Genetics

[telophase]

I got money for Christmas and splurged on genetic testing from 23andme.com and from the National Geographic Genomics project. I've got preliminary results back from 23andme.com...

So I am apparently 2.8% Neandertal, slightly more than the average amongst Europeans. I am also in mitochondrial DNA subclade J1c3b1, which is part of a loooooong line of Neolithic farmers and herders who arose in the Near East 8-10K years ago and are associated with the spread of agriculture into Europe. All on my mom's side. No telling what's on my dad's side as all my near male relatives are now dead, and as I lack a Y chromosome, there's certain tests they can't do. :) (Edit: According to 23andMe, the J1 subtype is primarily British and Scandinavian. As my grandfather belonged to Clan Fraser, color me not surprised. XD Although it's mitochondrial DNA, so it really didn't come from him, but from my maternal grandmother, who was English through and through.)

My health results also tell me, among others, that I have an elevated risk of migraines (duh) and of Dupuytren's contracture, which I knew because my mom has that. (Edit: That condition is also known among Viking-descended peoples...again, color me not surprised.)

There are no major surprises, which is good to know, actually: you can learn if you're a carrier of some of the major mutations involved in increased risk of breast cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc. They hide those results away so you can choose whether or not to view them, and you have to read a report before looking at them that emphasizes this is RISK and STATISTICS, not a definite yes or no.

I'm really interested in seeing what the National Geographic results will be--they focus on deep ancestry, over thousands of years, while 23andMe tends to go for health-related stuff.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Neat. darkforge and I did the 23andMe spit test a few years ago. I'm part of one of the vanishing haplogroups, N9a ("found at levels well below 10% from southern China to Mongolia and Kazakhstan").

[telophase]

Nifty!

It's hard to comb through genetics stuff on the web, but there's an outside possibility I'm distantly related to the Jewish Cohanim, if I'm reading these things right, although J1c3 left the Levantine area several thousand years ago.

I expect the Nat Geo test to be a bit more informative about this aspect, at least.

[thistleingrey]

If you're willing to post about the Nat Geo one (whenever), it'd be great to hear a bit!

[telophase]

I will! :D

[jinian]

23andme is a great toy. A full 3% Neanderthal over here! And it seems like maybe my sperm donor was British; I don't know of anyone outside Scandinavia in our known family tree, and I get a chunk of English/Irish coming up. (No artificial-insemination half-sibs yet, though.) My mom did it too, which gets really fun for those of us who love Mendelian genetics. :)

[telophase]

Woo, I envy your Neandertalness!

I found the mtDNA distrubution map at Family Tree DNA and found that, yeah, very northwestern European. I know my dad's family is primarily German and French back to a little bit before 1700, so I think I'm about as Western European as you can get!

[dsgood]

My genealogy is pure Jewish, as far as written records go. Which doesn't explain why some of my relatives look as if they could be Slavic or Finnish/Estonian/Karelian. And why my maternal grandfather's family had a distinctly Asian look. (They were from the Ukraine,)

[telophase]

In the most recent few thousand years, I'm about as Western/Northern European as you can get--genealogy on my dad's side shows my tree full of German and French names (often at the same time: I'm related to people with names like "Johan Pierre").

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Hmm! I signed up for 23andMe this Christmas, but I didn't know NatGeo was doing a separate project. Now I am tempted.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I ran across NatGeo's project several years ago, when I think it cost more. At any rate, I didn't have the money to spare then, so would just periodically click to their website and read it mournfully. XD

[estara.livejournal.com]

C.J. Cherryh was just recently doing a little promoting on a genetics project thingy which she thought extremely legitimate. But I think you need to have a guy from your father's side as the sample provider.
http://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/?p=4588

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not suitable for me anymore! But the company is Family Tree DNA, which is definitely a legit company

[chomiji]

She was promoting the National Geographic one a while ago, too.

(And drat, she doesn't tag, does she? Ah, Google found it for me.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I poked about in the NatGeo FAQ and they use Family Tree DNA to do the actual extraction and analysis, so there's a connection there.

[riofriotex.livejournal.com]

Need to talk my 84-year-old parents into the Family Tree DNA tests.