as a family history research tool.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite sure what you mean by "many".
It should be possible, through looking at autosomal DNA, to look up to six generations back — to me, that's "many" — possibly a bit longer with the X chromosome (because there's less recombination). Other non-recombinant DNA (Y-chromosome, mitochondria) are good for maybe 600+ years back, but only along one line of ancestry (m
Re: (Score:2)
From a family history research perspective how can you get six generations back with DNA testing? You are speaking of comparing your DNA to living people and then trusting that they are either from the area where they live or are educated in their own family histories.
Otherwise I can only think of this tool as a compass to point me in the right direction. without the "map" of family history
Re: (Score:2)
And how did that genetic trait get inherited? Through the DNA. DNA over genetic traits because, as you note, DNA contains much more information than what ends up being expressed. Plus what about the large mass of people who don't have a convenient genetic trait to work off of?
Oh, and no ones privacy was ever in danger.
I don't get it. A genetic trait is information about that person. It's not as much information as sequenced DNA, but it's not so inconsequential that one can ignore it. Even if the trait
But what if your DNA doesn't match? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, there are many cases of people not being told that they were adopted and a web site like this is not the ideal way to discover this. You really need an organization that has some form of immediate support for people who receive unexpected surprises.
Re: (Score:2)
Ancestry.com is the Jerry Springer of the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If on the other hand you prefer not to know your ancestry, you probably shouldn't send in your DNA.
The idea is appealing (Score:2)
The idea is actually very appealing to me. The only problem is the high price of the service and the difficulty of it. Very few around the world will sign up , so few that I predict it will be useless for a long, long time.
Re: (Score:2)
Fixed: The idea is appalling. (Score:2)
Really? I wasn't aware that the FBI could send a National Security Letter to my mouth to check my DNA records and compel my cheek to never inform me of the fact.
Ancestry.com needs a new way to make money (Score:2, Interesting)
Since its fat gravy train is going to end soon... How? With the massive FREE release of the entire scanned archive from the Mormon Vault [wikipedia.org] in Salt Lake City (to be available on www.familysearch.org [familysearch.org]). Once this project has gone live much of the information that Ancestry.com currently charges for will be essentially public domain.
There already is a schism forming between Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org, seen from the collapse of arrangements between the Mormon church and Ancestry to provide the Ancestry.com
If I had the spare cash... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Easy testing (Score:2)
Could that be a way to easily obtain DNA tests when you're in a country in which it's a tough thing to get (like France, for example)?
It's cute and all... (Score:2, Insightful)
More power to those who will try this out, though, you're far less paranoid than I am!
Bradshaw Foundation (Score:5, Informative)
This is a valuable service (yes there are others available) that tests certain parts of the mitachondrial DNA to establish your maternal lineage and tests certain parts of the Y chromosome (I make the assumption that 98% of the readers are male) to establish your paternal lineage.
If you want to educate yourself on one of the benefits, please take a few hours to learn how this technique has provided amazing details of the 165k yr journey of mankind to populate the planet http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey [bradshawfoundation.com]
Jesus (Score:2)
Opening a can of worms (Score:2)
It'll open up a second family tree, your geneological tree as opposed to your familial tree.
but what if you are related to your WIFE?! (Score:2)
NIGHTMARE!
Altogether now... in three-part harmony... (Score:3, Funny)
"So the years went by and he wished he was dead. He had seventeen girls and still wasn't wed.
When he'd ask his papa, papa would always say, 'No! That girl is your sister but your mama don't know!'
"So he went to his mama and he bowed his head. Told his mama what his papa had said.
His mama said, 'Son, go, man, go! Your papa ain't your papa but your papa don't know!'"
--"Ah Woe, Ah Me," Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane, John Stewart, popularized by the Kingston Trio
"She's the illegitimate daughter, of the illegitimate son, of the illegitimate nephew of Napoleon."
--Ira Gershwin, _Of Thee I Sing+
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Some of mine are pretty sweet, I'd like to give them some DNA if you know what I mean.
Thinking about committing a crime? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, don't forget that future employers/insurance carriers might be looking too. "hmmmm we see here you are predisposed to being/having/doing xyz, we don't feel you are good candidate"
Re: (Score:2)
Just because you don't find the service valuable doesn't mean the premise is creepy or silly, and having an organization maintain such a database is a requirement for such a service to function. Besides, may
Re:Why exactly (Score:5, Informative)
And no, that has nothing to do with "put[ting] more names in the Book of Mormon". In fact, while Baptism for the Dead is mentioned in the Bible (1 Corinthians 15:29), it isn't mentioned at all in the Book of Mormon.
Re: (Score:2)
You are thinking of www.familysearch.org which is a free site run by the LDS.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fell out of a tree?
Landed in a volcano in a spaceship that looked like a DC3?
Descendants of the arc?
There are so many stories. Pick one. No, pick two, keep it interesting.