Viking DNA and the pitfalls of genetic ancestry tests

[Eldorado]

According to recent estimates, over 26 million people from across the world have purchased a genetic ancestry test. In the wake of this hype, researchers have begun to investigate how the tests affect our perceptions of ourselves. How do people make sense of a test result stating that they are, for instance, “35% Ashkenazi Jewish”, “27% British” or “4% western Asian”?

Some researchers have concluded that such tests make customers believe that humanity can be divided into biological races, and that customers see the tests as a way of discovering their “true” identities. Other researchers have argued that people use their test results selectively, “picking and choosing” the genetic data they find compatible with their personal desires and aspirations. From this perspective, taking a genetic ancestry test involves some level of creative interpretation.

Full monty at The Conversation: Link

[Indiogene]

They are also sketchy or something difficult for science to understand. My Mom who passed away last week had 3 tests when she was alive in 2016-19: The first one didn't have Native American (North American Indian) DNA, but the third result did, the first had less than 1% West African and the second one could well have indigenous Latin/South American combined with Iberian/Hispanic via Spain (10%). And the labs which tested my Mom for COVID said over the phone of inconsistent data about her ethnoracial makeup: they found 2% East Asian/Siberian DNA, and they meant recent ancestry from China, Korea and Japan. I have to say a white person is 10% mestizo, 5% indigenous, adding East Asian and a drop of black blood, but took 4 tries. And my own Dad learned with only one test done he's 55% local (French-Flemish in his homeland Nord/Pas-de-Calais, now the Hauts-de-France region) with a lot of British and Germanic like Celtic Ireland and Scandinavia, Eastern Europe like Poland and 1-8% Middle Eastern, North African and Indo-Persian made up of biblical Palestinian, Romani and Moroccan. I was told of possible Jewish ancestry in my father's side, but never a word of black ancestry in mother's side until the first DNA test results...and my Dad is 10% Spanish including Basque, almost the same amount except he has no West or sub-saharan African, Asiatic or Pacific, and Amerindian genes found.   

[weaselrunner]

I like the one I heard some time ago, that claimed to trace your family tree back a thousand years. How is that possible when written records about common people were sketchy that far back. How many millions of people were born, lived and died without any kind of written record? Scam 101 to me.

[HandsomeGorilla]

Lol excusing violence because you're 'part Viking' is just asinine. Besides, they namely got their reputation of being vicious from the Christian monks they raided, I wouldn't call them barbaric or violent, in general. Mind you, they obviously did a lot of traveling, and whether the situation seemed threatening to Indigenous peoples or if they had planned on expanding their territory, the only way to do that was through brute force

[Jon the frog]

Genetic ancestry test are use to build large genetic databank, the value of this kind of databank is uge, usefull to retrace people or to determine some genetic risk in a population. Not sure about the result given to the client...i see it at secondary asset.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Jon the frog

[spartan max2]

Oh what ever.

Just another case of researchers saying common people are too stupid to be able to see their own genetic information. 

I had a genetic test a few years back and I can confirm I went on a killing spree afterwards.

Edited April 13, 2021 by spartan max2

[Nnicolette]

Well i waa told i was related to vikings but my test says nothing like that lol they are fun to see though! Pretty sure it isnt even a thing they generally label. Very accurate tests though, I wasnt sure until I saw my sisters and our races matched. I would love to get one for my son but i feel its a choice he should make for himself at 18 whether he wants to be in the database as the results are used to insinuate crimes and i have already heard of many false incriminationst over it.

Oh wait... Apparently I just didn't actually read the blurb about vikings  I guess it does suggest viking descent. Well i can see why they are fascinating to people, exploring the world eating mushrooms and battling naked and bedazzling everything with jewels. They started rap battles and jewelled thier teeth and i still gotta listen to people claim thats black culture lol.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Nnicolette

[bison]

'Viking' was an occupation, or way of life, not a racial or ethnic category. How are genetic tests supposed to track that?  I don't  suppose that most Scandinavian persons of that time period were actually Vikings.

[Seti42]

I think this stuff is stupid. Being proud of something you had no control over (your heritage) is stupid.

It's just as bad as being proud of the country you were born in (nationalism) or proud of the pigmentation of your skin (racism).

All three are terrible ideas, and often lead to terrible people doing terrible things.

Now, if you want genetic testing to see if you have a predisposition to hereditary illness, that's different...And might be actually important to know.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Seti42

[XenoFish]

I'm a mutt. Plus I don't care where I came from on a planetary basis. I don't see why such a thing is so important. As a curiosity, sure I get that. 

[HandsomeGorilla]

2 hours ago, bison said:

'Viking' was an occupation, or way of life, not a racial or ethnic category. How are genetic tests supposed to track that?  I don't  suppose that most Scandinavian persons of that time period were actually Vikings.

Exactly, thank you

[acute]

On 4/11/2021 at 1:06 AM, Eldorado said:

the pitfalls of genetic ancestry tests

In the USA, law enforcement agencies can gain access to your genetic profile, and use Familial DNA to apprehend your relatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling#:~:text=Familial DNA searching (sometimes referred,profile) in a state DNA

[HandsomeGorilla]

10 minutes ago, Xeno-Fish said:

I'm a mutt. Plus I don't care where I came from on a planetary basis. I don't see why such a thing is so important. As a curiosity, sure I get that. 

Yea, it's just curiosity. My dad enjoyed studying family history, as well, so I guess that spawned a bit of my interest. I'm not even actively interested, though, it's just kinda cool to know the provenance of things...including me

My ancestry resembles these remarks, however. But how could you ever know that your ancestors were vikings? Lol its like if one side of your family is German, you must be a Nazi 

[XenoFish]

6 minutes ago, HandsomeGorilla said:

My ancestry resembles these remarks, however. But how could you ever know that your ancestors were vikings? Lol its like if one side of your family is German, you must be a Nazi 

You'd have to do some heavy duty tracing of your blood line to figure stuff like that out. Which if just for curiosity is fine. Personally I'm not my ancestors. 

[ExoPaul]

Like acute has said, law enforcement are viewing this as an unofficial source to get DNA samples.
Apparently there are several cases of DNA obtained, used to identify a killer.
Ancestory.com themselves, have fought in court (and won every case so far) against the US law enforcement departments who have tried dozens of times to get access to the database to match DNA to a suspect.
It won't be long before new legislation is passed that will allow them the right to access these DNA-Test sites to gain access to millions of people.
One day you find out you are 1% Viking. The next day you are facing criminal charges.

[trancelikestate]

I've had a genealogy done that went back to the 1600's down some lines. What most people don't realize is how many grandparents you are actually descended from. If you are of european lineage there's more of a chance you can follow at least one line and find "vikings" than not.

[Eldorado]

9 hours ago, trancelikestate said:

I've had a genealogy done that went back to the 1600's down some lines. What most people don't realize is how many grandparents you are actually descended from. If you are of european lineage there's more of a chance you can follow at least one line and find "vikings" than not.

GENERATIONS BACK                      NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS
18th great-grandparents                    1,048,576
19th great-grandparents                    2,097,152
20th great-grandparents                    4,194,304
21st great-grandparents                    8,388,608

[docyabut2]

To me we are all from the Vikings and the Neanderthals:)

[docyabut2]

33 minutes ago, docyabut2 said:

To me we are all from the Vikings and the Neanderthals:)

my grandson`s is a  drummer of this Viking  video::)  

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by docyabut2

[llegendary]

My DNA tells me my level of social justice that I'm deserved.

[Raptor Witness]

My paternal DNA test suggested an escape from the vicinity of Serbia from the Mongol invaders to far Western Europe.

My maternal DNA test suggested a reunification with the Mongol horde, which drove out the paternal.

[XenoFish]

I got that Neanderthal pride.

[HollyDolly]

I haven't bothered with any of this. Mom was hungarian, dad german. I'm sure  maybe her side had encounters with the Mongols, and definetly the Ottoman turks who went around eastern Europe in Hungary, Romania, the balkans terrorizing the locals. Plus a few other groups thrown in for good meseaure  I look more like momma's side of the family, and have had people, usually russian  or polish americans think i'm russian, I guess because of my facial features. Dad's side is german, but there might be  some latvian,(grandma was baltic german) dutch and who knows what else. His father's family came from Bavaria, and we have relatives in Baden Wurttemberg which area was once known as Swabia for the Suebii germanic tribe. Heck could be some roman blood running around too, since they were all over the place. I just bother with this whole thing as I know what I am, and I'm fine with that.

[glorybebe]

I am a huge mixture.   I have been wondering about my ancestors for curiosity sake.  I know where each of our grandparents came from, but in the Scottish was traced back to any degree.  My Swedish grandpa would only say were were Canadian.  The Ukrainian side had some Asian mix, would like to know what.  Pretty sure there is Jewish background somewhere, but no one knows for sure.

[+Desertrat56]

On 4/10/2021 at 6:30 PM, Solipsi Rai said:

They are also sketchy or something difficult for science to understand. My Mom who passed away last week had 3 tests when she was alive in 2016-19: The first one didn't have Native American (North American Indian) DNA, but the third result did, the first had less than 1% West African and the second one could well have indigenous Latin/South American combined with Iberian/Hispanic via Spain (10%). And the labs which tested my Mom for COVID said over the phone of inconsistent data about her ethnoracial makeup: they found 2% East Asian/Siberian DNA, and they meant recent ancestry from China, Korea and Japan. I have to say a white person is 10% mestizo, 5% indigenous, adding East Asian and a drop of black blood, but took 4 tries. And my own Dad learned with only one test done he's 55% local (French-Flemish in his homeland Nord/Pas-de-Calais, now the Hauts-de-France region) with a lot of British and Germanic like Celtic Ireland and Scandinavia, Eastern Europe like Poland and 1-8% Middle Eastern, North African and Indo-Persian made up of biblical Palestinian, Romani and Moroccan. I was told of possible Jewish ancestry in my father's side, but never a word of black ancestry in mother's side until the first DNA test results...and my Dad is 10% Spanish including Basque, almost the same amount except he has no West or sub-saharan African, Asiatic or Pacific, and Amerindian genes found.   

If people knew a little bit more about history it would be easier to interpret, also, companies differ in the amount of detail.   For example one of my cousins had her DNA test with 23 & Me and with Ancestry and she got different results, 23 & Me seemed to be more detailed.

As for history, the east africans traded with the british isle, people bringing back wives and their entourages both directions.  And there is also the fact that 4 siblings can get different genetic traits from both parents so that on a DNA chart one sibling might appear to share more DNA with a cousin than another sibling, though they have the same parents.   There are too many details that are left out or not considered.

I would be very surprised that anyone who has scottish ancestry does NOT have at least a .1 % of east african DNA.   But if it doesn't show up on the DNA test and it does show up on your brother's DNA test, if you have the same two parents you know somehow it is in your bloodline.

An example is that my DNA test shows .5 % native american and .2 percent east asian.   but that does not show up on my brother's DNA even though we have the same parents.  My dad has .3% east african and most of his ancestry is from scotland and germany, but his DNA does not show german it shows scandanavia.   People move around even 200 years ago or 100 years ago.