4 ms·

The great thing is that their dnas were shockingly similar. It means the sequncing is valid. Now the ancestry composition thing is known to be a nonstandard pro

The great thing is that their dnas were shockingly similar. It means the sequncing is valid. Now the ancestry composition thing is known to be a nonstandard procedure , just look at their research publications.

captncraig 8y ago
I'm imagining some kind of machine-learning training set based algorithm for determining the ancestry percentages. Even at 99.6% difference (due to mutations over time or sampling error) over 700k samples there's gonna be ~300 sequencing differences between twins. Enough to make their ML system draw different inferences for sure.
- buboard 8y ago
  23andme has some publication about their method. the thing is , they have a lot more data than what is available in public repositories so they basically established their own system.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Yes, this is an upside down story. If the post analysis shows nearly identical DNA that's great. The whole '% from this or that country' has to be necessarily fuzzy, because that's just a probability game anyhow.
- buboard 8y ago
  it is. and tbh ancestry is the least interesting part for me, since i more or less know my ancestry . however, the very distant cousins that i have found in US and CA are very excited to know where they came from. This must be a mostly american thing.
  - slfnflctd 8y ago
    > This must be a mostly american thing Part of the old-school American tradition many regions (mostly rural, which is where over 80% of residents lived at one time) was to have a bunch of kids and encourage them to spread out as far & wide as they wanted; this still continues in some places. The logistics of 'keeping in touch with family' have some pretty hard limits past a certain point, and recordkeeping can be haphazard/fragile. A great many people in North America have significant trouble tracing their ancestry back past their great-grandparents.
theprotocol 8y ago
The raw data is what's being called "shockingly similar" by the expert quoted in the article. He considers the final result confusing.
- buboard 8y ago
  the raw data is what matters. the rest can be corrected

captncraig 8y ago

I'm imagining some kind of machine-learning training set based algorithm for determining the ancestry percentages. Even at 99.6% difference (due to mutations over time or sampling error) over 700k samples there's gonna be ~300 sequencing differences between twins. Enough to make their ML system draw different inferences for sure.

buboard 8y ago
23andme has some publication about their method. the thing is , they have a lot more data than what is available in public repositories so they basically established their own system.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Yes, this is an upside down story. If the post analysis shows nearly identical DNA that's great. The whole '% from this or that country' has to be necessarily fuzzy, because that's just a probability game anyhow.

buboard 8y ago
it is. and tbh ancestry is the least interesting part for me, since i more or less know my ancestry . however, the very distant cousins that i have found in US and CA are very excited to know where they came from. This must be a mostly american thing.
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  > This must be a mostly american thing Part of the old-school American tradition many regions (mostly rural, which is where over 80% of residents lived at one time) was to have a bunch of kids and encourage them to spread out as far & wide as they wanted; this still continues in some places. The logistics of 'keeping in touch with family' have some pretty hard limits past a certain point, and recordkeeping can be haphazard/fragile. A great many people in North America have significant trouble tracing their ancestry back past their great-grandparents.

theprotocol 8y ago

The raw data is what's being called "shockingly similar" by the expert quoted in the article. He considers the final result confusing.

buboard 8y ago
the raw data is what matters. the rest can be corrected