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One of my closest friends has really gotten into tracing her ancestry and genealogy. She has sent in DNA to at least two different places, gotten the results which have been pored over. She also takes a fairly intellectual approach reading books on European ancestry in general.
I would like to get into this at least a little, so I can share with her, but frankly, I just don’t see the appeal or and am even a little put off by it.
Here are my objections which may seem silly as I really do not know much about the field/hobby. Maybe someone can set me straight?
1. I don’t think knowing my ancestors is going to tell me any more about myself or really enhance my life. Already I feel kind of different from the relatives I know I have and think a fair portion of them are well ... kinda crazy. Do I want more crazy in my life? Um ... not really?
2. When I was growing up, I saw genealogical accounts of both my mother and father’s side of the family. My father’s side even had a little book made up. I didn’t really think it was that interesting at the time. I mean I know that my mother’s family is basically all German and my father’s family was a mix of English, Irish, Scottish and Swedish. Ok, so? My friend’s response to this is that I don’t really know the truth. I don’t know about the quality of the research that went into those books. But let’s say the genealogical research based on DNA showed that I had some distant relatives in, I don’t know, say ... India. So what? It doesn’t make me a different person ... it doesn’t really even make me part Indian because I didn’t grow up in that culture.
3. Are those companies even totally legit? How do you know the little maps of where your ancestors lived are actually accurate?
4. The maps my friends was so excited about look really vague to me.
5. isn’t this a tad narcissistic?
So, why are you so into this? Can you explain to me what makes this a great hobby?
I agree. I don't get why it's of such interest, either. I heard / read something about most people having gotten the same general results, with percentages being of European backgrounds, as you describe. And no, I cannot see how it really adds something to a person.
I recall celebrities having been on a show to discover their histories, and would find out that WAY in the past "had been linked to Royalty" or how a distant relative "had been in prison in 1492", or "owned another as a slave", for instance. I think the general public does not get much detailed information. So you might hear about what occurred with those attached to blood lines...but does it really make any difference? Those whom I have heard of getting information to track down another today with hopes of becoming close have not had anything come of it.
I guess for some it is appealing to imagine what all one could have been connected to and maybe some discover something helpful or actually develop closeness with a newfound connection, but it seems for most it is likely a waste of money and effort. As with so much else, it depends upon personality as to what interests or motivates us.
Thanks for the responses. I just remembered another reason why I don’t do genealogy. My husband’s ex-wife was extremely into genealogy, and he hates everything that reminds him of her.
The one thing that I do find interesting is looking at old cemeteries (don’t matter if my relatives were buried there or not), but that is something he will refuse to do because she used to do the cemetery thing. I guess I don’t care enough to press the point.
Maybe I’ll just lurk here and read the stories of everyone’s ancestors. I’m sure there are a lot of good ones.
Cemeteries, now there is your tie in. Forget the ex-wife. You're not her. You also would be doing your line and your hubs line. Do you have kids? Are they married? What about their spouses families? Grand kids?
I do suggest you join ancestry, it's free. Think about buying a DNA test this weekend, it's on sale $59 for st. Pat's. This will at least give you an experience that maybe your friend can help you with. Who knows, maybe you'll do DNA and find you have a sibling you didn't know about and want to delete those results. Tip, instead of deleting, you can put your profile offline until you're ready to deal with the truth.
I had a friend who sounded interested when I told her about my experience. She really wanted to do her DNA. She's Hungarian like me but was born there, came here in the 80's when she was a young teen. She never told me anything after sending her test in. A few months later I asked about it, she thought it was stupid, deleted her account. I think she found something she didn't know about like a sibling. I'll never know because she moved, we still talk but not often because she has a lot on her plate with an elderly mother plus 2 teens doing online school.
Anyway, back to you. Humor me and order an Ancestry DNA test to experience it since it's so cheap. You won't know if you like it or not unless you jump in. The DNA test being cheap is the perfect time to try. It will at least confirm or deny your ethnicity and whether any of your grandparents parents weren't their biological parent because you'd be surprised how many people weren't raised by who they thought was their biological father. With DNA there are no lies. Either you match on that line or you do not. Ancestry has some good DNA tools where you can color code matches. I use shades of pink for my mothers line and shades of blue for my father. You can even tag matches in your tree if you do have them in your tree. I have a lot of matches in my tree.
After getting your DNA results, upload it to My Heritage for free. Ask your friend if they're at My Heritage. Do not do 23 and me, it's expensive and not a genealogy site, it's mostly for health and a novelty at $99 plus $10 shipping unless you get it for a $79 sale for family matching, remember no family trees there. Their health test is $199 that goes on sale mostly for $150 or $99 Black Friday and Christmas sale. The family matching one rarely goes on sale, it's worth about $49 to me because Ancestry's test goes as low as $59 from $99, there's no tree or genealogy information. I should say there's a DNA tree that you can build with matches but it's worthless for anything except matches.
You may have seen me "plug" My heritage in other threads. It's a great DNA site that is world wide. Both of my parents came to the US in 1957 but not together so all of my family is in Hungary still. I have 1,498 DNA matches in the US, 231 in Germany, 203 in the UK (which makes no sense to me), 160 in France, 97 in Sweden, Hungary 79, Australia 79, Canada 76, Netherlands 67, Austria 59 and the countries go on. I'm shocked to see 10 in South Africa, 1 in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Guatemala. I even have one in Egypt which is intriguing. I've never noticed him before, I see we match on my mothers mothers line. I have not gotten far on that line.
After ordering your DNA test, go back to Ancestry to start building your tree. Here is where cemeteries come in. Think of your tree as tracking where everyone is buried because find a grave records are free. You can go on find a grave, start looking up your family to see if anyone took the time to link them in death.
Are your parents alive? If so, start with your grandparents. Make sure each grandparent is linked together on find a grave and if not, make an account there to link them. All you need is their memorial number. To give you an example, this one I entered Kince Charles Davis under burial details it says Memorial ID 216649141, scroll to look at his profile, his wife is listed, so are his daughters Lelar and Essie. You can click both of theirs to see their husbands and some how their famous actor brother Ossie is listed. Ossie is missing on Kince's but I see he's listed on his siblings. Apparently someone made another memorial for Kince so I'll have to delete mine once I ask for corrections. Find a grave only allows one memorial per person, the other was made before mine. Find a grave wouldn't accept my memorials for Ossie's parents because I don't have their cemeteries listed. I've been trying to get with Ossie's daughters to find what cemetery Kince and his wife Laura Cooper are buried at, all I know is it was a "colored cemetery" in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. Apparently the person that made Kince's said non cemetery burial which is wrong. I'll have to contact them too.
After you make a profile at find a grave, you would click on suggest edit to suggest things like DOB, DOD and places of both, also add parents and spouse if it applies. It brings me a lot of joy to be able to connect families in death. I spend a lot of time doing my tree because I'm very into making sure that tree extends to find a grave. I will then leave a flower where you can also add a message. I'll make a note of the corrections I want then I'll link to their family tree branch at family search which is a free family tree site that also gives free records. I do a lot of my work there because of the free records. I've been on Ancestry about 6 years now, have never paid for a subscription because so far, I have not run into any brick walls that I can't do. If I did I would consider paying on Ancestry. I also keep a small tree at My Heritage but do not do work there. The tree is mainly for my DNA matches to be able to see.
At find a grave if you join, you can also request a transfer of your family. To do that it's suggest edit, then suggest other edits which sends an email to the memorial manager. You would say this is my grandmother or grandfather I'd like to request a transfer. I also request transfers for people I know. There's one, my neighbor from my last house, he was like a grandfather to me. He had a lady friend Gloria that he was seeing for close to 10 years, I had made his memorial but someone else made his lady friends memorial. I was very close to Gloria. She passed away a few years before he did. I had connected her family on find a grave, I also used to leave flowers for holidays, the day she passed which is the same as Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson but a year later. I'd asked the memorial manager twice to transfer it to me, finally a few months ago which was a few years later I sent a note asking again. This time I said that I've asked before, I didn't understand why she wouldn't transfer her to me because she didn't leave Gloria flowers, I was always doing that. Once again, I told her how much it would mean to manage Gloria's memorial. I then went and left a flower saying once again I requested transfer... Well, this time it finally worked!
Back to Ancestry, click on relatives hint, one should be their find a grave, attach the record.
Back to your kids, if they have kids, you can do your tree for them. That was my motivation, to leave the tree for my adult kids and grand kids while their grandmothers were still alive. I didn't get too far on my daughters fathers mother because she immigrated from Germany in the 40's. She refused to talk about it. She also refused to talk about her 1st husband who brought her to the US, so my sister in law and her brother didn't know anything about their father until I found records for MIL coming over with another name. I eventually found their marriage record. It allowed my SIL to have a few conversations with MIL before she passed in September. I managed to get pretty far on MIL's 2nd husband, my daughters grandfather because his family immigrated here from Poland/Russia in the early 1900's. I was also able to find some of them on find a grave which wasn't easy because my daughters great, great grandfather Americanized their very Polish last name for some reason. I have not found record of a legal name change but back then you were able to reinvent yourself to whatever name you wanted. Now it has to be done legally. I'm also not seeing records of divorce for people before 1950, it's like they split up and the marriage was done, the wife either still used her married name or went back to her maiden name.
My son's father's father died, MIL is in her mid 80's. She's been a huge help to me when building both her and FIL's trees. I asked if she has time to write some bios for her parents and grandparents so she's working on that. Her nephew had gotten pretty far with his tree, he and my son matched on ancestry DNA so I was able to connect with him to get some of it. I knew him back when I was married to my son's father, so Jack was happy to reconnect with me. Unfortunately he passed away over a year ago, 6 months after his mother passed away. His sister supposedly has his genealogy records, hopefully she will get on ancestry and do the tree or will give MIL a CD for me so that I can put his tree on Ancestry for MIL because Jack had gotten pretty far on both of her parents. They had a pretty neat history where one of her grandfathers came with his brother as a young teen from Ireland. He's a hard one to research because he shares the name with someone else. It's people like that that make it interesting.
My tree is hard with my relatives being in Hungary. They don't like to release records. I also do not have trees built for my 2 grand kids. I have to ask their fathers for their trees. My grand daughters father doesn't know we did her DNA. She has all sorts of matches on his side. That's what I'm really into is the DNA and matching. It's like a puzzle to figure out how we're related, especially in the early days when I didn't know both of my parents had people that came to the US. I was always told they were the 1st which I should have known was a lie on my mothers line because she had an aunt here who she stayed with. It turns out that all 4 of my grandmothers sisters came to the US in NJ, my grandmother, the baby, was the only one to stay in Hungary. Same with my mothers father, he was the youngest, almost all of his siblings came to the US. They didn't come up in searches because their last name was spelled a little different. They moved to Missouri.
Believe it or not, I'm not into history. It was one of my worst subjects. I'm also not good with other languages, so searching for Hungarian records is very hard for me. I still have to learn how to use the card catalog at family search now that my daughter and grandson have moved out. It's always way too busy here, especially since he's doing remote schooling due to COVID. It will take a lot of concentration to learn the directions because I've done the searching before but never turn up anything, not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bound2TN
KathrynAragon said---"4) My hunch was correct when it comes to mental health - it IS largely genetic. My mother and my brother were/are mentally ill, seriously so. My mother's family is rife with it. I am 59 years old with no mental health issues, so I feel safe. However, my mental health "risk" genetically is 11 percent, while the average is 2 percent.
5) No other physical DNA risks showed up, thank goodness."
I have a niece whose primary interest in genealogy was the medical aspect. It is also a major interest of the genetic testing companies.
"What the search engine is to Google, the Personal Genome Service is to 23andMe. The company is not exactly hiding its ambitions. “The long game here is not to make money selling kits, although the kits are essential to get the base level data,” Patrick Chung, a 23andMe board member, told FastCompany last month. “Once you have the data, [the company] does actually become the Google of personalized health care.” The company has lowered the price of the kit again and again, most recently from $299 to a mere $99, practically making it a stocking-stuffer. All the better to induce volunteers to give 23andMe the data it so desperately wants. (Currently, the database contains the genetic information of some half a million people, a number Wojcicki reportedly wants to double by year end.)
What does 23andMe want to do with all that data? Right now the talk is all about medical research—and, in fact, the company is doing some interesting work. It has been sifting through its genomic database, which is combined with information that volunteers submit about themselves, to find possible genetic links to people’s traits. (The bright-light/sneeze genetic tag is a 23andMe discovery.) More promising are 23andMe’s attempts to recruit people who suffer from certain diseases, such as Parkinson’s and a few types of cancer. Simply through brute-force pattern matching, the company has a chance of finding genetic causes of these ailments, which could lead to a way to combat them. (And perhaps a blockbuster patent or three.)
That’s just the beginning, though. 23andMe reserves the right to use your personal information—including your genome—to inform you about events and to try to sell you products and services. There is a much more lucrative market waiting in the wings, too. One could easily imagine how insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms might be interested in getting their hands on your genetic information, the better to sell you products (or deny them to you). According to 23andMe’s privacy policy, that wouldn’t be an acceptable use of the database. Although 23andMe admits that it will share aggregate information about users genomes to third parties, it adamantly insists that it will not sell your personal genetic information without your explicit consent." https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...he-fda-thinks/
Interestingly, Google is also interested in mining the health information for analysis---
'Nightingale Project' to Turn Over Millions of Medical Records to Google
"Google is secretly transporting data to its own servers without patient knowledge or consent," the whisteleblower claims in the video.
The video goes on to explain that the project has four stages. The first two move patient data, with patients' names, to Google's cloud.
During stage three, Google uses Ascension's data to build a framework in the cloud.
Then during stage four, Google will mine Ascension's patient information to run analytics and AI algorithms, sell or share data with third parties, and create profiles of patients that can be used for ads targeted to the patients' healthcare issues." https://www.technewsworld.com/story/86353.html
I had originally been interested in 23 and me back in 2010, 2011 for the health but could never afford it. They then had to stop selling it, eventually the price came down but it was not down enough for me because other tests (FTDNA and Ancestry) were a lot cheaper but they didn't offer health.
At some point, I decided to get into doing not only my tree but my 2 kids paternal side because their grandmothers were getting older and I'm so glad I did start when I did because it gave me 5 years with my favorite MIL before she passed last September even though she wouldn't talk about her years in Germany, she did tell me a few things I never knew.
Since I was into genealogy, I was using both Ancestry and My Heritage but My Heritage wasn't doing DNA yet, it made sense to buy a test at Ancestry when it went on sale for $59. I jumped in and bought a test for me and my 2 kids, then my hub a week later for father's day. Within that time, My Heritage had emailed me saying they were giving away DNA tests and that they were interested in me for the founders project which is their DNA database because my parents came to the US in 1957 but not together. I applied and won the test. I then uploaded my ancestry tests while waiting for my DNA to process which took over 6 months because I was part of the founders project. It was pretty neat watching them grow over the years.
I still watch 23 and me but I bought a test a few months too soon. After I bought it for $150, it went to $99 for the health test for Black Friday and the Christmas season. 23 and me is more of a novelty test for health. It really didn't tell me anything I didn't know plus I have horrible matches there. I also have the worst luck with messages getting answered there, I'll get one reply out of 10 messages sent.
While 23 and me appears cheap, it really is not when you compare it to ancestry. 23 and me rarely sells the family match test at $79, it's really not worth more then $49 because Ancestry DNA goes on sale for $59, they have family trees at least which 23 and me does not. There's no genealogy there, just health, ethnicity and matches. Same with the health test at the usual sale of $150, $99 is more like it, especially since their test has been the same price for close to 10 years but I doubt they will lower the $199 price. Honestly I wasn't impressed with the health. It didn't tell me anything I didn't know. Promethease which offers free uploads or normally under $20 told me more. It told me I was exposed to Benzene which I already knew, it was my 2nd health issue entry.
What really turns me off is they use members data for health then turn around and sell it, but they do not pass off any savings to the customer. IMO, if you participate in their health studies, they should sell you more tests at $49 for family matching and $75 for health. They can afford to because they're making tons of money on customers that do participate.
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Originally Posted by JustMike77
I do find genealogy fascinating, but I've never found the time to make it a hobby. My family in America began when Charles Woolverton sailed from England to Delaware in 1682. He sailed on William Penn's ship "Welcome" as he and Penn were good friends. I have a complete family tree which was written in longhand over the centuries. I also have one of my ancestor's discharge papers from the Civil War. There are entire websites and many books devoted to the history of the Woolvertons, so there's not much for me to do but read it.
You really should do your DNA to make sure the paper trail is right because you never know who was lying about a kid's paternal side.
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Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit
To be brutally honest, my initial interest was trying to confirm that my parents are my real parents as there were factors which had cast some doubt.
Then I got fascinated by population genetics, and that's really driven most of it. That's the reason I am way more into the ethnicity estimates than the matching even though it's definitely a flawed science for now. But I think even what we can do now is already remarkable compared to where science was 30 years ago.
The matching hasn't done me a ton of good beyond confirming the identity of my parents (so my initial interest) because nobody in my home country really uses DNA testing, so all my matches are quite distant. Not very useful for tracing my own family tree as they're all basically the descendants of people who branched off my ancestral families at some point in the past by emigrating to America (all of it before 1900).
I can't recall if you've uploaded to My Heritage or FTDNA for free, if not you should because people from other countries tend to buy kits there and not ancestry. Both are free to upload.
I've never been interested, but did keep two family trees that relatives gave to me (one on my mom's grandmother's paternal side and another that my dad's great aunt did). My husband's second cousin on his mom's side gave us a tree he did too. As I have an adopted son too, I thought it would be a mistake to take anything like this up as a hobby (point being blood lines do not make a family). Like you too, I thought who cares.
But lol I see the novelty value and fun now -- Just for two months (this past January and February) DS who is adopted subscribed to ancestry.com. Dropped it after that due to the monthly fees and we had already done the fun easy stuff. He just thought it would be fun to check out after seeing the commercials on TV and had extra evening time during COVID-19 with so much closed. He couldn't get anywhere with his biological family (I hired a search company to find his biological parents in Russia - one who is deceased and two biological brothers with success when he turned 18, so we had some names, etc.), but ancestry.com didn't have any info with english spellings, and we couldn't get anywhere farther than that. After that DS jumped immediately to what I call his real family. He asked for my help too, so I pulled out the two family trees I have from relatives and the one on DH's side. On one side he was able to go back 13 generations (amazing) -- found a family crest, burial site in Europe, glass picture of crest in a glass museum in Wisconsin (cool). The one relative who had a title had been given it due to services to other's during a famine. On the other two trees DS was able to go pretty far back on he was able to go back around seven generations. There were so many year book pictures and cool documents for more recent relatives too (parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents). It was really a blast. We just spend a few evenings over two months, though, and then stopped the subscription.
The amazing thing is that with all the technology and digital records we can get in a few hours what other relatives (my great aunt in particular 20 years ago spent months doing) and were able to go back two generations further than she did - She took an elderhostel class in Utah on this, spent three extra weeks in the state at the Salt Lake City library for this stuff doing more research. And then she and her husband did a month long trip to Germany and visited small towns, churches, and grave sites for more info. And who knows it actually may be that her research is out there an on that site and that's why we could get so much on that tree.
Anyway, I like you would have said what's the appeal, till I spent a few nights looking at this with DS. It was tons of fun, especially with all the photos etc. and how easy it is to find so much. We've moved on to other stuff now, but we could get a monthly subscription again if interested and I understand the appeal much more now. It's like almost everything in life. The more you dig into something the more interesting it becomes.
Has your son done DNA? If not, he should. It's on sale this weekend for $59 at ancestry. Since your son has bio family in Russia and Europe, he can then upload his ancestry DNA results to My Heritage for free. I'll be shocked if he does not have matches all over Europe like me.
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Originally Posted by In2itive_1
I agree. I don't get why it's of such interest, either. I heard / read something about most people having gotten the same general results, with percentages being of European backgrounds, as you describe. And no, I cannot see how it really adds something to a person.
I recall celebrities having been on a show to discover their histories, and would find out that WAY in the past "had been linked to Royalty" or how a distant relative "had been in prison in 1492", or "owned another as a slave", for instance. I think the general public does not get much detailed information. So you might hear about what occurred with those attached to blood lines...but does it really make any difference? Those whom I have heard of getting information to track down another today with hopes of becoming close have not had anything come of it.
I guess for some it is appealing to imagine what all one could have been connected to and maybe some discover something helpful or actually develop closeness with a newfound connection, but it seems for most it is likely a waste of money and effort. As with so much else, it depends upon personality as to what interests or motivates us.
Sounds like you saw the show Who Do You Think You Are? That's what they did, traced celebrities family trees. Brook Shields was on who had royalty family. Yes, a few were slave owners or slaves. Some black people found out they had white ancestors and some white people found out they had black ancestors.
I don't think many people do DNA or family trees expecting to find family to have a close relationship. It's surely not why I did it. I honestly didn't think I'd have any DNA matches in the US and was shocked to see the amount that I do. Out of the people I've met doing DNA, the only ones who I've Facebook friended is descendants of my maternal grandmothers sisters. I've also friended one gal who's the GF of a match on my dad's mothers line.
While you think it wouldn't appeal to you, you never know, if you did a tree it may surprise you, especially if you did your DNA. You may find out some family secret where your great grandfather really isn't your great grandfather by DNA.
The one thing that I do find interesting is looking at old cemeteries (don’t matter if my relatives were buried there or not), but that is something he will refuse to do because she used to do the cemetery thing. I guess I don’t care enough to press the point.
Maybe I’ll just lurk here and read the stories of everyone’s ancestors. I’m sure there are a lot of good ones.
If you like looking at old cemeteries, you might want to check out www.findagrave.com . People look for somebody to take a picture of a relative's tombstone and live across the country or just somewhere they can't do it themselves. Just check for the county you live in and see who is looking for someone's monument. When my wife's health let her, she would get a list of requests for the 3 or 4 counties around us and we'd spend the day out in the sunshine looking around cemeteries.
I can't recall if you've uploaded to My Heritage or FTDNA for free, if not you should because people from other countries tend to buy kits there and not ancestry. Both are free to upload.
I have, and there's more hits from Europe but it's still too scattershot to be of real help. The adoption rate of these services is just massively higher in the U.S. than in any other country. My best match is actually on Ancestry and it's a person with a grandparent must have been a close relative (brother or uncle) of one of my great-grandfathers.
The surnames in that family helped identify which side of my family that was. So I can confirm that someone on my dad's side migrated to upstate New York at some point in the late 19th century. But of course that's not my direct ancestor, just a family branch-off and mostly just trivial in that I have distant cousins walking around America who don't know I exist.
KathrynAragon said---"4) My hunch was correct when it comes to mental health - it IS largely genetic. My mother and my brother were/are mentally ill, seriously so. My mother's family is rife with it. I am 59 years old with no mental health issues, so I feel safe. However, my mental health "risk" genetically is 11 percent, while the average is 2 percent.
5) No other physical DNA risks showed up, thank goodness."
I have a niece whose primary interest in genealogy was the medical aspect. It is also a major interest of the genetic testing companies.
"What the search engine is to Google, the Personal Genome Service is to 23andMe. The company is not exactly hiding its ambitions. “The long game here is not to make money selling kits, although the kits are essential to get the base level data,” Patrick Chung, a 23andMe board member, told FastCompany last month. “Once you have the data, [the company] does actually become the Google of personalized health care.” The company has lowered the price of the kit again and again, most recently from $299 to a mere $99, practically making it a stocking-stuffer. All the better to induce volunteers to give 23andMe the data it so desperately wants. (Currently, the database contains the genetic information of some half a million people, a number Wojcicki reportedly wants to double by year end.)
What does 23andMe want to do with all that data? Right now the talk is all about medical research—and, in fact, the company is doing some interesting work. It has been sifting through its genomic database, which is combined with information that volunteers submit about themselves, to find possible genetic links to people’s traits. (The bright-light/sneeze genetic tag is a 23andMe discovery.) More promising are 23andMe’s attempts to recruit people who suffer from certain diseases, such as Parkinson’s and a few types of cancer. Simply through brute-force pattern matching, the company has a chance of finding genetic causes of these ailments, which could lead to a way to combat them. (And perhaps a blockbuster patent or three.)
That’s just the beginning, though. 23andMe reserves the right to use your personal information—including your genome—to inform you about events and to try to sell you products and services. There is a much more lucrative market waiting in the wings, too. One could easily imagine how insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms might be interested in getting their hands on your genetic information, the better to sell you products (or deny them to you). According to 23andMe’s privacy policy, that wouldn’t be an acceptable use of the database. Although 23andMe admits that it will share aggregate information about users genomes to third parties, it adamantly insists that it will not sell your personal genetic information without your explicit consent." https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...he-fda-thinks/
Interestingly, Google is also interested in mining the health information for analysis---
'Nightingale Project' to Turn Over Millions of Medical Records to Google
"Google is secretly transporting data to its own servers without patient knowledge or consent," the whisteleblower claims in the video.
The video goes on to explain that the project has four stages. The first two move patient data, with patients' names, to Google's cloud.
During stage three, Google uses Ascension's data to build a framework in the cloud.
Then during stage four, Google will mine Ascension's patient information to run analytics and AI algorithms, sell or share data with third parties, and create profiles of patients that can be used for ads targeted to the patients' healthcare issues." https://www.technewsworld.com/story/86353.html
Well, I took the extra step to sign a lot of privacy documents with 23andme - not sure how secure all that is but it's like I have been saying all along with my smartphone - if someone is tracking me, they have got to be bored out of their gourd.
I've gotten really into it lately. My mom told me about familysearch.org and I was hooked from then on lol...it's super addictive for me for some reason. It's like a big mystery at times and you get such a "high" from finding a missing piece of the puzzle. Of course, the other side of that is finding out the not so fun facts...such as when I found out my husband and I are 9th cousins. Upon further investigation it appears to be accurate too. Not sure how I feel about that fact haha!
Ha! My husband and I found out we were fifth cousins! I was sort of worried about that actually, since both families came from a very small corner of Louisiana a couple of generations back. I actually called my dad before my husband and I got serious because he was the "family genealogist" and asked him "I'm not related to this guy, am I?" My dad laughed and said, "No - our families did know each other but they aren't related." Really. Come to find out we probably share a great great grandparent or something like that.
I always thought it was gross but my husband always said, "Hey. It kinda turns me on."
You explained this so well, I could hug you! You said stuff I wanted to hit on, like history not happening in a vacuum...which to ME, is a fascinating thing. And genealogy tends to 'fluff out' all those dry historical facts. Gives LIFE to those facts.
For instance...
On my paternal side, my great great great grandfather met my GGG grandmother on the trail of tears. He was Scots/Irish, she was Cherokee, and widowed, with 2 small children. He was in the army. They got married, and had a bunch more kids, in Oklahoma. As you can probably imagine, they had no great love for the Federal Gov, and didn't trust the Federal Gov. (Not just my ggg grandparents...all the folks who took the trail of tears.)
Jump ahead some years, and it's the Civil war. My kin had no love for the federal gov. and were confederates. My GGG grandmother is now a widow (again) and trying to keep her younger children safe from union soldiers trying to "conscript" her younger boys into the union army. Of course they wouldn't be conscripted. They would be killed, so they couldn't grow up to become Confederate soldiers. She died in a prison, of pneumonia, at the age of 42, because she wouldn't tell where she hid her boys.
Again...no love for the Fed. Gov.
Civil war ends in 1865, and 65 years later, it's the great depression. Also, it's when the 'great' gangsters were active. Bonnie and Clyde, Barker Gang, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, etc.
Throughout the Midwest, many people considers these gangsters as folk heroes. These guys were "sticking it to the man." Robbing banks during the depression? What did the average Joe care? It wasn't until civilians started getting killed, that the average Joe started caring.
Ma Barker was married to my G uncle's best friend, George, in Oklahoma. They went to Indian School together. Ma Barker and her husband were never divorced, but she wanted a life of adventure, and she took off with her 4 criminal sons. My G uncle was also the Barker gang's lawyer. It's unclear if he was forced by the gang to represent them, or he did it of his own volition.
Ma, (her name was Arizona) and her son, Fred, died in a shoot-out, in Florida. Their bodies laid in the local morgue for months. George didn't have 2 nickels to rub together, but it tore him up that his wife and son were laying in a morgue, as no one would claim the bodies.
Finally, my GG uncle quietly brought the bodies of Ma Barker, and her son Fred, back to Oklahoma, where they are buried in our Family Cemetery
Hey, get this:
One morning, a g uncle of mine was traveling through Louisiana down to Rayville and back up to south Arkansas. He was stopped by a state trooper or something and told to make a detour. He did so. Later that day, as he drove back, he found out that Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed on the road he was originally planning to take.
Interesting. The OP asked why people are into it, said that they didn't quite get the appeal, and wondered if it isn't a bit narcissistic. And instead of answering those questions, many people went into a great deal of detail about their ancestry. Perhaps they were just trying to provide examples of why it's interesting, but honestly - your family history is really not that fascinating to too many people other than your relatives (if them). And your famous ancestors from hundreds of years ago with whom you share a tiny fraction of DNA are no reflection on you.
Speak for yourself - I am enjoying reading these stories and I'm not related to any of these people as far as I know.
I always thought it was gross but my husband always said, "Hey. It kinda turns me on."
lol...that reminds me about the Mad about You episode where they thought they were 4th cousins and they both got turned on by it only to find out they weren't 4th cousins at all but that one side was the other's servant haha!
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