23andme: Now and Then

Sep23

23andme started out by being a leader in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genomic testing business. Time Magazine named it the 2008 Invention of the Year![1] It was the first place I tested my own autosomal DNA and that of many family members back in 2011-2012. Originally it had the best cousin matching tools, best ethnicity estimates, and had a well designed interface to examine the health implications in your own genome. Now I recommend to most that they start with Ancestry DNA and then upload that data to several other sites, including Promethease for the medical analysis, although 23andme still tests a wider range of health related genes.

23andme has been in the news this week because its entire board, except its founder, Anne Wojcicki, resigned over her plan to take it private again. It went public in 2021 but has yet to turn a profit and the WSJ reports that it will run out of cash next year [ref WSJ]. However there is at least one company interested in buying it according to a post on the DNA-Newbie list.

How should those of us who have tests there react to this news? Personally I am not worried, mainly because I hardly ever use the site anymore. I have long since downloaded my data and have contacted most of my closer matches. Roberta Estes has done a thorough blog post (click here) explaining how to save your data from 23andme.

The reason I rarely use 23andme is because it no longer allows you to compare your DNA to a relative in a chromosome browser; the feature I liked the best. I now do that at GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, and MyHeritage. That tool was removed because of a data breach over a year ago where a hacker got lists of Jewish and Chinese testers and posted them for sale on the dark web. The break-in took advantage of users who had the same email and password on multiple sites, some of which had been exposed elsewhere.

Perhaps it is the resulting class action suit that caused part of 23andme’s financial woes. Click here for an article about how that is being settled with users.

My understanding was that the inspiration for the founding of 23andme was that Genia Brin, the mother of the then husband of founder Anne Wojcicki, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1998 [ref michaelfox org]. The focus of 23andme has always been on discovering the genetic basis of various medical issues, not genealogy. However they have been quite supportive of adoptees (click here), since it is helpful to know what issues may lie in your DNA when you have no known family health history.

One way to look at the genetic basis of various diseases is to crowd-source lots of genomes.

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Riding the Rails

Aug5

​One of the benefits of doing genealogy is seeing history through the eyes of your ancestors. Sometimes helping another with their family history has a similar advantage. Cathie’s father wrote up his experiences in the 30s for her. I was so charmed by them that I asked for permission to publish a slightly edited and condensed version on my blog. Here it is:

I left home when I was just 16 in June of 1929. I worked on a farm, a golf course and spent the winter in a home for homeless boys in Chicago until clement weather arrived.

I then “rode the rails” with a vengeance when real Spring weather arrived — April or May 1930. I had made up my mind I wanted to reach the West Coast to become an apprentice seaman and, (for some obscure reason), to reach Japan.

Let me digress here a moment. Hitchhiking was the optimum way of traveling for a “wanderer” (later, a “bum”) in densely-populated areas. One could get to the outskirts of a town or city easily and there was considerable traffic from whom rides could be cadged ​with the thumb. But when it came to crossing the vast distances of the West, freight trains were the only answer. (You could starve to death hitchhiking in say, Wyoming or Nevada.)

So I took up “riding the rails”. ​It was not easy. You had to find the freight yards, seek out​ other bums who were going to take the next west-bound freight to assure yourself you had the​ right train and then position yourself strategically between where the train was made up, beyond​ where the railroad “dicks” kept the train under surveillance but still close enough to its point of​ origin before it reached dangerous speed. Then jumping into an empty car was no simple task.​ The outside door latch had to be​ unfastened, the door pushed open; then you used both your​ arms to lift yourself so you could slide on your stomach into the car. If your travelling​ companions had already gotten into the cars, they would give you a hand thus making the entry​ in a lot easier.

One had to be prepared for the monotony of hours, or days of travel. The scenery was generally​ entrancing. Freight trains stopped a lot, as you could dismount and stretch your legs or seek​ out a drinking water source. The brakemen riding in the caboose knew they had unauthorized​ passengers but normally took no adverse action against them. Chasing bums off trains “was not​ their job” (they left that to the railroad dicks).

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DNA and Law Enforcement

Jul9

Many people have asked me about the use of their DNA by law enforcement. Some are concerned, others just curious. So here is how it works.

First of all, there are only two commercial databases where law enforcement is allowed in.  Both of those, GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA (ftDNA), require you to opt in to that usage and inform you about it in their terms. There is also one non-profit – DNA Justice – just for Law Enforcement, where you can choose to opt in to be informed if your DNA solved a case.

In order for your DNA to be helpful for solving cases, you have to upload your DNA test done elsewhere to any of those sites, although ftDNA will also do the actual DNA testing and even has some additional tests. In fact, I have a review of the great new Roberta Estes book about that site coming soon. Remember, Law Enforcement only uses your DNA for cousin matching, and perhaps ethnicity, but does not have access to your actual raw DNA data.

If you opt in to helping solve cases on those sites, then your DNA plus your family tree could be used to identify any 2nd or 3rd cousins that are unidentified bodies, rapists, or murderers. Unless you are a genealogist, you probably don’t know all your cousins, and there can even be a few unknown out-of-wedlock ones. I have discovered more of those on my own tree than I would have expected.

So why are so many reluctant to opt in? Fear of reprisals from the criminal? (they don’t know about you, so no worries) or just the reluctance to be a tattle tale? We have all been trained to guard our online privacy so perhaps that is where the discomfort comes from.

I explained the methodology of using genetic genealogy for identifications in a post (click here) I wrote just after the Golden State killer was found. It is the same set of techniques used to help adoptees. The important thing to understand is that genetic genealogy is just used as a tip to narrow down the possibilities. Then Law Enforcement collects the actual DNA of the suspect(s) and compares it to what they have for the perp before any arrests are made.

In the case of unidentified bodies, the trick is to get enough DNA from the degraded remains to create a DNA profile similar to a test kit and thus usable on those sites, The DNA Justice site says “There is so much work still to be done, with more than 14,000 listings in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS) alone.” Click here to read a few of the success stories on the DNA Doe site to see how important this work is.

Finally if you want an inside look at how this work is done read the book  I Know Who You Are written by Barbara Rae-Venter. This compelling autobiographical book includes the details of how the Golden State Killer was found with genetic genealogy.

Here’s hoping more of you opt into helping out by uploading your autosomal DNA test results to these sites!

Finally, a Reason to Get Ancestry Pro Tools!

Jun19

Ancestry has released a new feature that many of us have been eagerly waiting for: how much DNA your matches share with each other and the estimated relationship between them. This can help when a new match has no tree, for example, if their sibling or parent has one. Read on for a description of my first experiments with this tool.

Most Mondays I go look at my new DNA matches on Ancestry. Typically I first click Unviewed and then click Common Ancestors.

The buttons I click (added arrows are mine)

If no matches come up, then I unclick the Common Ancestors button in order to see all the new matches. Next I sort them by date to see the most recent first. Sometimes I first pick one parent or change the range of cM to view (via the button called Shared DNA). Then I scan the resulting list. I typically click on the new matches with trees and the most DNA. I find that if you contact people when they have just received their results, they are more likely to respond.

I had a wonderful surprise when I clicked on a new DNA relative’s name to go to their match page with me: a message informing me that if I upgraded to the Pro Tools I could see how my matches were related to each other including the cM. Of course I upgraded, only an extra $10 per month. By the way, as they are just rolling out this feature it is a bit slow today from all of us trying it out.

My match with Gary turned up two distant relatives from different lines, perhaps I can figure out where he fits in

Now my page for that new match looks like the above. Note that you can click on the projected relationship to get the full explanation including unweighted DNA and longest segment just like on a match page.

However on the shared matches page my colored dots have changed to squares with the first letter of the group. Not sure how I feel about that change. A benefit is that it shows you how many people are in that group when you go to the edit groups. At least the colors are almost the same. On the trees and ethnicity pages it is the same colored dot as before, for now.

A few glitches occurred. I was not able save the new notes I made from the shared matches page. I can only save them from the tree and ethnicity pages. Also it was easier to set the colored dot group on those pages, as the save from the shared matches page seemed delayed.

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All My GEDmatch Articles

Apr7

GEDmatch is one of my favorite sets of genetic genealogy tools but it can be hard to get started with. I have done many presentations over the years attempting to help people master the basics there, most recently for Family Tree University (click here). Plus I wrote a GEDmatch Basics article for their magazine (click here) which explains all the column headings on the one-to-many report. [UPDATE 15 Apr 2024: Click here for the interview I did for the FTU podcast.] Impact-Site-Verification: d124adea-1323-4f60-a2fb-f1fdf846aa56

Over the past 12 years I have written many posts about GEDmatch, most of which are still useful. So I decided to make a new tag – GEDmatch tools – which brings up just my posts that explain a specific tool. Now I can see which tools I still need to write about!

Here is the list of my articles in reverse chronological order (click any title to go to that post):