So on my birthday hubby picked me up one of those 23 and Me DNA kits. I started out by doing some research on which kits gave you
what type of results. I’m to trying to
reinvent the wheel so I’ll link to a DNA comparison
page that gives you all the pros and cons of each service. I decided to go with 23 and Me because it
offered a referral
program that I could share with people AND 20% off any additional kits I purchased. I was also concerned about the ability to be
able to download my raw DNA and share it on other sites. I’m a member of Ancestry.com however the note
about having to be a subscriber for some of the results bothered me. That is the main reason I chose not to go
with AncestryDNA. Hubby wanted to get
access to the medical portion of this, however at this time the FDA has ruled
that they cannot provide that.
The interface on 23 and Me left me a little confused. When I commented on their Facebook page, they recommended
that I review the example blog to fully understand the results. I’ve yet to go back and have a look at that.
My overall results were 99.8% European. That broke down to 34.2% British/Irish, 1.1%
French/German and a whopping 56.8% Nonspecific Northern European. I had a tiny 0.1% Sub-Saharan African.
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| Screenshot - 23 & Me |
I then found another site that were really helpful with the
DNA raw data. One was GEDmatch.com. I just uploaded my raw data from the 23 &
Me test and for FREE it returned a bit more specific results on my ancestry.
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| Screenshot - GEDmatch.com |
Finally I found a third site that gave me the medical
information that was missing from the 23 & Me kit. Promethease.com
will let you upload your raw data and provide you with a pretty detailed medical
evaluation for $5.00. They keep the
data on the site for a limited time, but do allow you to download your results
at the time of the submission which you can review at any time.
The site offers a goodnews/badnews set up.
Here is my good news.
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| Screenshot - Promethease.com |
Here is my bad news.
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| Screenshot - Promethease.com |
Each area can be drilled down and a lot of information is
available. The site owner recommends to
check back periodically as new information from DNA is made available to find
more information.
Over all it was a pretty interesting experience. There was much speculation that there may
have been Native American blood in my family.
This DNA test pretty much ruled that out completely. I have 0% American blood. I am pretty much completely European with a
dash of African. The European part is
broken up with a bit the Irish.
According to the records that I have found up to this point, my maternal
link to Ireland is Alexander O’Grady who was the father of William O’Grady born
in 1680 in Donegal Ireland.
Earlier this week I had contact with someone who matched my DNA on 23 & Me. I introduced myself and we discovered that we shared a common paternal ancestor (Micajah Casey). The very cool thing about this is that there was a story in my family about how my mother had slept with one of my father's uncles and that was who my "real" father was. Tracing the DNA, with the assistance of my new 23 & Me DNA relative we found that our connection was through my father's mother. That would mean that only one of her son's would have been able to pass that DNA to me. NOT from an uncle (my grandfather's brothers).
Earlier this week I had contact with someone who matched my DNA on 23 & Me. I introduced myself and we discovered that we shared a common paternal ancestor (Micajah Casey). The very cool thing about this is that there was a story in my family about how my mother had slept with one of my father's uncles and that was who my "real" father was. Tracing the DNA, with the assistance of my new 23 & Me DNA relative we found that our connection was through my father's mother. That would mean that only one of her son's would have been able to pass that DNA to me. NOT from an uncle (my grandfather's brothers).
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| Screenshot - Ancestry.com |
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| Screenshot - Ancestry.com |
Overall at first I was not impressed with 23 & Me at all. I was annoyed that it really didn't open up that much for me. But I do see now, how more people joining in and contacting with people they share DNA with opens up many of the doors that were tightly closed.
I wonder if that means I celebrate St. Patrick's Day now? LOL J/K
Hope this information is useful!
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