DNA test for family research

Jaime C

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I know a bit of family history from my mothers family, but not much from my fathers. I did the ancestry DNA test in the US in 2016. Rather interesting, but mostly what I expected. German/Swiss, UK/Ireland, Iberian and some Scandanavian and Finnish/Russian.

I did the same test last month for my wife and daughter. In general I’ve found that Indonesians don’t seem to have the same interest as Americans do.

I found it interesting to find that my wife was 20% Polynesian, 6% South Asian, plus a touch of Melanisian in addition to the majority of East Asian that was expected.

Has anyone else done testing for their Indonesian family or these type of tests, in general?
 
Do you know if there is any similar (and reliable) lab which could do it in Indonesia?

I'd be very interested to know the result for both my wife and I. Beside my french heritage I have serbian and croatian heritage and considering the history of this part of Europe I have very certainly in me a good mix of a bunch of other flavors. :)
My wife has mos certainly Indonesian, Dutch and Chinese heritage and considering the history of the Minahasa we may expect some southern European mix in it.
I think they will need extra pages for our kids...
 
I dont know about directly in indonesia, this 23 people send you a kit (basically a swab for mouth saliva) which you courier back to them and then they email you / post you the results
 
My dad (Irish) just did this with ancestory.org - we got the results on Monday and we've been pouring over them since - its even found some likely 2nd & 3rd cousins of ours in a nearby village to where his grandparents lived (along with thousands of American based 3rd & 4th cousins)!
Regarding testing people of Indonesian heritage - the results probably wont be very insightful. The quality of the data is driven by how many people from particular regions have done the test (and as per Jamie C's finding that his wife isnt really that bothered it seems like most Asians aren't bothered either). Results are best for people with European ancestors.

"Genetics is inherently a comparative science: Data about your genes is determined by comparing them to the genes of other people."

This article (quote stolen from it) explains it a lot better than I can:
https://gizmodo.com/how-dna-testing-botched-my-familys-heritage-and-probab-1820932637
 
I have never did the test, but I think I know my family history.. from my mother side, my great grandfather is Dutch & German descent that lived in Indonesia and married Javanese women, and one of their son is my grandfather, he married to Jakartan woman (betawi).. my great grandfather has married many times in every places he lived, my grandpa said the Dutch government was asking him to reside many times. one day there is one of his son in Central Java, he wrote a mail to my grandfather, he was lonely and wondering how his half brother doing but my grandfather didnt reply his mail! poor him, I guess he couldnt really find his family anywhere (or because mostly already dead) or at least that what I assume of the people's story that met him in the first place, people said he was bule juragan becak <- what is that in english?
and from my father side. my great grandfather was a Chinese man, married to Javanese Arabic descent woman, their son married to Javanese woman again.
it is interesting to know family tree or history isnt it hehe
 
We met with a WNI MD geneticist here who is registered with the American Medical Association. At the time (2015) she mentioned that there were legal issues regarding sending out for testing (apparently a cabinet minister had done some "grey area" stuff a few years back and the DPR jumped on it with a ban). At that time the hospital we met in had received cutting edge DNA lab equipment however it was idle due to the fact that they had not included an expensive analytic server in the PO.
It was also discussed that there is no privacy framework for results here when they do start analytics so any group could have a glance. Just adding a point-of-view.

Do you know if there is any similar (and reliable) lab which could do it in Indonesia?

I'd be very interested to know the result for both my wife and I. Beside my french heritage I have serbian and croatian heritage and considering the history of this part of Europe I have very certainly in me a good mix of a bunch of other flavors. :)
My wife has mos certainly Indonesian, Dutch and Chinese heritage and considering the history of the Minahasa we may expect some southern European mix in it.
I think they will need extra pages for our kids...[/QUOTE
 
We did Ancestry.com tests. I think the 23 and me tests is a bit more comprehensive, but usually double the price.

Ancestry is the biggest test by far, so lots of matches with relatives for western folks.

Ancestry has some good sales before Christmas. I got mine for about $65 each. If any forum member wants a kit, I can search for prices, and bring a few when I come in March.

Here is my daughter’s.
1FB0B90B-FF0F-4E70-B996-F0CFC3E2902D.jpeg
 
Of course it could all be a load of tosh unless you get a second opinion - I mean how can you prove or disprove what they say unless you do another different test, ultimately we all have a bit of african, egyptian, etc etc in our genes somewhere. Obviously a simple DNA test would say if you are caucasian, black, hispanic etc but maybe they just throw in the obligatory 2% irish, 3% scandinavian etc just to keep you happy (or not)
 
Well, the lower percentage rates are more likely variable. Like Southern European is 3-6%.

These tests are fairly accurate, from what I can see. Our family has done 5 of them so far. Lots of surprises from my oldest daughter. When you compare both parents against kids results it’s pretty clear.

These tests are not correlated in any way. So they don’t know who they are doing the tests for.
 
Of course it could all be a load of tosh unless you get a second opinion - I mean how can you prove or disprove what they say unless you do another different test, ultimately we all have a bit of african, egyptian, etc etc in our genes somewhere. Obviously a simple DNA test would say if you are caucasian, black, hispanic etc but maybe they just throw in the obligatory 2% irish, 3% scandinavian etc just to keep you happy (or not)
I’d say you don’t know how the tests work.
 
I’d say you don’t know how the tests work.
Agreed - considering in my comment earlier (#5) that my dad, who now lives in Spain, sent off his sample and they have found a 2nd cousin living in a tiny Irish village a few miles from where his grandparents lived. Pretty hard to fake that!
They were also able to show the waves of his ancestors leaving Ireland before, during and after the famine (mainly to eastern states in the US, to northern Ireland and to Manchester). Its pretty impressive work. I also linked an article in my comment that Snpark might learn a few things about DNA testing if they had a look. Its certainly not an exact or perfect science but its failings are not about making up fake ethnicity backgrounds!
 
My father did the family tree thing. Traced his ancestors back to 1350-ish. Still a family with the same name living in the same village . I have a copy of the tree but not the name/exact location of the village. Genectics, not really interested in. probably some Roman, Danish, French German etc. Although I think the Romans stuck to themselves!
 
Its certainly not an exact or perfect science but its failings are not about making up fake ethnicity backgrounds!

True, but it would not be beyond some providers to do that ....
 
Rely upon emoticons to signal sarcasm, signals only that mastery of the art is incomplete.
 
Given that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit I would not be too quick to call it an 'art'.
 
  • Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.” ― Oscar Wilde.
 

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