Because of my interest in family history and genealogy, I’ve always wanted to gain genetic insights by looking into DNA.
Nowadays there are many companies that provide ancestry testing, mostly US-based, that deliver even a precise ancestral breakdown of their customers’ DNA. All they need is a sample that you provide by spitting into a tube or swabbing the inside of your cheek.
In my case, my only concern has been data security, which in my opinion is still a problem with any of the providers in the market. Since my DNA is alone my business, I do not want to risk it being available to the whole world or a subject of further dark businesses with my “data”… It would just be strange for someone who is not even on facebook to have a public DNA somewhere.
So far so good.
When my brother announced that he had a genetic test made for himself, it did raise a lot of interest from my side!
It is well known that even twins providing samples to the same company may get different results. Or that a person providing DNA to 3 companies will get 3 different results. But that does not mean that genetic science is a fraud, and that the companies are just making up these numbers. They have more to do with the limitations of the science and some assumptions companies make when analyzing DNA for ancestry… All of which still make my brother’s analysis an interest case.
And here the results of the ancestry study performed in 2021:
Italian – 39.5%
German – 20.0%
Greek and Balkan -7.5%
Sardinian – 6.7%
Basque – 4.7%
Ashkenazi Jewish – 1.9%
Orcadian – 1.4%
British and Irish – 2.8%
Native American (Central and South) – 3.9%
Maghrebi – 5.6 %
Pygmy and San hunter-gatherer – 0.3%
West African – 2.3%
Eastern Siberian Natives – 2.4%
Dai Chinese and Indochinese – 0.2%
Korean – 0.6%
Some of the results look astonishingly probable, others very surprising and yet others quite unlikely…
At least we now know of one relative from long ago that made it to an international movie career:
