… at least they got it right: if test results I’ve seen are to be believed, a person’s ancestry is very close to random. Which I suspect it is not.
My brother, according to his, has an ancestry entirely different from mine (and no, we didn’t even have a milkman when he was born), while his wife’s is more similar to mine (and no, we are not from the hills of West Virginia).
Comics I Don't Understand 
Dammit, now you’ve got me itching again to do a DNA test! My ancestry is very easily traced, very singular, very white, and centered in the British Isles, so I’m curious whether they’d nail it or what kinds of crap they’d throw in. That’s the same reason I’ve resisted getting the dog’s DNA tested: he’s obviously a mix of a small terrier and either a white poodle or a bichon, so it would either be boring or unbelievable. Not worth throwing money away on.
This article explains why DNA testing for ancestry is not
accurate.
https://gizmodo.com/how-dna-testing-botched-my-familys-heritage-and-probab-1820932637
Thanks, Arthur.
I admit I got a kick out the article comparing this, as I’ve done, to astrology.
This was in today’s (2/13) paper – how quick it was listed.
My grandparents came here – 3 as children with their parents and one as a 17 year old escaping Tsar’s army recruitment. So I know that each of them is from where they are from. Okay, my grandfather mentioned always said he was Russian, but he was from Poland as was my grandmother (per the Ellis Island records), the remainder were from Poland, and Austria. Robert’s grandparents came here (as did one set of great-grandparents) from Northern Italy – he knows the city and the family history. No real reason to look further.
In an advice column in the newspaper (the one which used to be Ann Landers column) of a woman who greatly regretted her DNA test. It seems that her mother had an affair with the husband of the couple that her parents were close to – and she and her best friend are half sisters and she regrets finding this out.
Mine seemed accurate, and they also told me that a fairly close relative had also taken the test, with enough information for me to find my mother’s first cousin, whom I never met, and only knew as a name on a genealogy chart..
Arthur; thanks for that article (saved me some money)
DNA testing to find relatives is pretty accurate.
DNA testing to determine your ethnic heritage is a crap-shoot.
Makes me wonder how accurate the DNA testing in the TV Series “Finding Your Roots” actually is.
Grawlix, I never watch the show, but I assume they use more reliable methods than a kit sold at Wal-Mart and CVS.
We did the National Geographic DNA test and when my dad did the first edition, he got Northern Europe and Asia, which doesn’t sound like us at all. I did the second edition of the test and got Southern Europe and Scandinavia, which is a bit closer. My son did the test and got Southern Europe, Scandinavia, and Finland/Siberia, I think? So, my dad did the test again and got mostly Southern Europe.
My father’s family is a strangely dark-complected Czech family (people usually assume that we’re either Sicilian or Mexican). My mom’s father was born in Lithuania, apparently, but his ethnicity was Latvian. My son’s father’s family is primarily from the British Isles with a bit of German thrown in for flavor.
The National Geographic test is all anonymous but it allows you to submit your results and include details on your family as far back as you know it, so I did that. If anyone else surfaces with whatever markers made them say that my family is from Southern Europe, then there’s a higher chance that it will ping as Czechia, for example, and my mitochondrial DNA should be more likely show up as being from the border between Germany and Switzerland, which is where my maternal great-great grandmother was born in future editions of the test.
My nephew took the 23 and me test, and it came back indicating that he is mostly Irish. However, his great great grandfather was supposed to be pure Native American, and it said he didn’t have any; he should be about 5%.