4 ms·

I've done 23andMe as well. If anyone's curious I'm happy to answer questions. Without prompting, I don't have much to add other than that the relative finder

by endtime 16y ago

I've done 23andMe as well. If anyone's curious I'm happy to answer questions. Without prompting, I don't have much to add other than that the relative finder doesn't seem to work quite as well as I'd hoped. I do have one distant cousin on 23andMe, and it did find her, but assigned higher confidence/probability/whatever to a few tens of people who mostly seem not to be cousins. This might not be their fault - I imagine a very small fraction of the population is even on 23andMe - but I still haven't found any long-lost cousins yet. Edit: On reflection, this is probably because I'm an Ashkenazi Jew, and we have a relatively small gene pool and relatively cyclic ancestor graphs (at least when considered undirected). If your ethnic background is broader/less insular then the relative finder will probably work better for you.

acangiano 16y ago
I had better luck with my relative finder. I find out I was related to a few people and got in touch with them. One of these cousins is one of the most famous people in America, but I cannot disclose any other information as I respect their desire for privacy. Overall, the experience has provided me with plenty of infotainment. Well worth the $99 I paid.
- khafra 16y ago
  I wonder if your famous relative regrets putting his genome on 23andMe.
  - acangiano 16y ago
    Well, given that he/she discovered me as a cousin, I highly doubt that. :-P
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
Maciek416 16y ago
I've had better luck with relative finder as well. My very first contact was able to trace his great-great-grandparents roots to a village that is only 30 minutes away or so from my Dad's ancestor's town. This person is marked as a 5th cousin, so I'd consider that pretty compelling. Regarding your "mostly seem not to be cousins" comment, I think people have an overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has a much more strict genetic definition. If you look at their FAQ, they claim that it's fairly accurate that if someone is marked as a relative, that's a relative. The degree of relation may be off by a generation or two, but it's there. I find it interesting how many people, even those who sign up for the service and enable visibility on relative finder, heck, even those who fill out their profiles with surnames and extra information, either don't respond to contact requests or entirely dismiss relations dubbed by the system "likely 3rd cousin" as "impossible". At the 6th, 5th, and even 4th cousin levels, especially going into the past with typically large families, we are talking about fairly large networks of people. I see a lot of folks say things like "I can trace my roots back 10 generations", when they really just mean one single paternal line, for example. How can you be sure that someone didn't jump in the hay with someone else in secret that one summer in 1807, or that some forgotten sister of a great-great-grandparent went off to America for 5 years before returning to her homeland, etc? With such large numbers of people, the likeliness of having huge numbers of cousins goes way up. For example, look how many hops it takes to get to your 4th cousin: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4th+cousin http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4th+cousin Can we all vouch for all the surnames, brothers and sisters, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc in a relation even as "close" as this?
- endtime 16y ago
  Well, I can trace back 3-4 generations, at least in terms of surnames and maiden names, and none of the people I've talked to are even from the same parts of Europe or know of any relatives with the same last names (with one exception for Miller, which is a very common name). I've talked to several Ukrainians, one Portuguese, and one Argentinian - whereas my family is English, Dutch, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. As far as I know I didn't have any Ukrainian ancestors, at least not in the last few generations. >I think people have an overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has a much more strict genetic definition. Well, I consider someone to be a cousin based solely on our most recent common ancestor. If someone happens to have similar genes to me but we haven't shared an ancestor for 5,000 years then that person's not a cousin for any useful definition of the word. It also might be that Asheknazi Jews, as a historically small/insular community with, therefore, a smaller gene pool, have a different experience with the relative finder than people with less, uh, incestuous (broadly speaking) family trees. Edit: Just logged into 23andMe and saw this relevant thread: https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/6449/ https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/6449/. So I guess my speculation was right, and my concerns should be disregarded if you aren't part of a similarly small population.
elizabrock 16y ago
I have nearly a thousand relatives on Relative Finder. After connecting with a few of my "closer" cousins, I came to find out that we have Ashkenazi jewish origins. According to one of my cousins, the relative finder is quite a bit different/better for her family members that don't have Ashkenazi heritage.
VladRussian 16y ago
How far are you from Genghis Khan? Or was it some other startup who determines it?
- endtime 16y ago
  I can find Genghis Khan's haplogroups, but I don't see a way to compare my DNA to his.

by endtime 16y ago

acangiano 16y ago

I had better luck with my relative finder. I find out I was related to a few people and got in touch with them. One of these cousins is one of the most famous people in America, but I cannot disclose any other information as I respect their desire for privacy. Overall, the experience has provided me with plenty of infotainment. Well worth the $99 I paid.

khafra 16y ago
I wonder if your famous relative regrets putting his genome on 23andMe.
- acangiano 16y ago
  Well, given that he/she discovered me as a cousin, I highly doubt that. :-P
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

Maciek416 16y ago

I've had better luck with relative finder as well. My very first contact was able to trace his great-great-grandparents roots to a village that is only 30 minutes away or so from my Dad's ancestor's town. This person is marked as a 5th cousin, so I'd consider that pretty compelling. Regarding your "mostly seem not to be cousins" comment, I think people have an overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has a much more strict genetic definition. If you look at their FAQ, they claim that it's fairly accurate that if someone is marked as a relative, that's a relative. The degree of relation may be off by a generation or two, but it's there. I find it interesting how many people, even those who sign up for the service and enable visibility on relative finder, heck, even those who fill out their profiles with surnames and extra information, either don't respond to contact requests or entirely dismiss relations dubbed by the system "likely 3rd cousin" as "impossible". At the 6th, 5th, and even 4th cousin levels, especially going into the past with typically large families, we are talking about fairly large networks of people. I see a lot of folks say things like "I can trace my roots back 10 generations", when they really just mean one single paternal line, for example. How can you be sure that someone didn't jump in the hay with someone else in secret that one summer in 1807, or that some forgotten sister of a great-great-grandparent went off to America for 5 years before returning to her homeland, etc? With such large numbers of people, the likeliness of having huge numbers of cousins goes way up. For example, look how many hops it takes to get to your 4th cousin: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4th+cousin http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4th+cousin Can we all vouch for all the surnames, brothers and sisters, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc in a relation even as "close" as this?

endtime 16y ago
Well, I can trace back 3-4 generations, at least in terms of surnames and maiden names, and none of the people I've talked to are even from the same parts of Europe or know of any relatives with the same last names (with one exception for Miller, which is a very common name). I've talked to several Ukrainians, one Portuguese, and one Argentinian - whereas my family is English, Dutch, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. As far as I know I didn't have any Ukrainian ancestors, at least not in the last few generations. >I think people have an overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has a much more strict genetic definition. Well, I consider someone to be a cousin based solely on our most recent common ancestor. If someone happens to have similar genes to me but we haven't shared an ancestor for 5,000 years then that person's not a cousin for any useful definition of the word. It also might be that Asheknazi Jews, as a historically small/insular community with, therefore, a smaller gene pool, have a different experience with the relative finder than people with less, uh, incestuous (broadly speaking) family trees. Edit: Just logged into 23andMe and saw this relevant thread: https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/6449/ https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/6449/. So I guess my speculation was right, and my concerns should be disregarded if you aren't part of a similarly small population.

elizabrock 16y ago

I have nearly a thousand relatives on Relative Finder. After connecting with a few of my "closer" cousins, I came to find out that we have Ashkenazi jewish origins. According to one of my cousins, the relative finder is quite a bit different/better for her family members that don't have Ashkenazi heritage.

VladRussian 16y ago

How far are you from Genghis Khan? Or was it some other startup who determines it?

endtime 16y ago
I can find Genghis Khan's haplogroups, but I don't see a way to compare my DNA to his.