NatGeo

[telophase]

Just got my National Geographic Genographic genetic-testing results back and...



I'm white!

Well, not that that was in doubt, if you've ever seen me, as I am so pale I glow in the dark. :D My ancestry is 42% Northern European, a signal of the last populations of Neolithic hunter-gatherers to settle down and adopt agriculture as it moved in from the Middle East, 39% Mediterranean, a signal of of agriculturalists moving in from the Middle East, and 18% Southwest Asian, which they say is common for people with heavy European ancestry, spreading during the Neolithic expansion.

I am extremely close in composition to reference populations in Denmark. Tie that in with my mom's hand condition (Dupuytren's contracture) which is associated with Viking populations, a high intensity of my haplogroup showing up in the UK and Ireland, and I think I can safely say that I am probably descended from a bunch of raping, pillaging Vikings.

NatGeo agrees with 23andMe that I am 2.8% Neanderthal, but unlike 23andMe, which detects none whatsoever, NatGeo thinks I may be, using their admittedly experimental test, 1.6% Denisovan. Which I find AWESOME.

Comments

[oracne]

w00t!

[telophase]

SCIENCE!

[thistleingrey]

Yay, science!

[stardustmajick.livejournal.com]

I really, really want to do this as I know almost nothing about my family history other than we're British Isle mutts and my mom's mom claims we have family from the Powhatan tribe. Too bad it's such a superfluous expense at this stage in my financial life. :(

[telophase.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, if you're more interested in the recent heritage (the last 500 years or so), you'd probably get more info from the 23andMe test, which is half the price of NatGeo, which focuses on deep heritage from around 50K-10K years ago.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

My mom has Dupuytren's contracture also!

She thought it was very strange that she developed it---when she was a nurse in training, she met a doctor who had it and told her about it, and it was so unusual (to her) and intriguing that she never forgot about it, and when she began to develop it herself she knew immediately what it was.

It kind of sucks and I hope I missed those genes.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

My mom didn't even go in to the doctor about that--she went in because she was having some repetitive stress issues with her elbow and shoulder from weaving, and the doc spotted the bands of tissue in her left hand, got all excited about it, diagnosed it, and ended up not giving her anything for the issue she came in with, which annoyed her. XD

Every so often I stare at my hands suspiciously, but have seen no evidence of it. Although my 23andMe report shows I have a higher chance of getting it compared to the general public*, so I know I carry the genes for it. We'll just have to see if they get expressed!


* I think that's the general 23andMe public, not the general public, so it's self-selected to trend towards relatively prosperous Westerners with a scientific curiosity.

[scribblemoose]

Yay! Greetings from Jorvik, Viking!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Jorvik, I've been to the Jorvik Viking Centre twice and what I mostly remember from it is a mannequin of a Viking sitting on the loo, surrounded by a half-height woven wall. Hail, brother!

[scribblemoose]

He's still there! Complete with authentic smells!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

How do you get this done? I find myself quite curious.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well, if you follow my path, you first spend six or seven years trying to convince yourself that the cost is really worth it, then decide to take the plunge with birthday money. :D

There's several places that do genetic testing. I went with two: 23andMe.com and National Geographic's Genographics project at genographic.nationalgeographic.com. You go to the site or sites, pay the money, they send you a kit and for 23andMe you spit in a test tube while for NatGeo you swab the inside of your cheek and stick that in a test tube. You mail it back and some number of weeks later (they claim 6-8, and 23andMe took 8 while NatGeo took 16 for me), you get results back.

23andMe is $99, while NatGeo is $199. You get way more info from 23andMe, but with NatGeo you're donating to SCIENCE! Or at least that's the way I think of it. I do stress that NatGeo is very little info comparatively: as the research project it's part of focuses on deep heritage from the rise of modern humans to about 5000 years ago, you'll end up with just a few pages that show how your particular haplogroups traveled through the world.

23andMe has more of a focus on genetics of family trees and on medical testing. They test for a bunch of genes that have been shown to correlate with medical conditions in addition to looking at your genetic heritage. You can find people you're related to who are also on 23andMe (and you can choose to make yourself contactable by relatives or not). For the really scary medical conditions, like Alzheimers, breast cancer, LouGehrig's disease and so on, you can choose whether or not to view those results, and they make you read a long report on what it is and stressing that for most of these the results are just TENDENCIES and you are not guaranteed to get whatever the condition is before you can look at the results.

For both services, you create an account and as they add new tests, they add new info to your account. You can also download your genetic results if you want to look at a bunch of data that won't have meaning unless you throw yourself into learning about it. (I haven't done that, but I will probably download it and back it up on to disk sometime soon just to have it.)

If I've confused you or you have more questions, just ask!

[seajules]

I would love to do the NatGeo test just for SCIENCE, well and to know my deep genetic profile. I really can't justify the expense at the moment, though, and I can already make some pretty darn good guesses based on my family's religio-cultural obsession with genealogy (LDS, but also Scandohoovish and Scottish, two groups with a Thing about bloodlines).