Oh God, do I have some stupid cousins. They believe Fox News is real. That Roundup degrades after 24 hours, and that news about it being found in organic wine is bullshit. So what could possibly go wrong with offering up your biology to corporate Amerika?
Real mystery story solved:
My dad, now deceased, was jailed twice by his second ex-wife for late child support checks.
The child eventually married a good guy who was the great-grandson of the town prostitute. Literally. She identified herself on a Federal census, as did her daughter.
The now-grown daughter was told by her Hill Williams daughter to never take any form of genetic test.
The husband wanted to know his great-granddad’s family line. He’s a sociable and forgiving guy.
The pair’s daughter took the genetic test. Not a soul was in my dad’s family: he always suspected that his daughter actually was his first cousin’s.
Someone in the Williamses came to me, knowing I’d taken the test. After some long-term withdrawals from the memory bank, I posited a certain coworker of my dad’s.
Turns out that my former half-sister’s maw made sure she was always in touch with him.
My dad’s brother actually worked with the man for several years.
The husband is satisfied with his results and knows most of the small town family. The kids are not, since they adored my dad.
Meantime, Ancestry.com has received forged and inaccurate info from my relatives, who have deleted two families from the tree who carried genetic disorders, fearing that the info would make their daughters unmarriageable. They also deleted our great X 3 grandmother, 1/4 black and a runaway slave, and replaced her with the g’pa x3’s second wife in such a way to make it look like she married him at age 3.
I’m still howling with laughter about this white trash soap opera.I
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That’s not the issue here. We’re not discussing the loss of genetic privacy you experience when YOU choose to share information about yourself to participate in modern society. We’re discussing the loss of genetic privacy you now experience REGARDLESS of your own decisions about how much information you share.
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Weird how “your stupid cousins” was somehow translated as calling an individual member here on BB stupid.
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Bonus dystopian sci-fi angle to get freaked out about: Scientists recently developed the ability to grow gametes (sperm & eggs) from mature cells such as skin cells or hair follicles.
In a few years it’s entirely possible that a stalker who wanted to have Idris Elba’s baby could order a batch of his sperm through a darknet vendor. All it would take to get him in the catalog would be an opportunistic barber or waiter or hotel attendant willing to nab a tiny bit of his DNA.
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I have cousins who are effected by my decision to submit my DNA to 23andme. It doesn’t seem weird to think I have been called stupid.
But this discussion hasn’t yet delved into the very real differences in Terms of Service for different DNA registries. My understanding is that the Golden state killer was found using academic data that had much looser terms than 23andme. And as things are now, criminal investigators do not have access to my 23andme data.
Recent immigrants tend to have a pretty good idea of where they came from. And there are some pretty intense genealogical records out there if you’re white and know enough about a generation or two back.
It’s apparently been something of a boon to the African American and Jewish communities because it can help fill in the sort of gaps in the record that history created. But it’s not as simple as just running a test, all they really do is narrow down where to look for records or rough answers so you can move on to a period where there are some.
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The Golden State Killer wasn’t caught because law enforcement approached the company and asked for help. The company didn’t even realize their database was being used in this way.
The cops simply made up a new user account with a fake profile and sent in the DNA sample to see what “possible family connections” showed up. They didn’t even need a warrant, because the users shared that information freely.
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Affected.
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Didn’t this police investigation method also cause the arrest of an innocent man first?
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