Momofadult - yes, 23andme does include some health info, as well as some "tendency"info (I don’t remember, but things like - can you roll your tongue, does cilantro taste soapy, that sort of thing). The health info wasn’t very enlightening however. It just said I wasn’t at higher risk than average for umpteen different conditions but it can’t tell you what your actual risk is.
Tatin - you will still know your ancestry through both mother and father - so for example the Ashkenazi Jewish I referenced, that’s all from my father. You just won’t get the specific haplogroup if you don’t have a brother or father tested. Having said that, you’re really only getting the haplogroup “up one tree” - your father’s father’s father’s father (etc) and obviously you have 2 grandfathers, 4 great grandfathers, 8 great great grandfathers and so forth. Likewise your maternal haplogroup is only through your mother’s mother’s mother (etc) even though you have 2 grandmothers and so forth.
Supposedly for those of Ashkenazi Jewish descent the lineage was historically so “closed” that everyone is like a tenth cousin or less, so the relative-matching thing isn’t very useful, unless you have something super obvious like I did with my half siblings.
Like VeryHappy, I don’t have any close living male relatives except my son.
Am I correct in understanding that what I would need is a male relative of my father’s–not my mother’s–who was related to my father in the male line?
Not sure that that would be possible, since my father was an only child and his father had only sisters who had children. (He had a younger brother who came to the US before he did and disappeared. The assumption is that he died somewhere among strangers, since we are the only people in the US with our name.) My father did have a great-uncle on his father’s side, who had male descendants who migrated from Minnesota to Canada. I’m in some contact with the latest generation of that family, but I think they are all female. If there is a male, would that work, or is it too distant? (My education on genetics is abysmal, I freely admit.)
I assume this happens because that person took the test as well? Not sure I understand how they would identify relatives other than someone who took the test.
Consolation - you are correct. It would have to be a male who shares a male ancestor with your father, descended through makes. But you still get all the ancestry, all the health data, all the trait data. You just don’t get your paternal haplogroup identified, that’s all.
Dadx - yes, you can indicate if you want to be “public” on the relative-match database. You can just use your initials or first name if you don’t wish your full name out there. And you would be contacted via message within 23andme, so you aren’t revealing your email address. So it might pop up that “GC” is a probable fourth cousin. I can do the equivalent of PMing that person and asking for more info. Of course, you can opt out of this entirely.
Keep in mind the paternal haplogroup identified is just 1 of many paternal ancestors you have (because your mother has a father, your grandmothers had fathers, etc). So it’s interesting to see the migration patterns (mine went from the Middle East to Sicily and then up into E Europe - a very typical Jewish migration pattern) but it’s very academic info, rather than directly useful. And now I’ve told you pretty much everything there is to know about my paternal haplogroup. If you’re interested and have the money to spare, don’t sweat it if you don’t have a male relative to test.
My H did both tests. They came out the same, EXCEPT for a small percentage that one test reported as Swiss, while the other test reported as Belgian. I told him now he won’t know if he should eat Swiss chocolate or Belgian chocolate, so he probably should eat both just to be safe.
I took one of the tests (H gave it to me for Xmas a couple of years ago) and it confirmed the family story about our Central American ancestors on my father’s side. I was surprised to find I was over 10% Finnish - neither of my parents have any idea where that came from.
Yes, I have done 23andMe early on and am grandfathered in (no pun intended!) to get the full health information, which is quite extensive. On the ancestry side it answered a question for me. I had wondered if I had Ashkenazi heritage and it clearly showed I did not (at least not significant or recent.). Since I am a first generation American daughter of two only children, and my grandparents’ siblings did not immigrate here, I did not expect to find close relatives but am still holding out hope a second or third cousin could turn up.
Here’s my bump-into-relatives story: Years ago I was on ancestry.com, searching for my paternal grandfather, who had an uncommon last name. Someone else posted the same name so we contacted one another. Turns out we were second cousins – my grandfather and his grandmother were brother / sister who came through Ellis Island in 1920, had a falling-out once they got here, my grandfather moved elsewhere, and so their children (my father and this man’s father) were first cousins but never met, because each side was “dead to me” (you know how that nonsense goes).
Familial dysautonomia (this is the one I am a carrier for)
ARSACS
Agenesis of the Corpos Callosum w Peripheral Neuropathy
Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease
Beta Thalassemia
Bloom Syndrome
Congenital Disorder of Glycosylation
Cystic Fibrosis
D-Bifunctional Protein Deficiency
Dihydrolipoamide Dehydrogenase Deficiency
Fanconi Anemia
GRACILE Syndrome
Glycogen Storage Disease (Types 1a and 1b)
Heredity Fructose Intolerance
Leigh Syndrome
Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (several types)
MCAD Deficiency
Maple Syrup Urine Disease
Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (two types)
Niemann-Pick Disease
Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome
Nonsyndrome Hearing Loss
DFNB4 Hearing Loss
Primary Hyperoxaluria
Rhizomelic Chondrodysplasia
Sickle Cell Anemia
Sjogren-Larsson Syndrome
Tay-Sachs
Tyrosinemia
Usher Syndrome
Zellweger Syndrome
So as you can see, only a handful of these are common diseases or diseases that the average person would have heard of. There’s nothing about diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Alzheimer’s, etc. I can see people with a family history of things like cystic fibrosis or Tay-Sachs caring, but the rest are pretty obscure IMO.
My father is a Tay-Sachs carrier so that was the one that was the one my sister and I were both interested in. Thankfully, we’re both negative. (According to the test. I’ll talk to a genetic counselor if I decide to try and conceive to see how accurate it is. The odds of Mr R being a TS carrier though are just about zero.)
DH and I did the 23andMe one awhile back. They didn’t give us health in the original report, but have since added health reports for us. No surprises for us other than a high percent of Neanderthal on both our sides.
As with @VeryHappy, I don’t think I have any living male relatives (except a son). The one cousin I thought I had growing up, my dad later told me was born while my uncle was in Korean for >9 months. I think it’s possible that my dad’s father remarried and had additional kids, but he lost contact with that side of his family.
@Pizzagirl you seem to be looking at the “Inherited Conditions” menu item. Under the “Health” menu for 23andMe, I have risk factors listed for
Alzheimer’s
macular degeneration
Celiac
Crohn’s
Diabetes
MS
Gall stones
breast cancer
high blood pressure
melanoma
glaucoma
arthritis (rheumatoid and osteo)
Parkinson’s…
just to name a few. It does NOT show me at risk for all of these (some, yes), but it lists these and many other “heard of” diseases, and states which ones I am at higher risk for and which ones at lower risk as a percentage relative to my reference population. Turns out I am at a much higher risk for macular degeneration than the average European woman. They also give you an indication of the confidence of the finding, as some reports have more confidence than others. There is also a Drug Response menu category where you can see if there are any drugs you may have a bad reaction to. That could certainly be useful, as many are common drugs like statins and warfarin/coumadin.
I have been unclear. The reports reflect all your genetic history. You just won’t get your paternal haplogroup identified if you are a woman (unless your male relative takes the test). All the haplogroup does is tell you the kind of info I mentioned above - eg migration from Sicily to E Europe. That’s it!
