fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6035 ]

[ SECRET POST #6035 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6305 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #901.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Has anyone done one of those at home DNA tests (Ancestry, 23 and Me, etc.)?
Did you ever regret it? Did you learn anything about your ancestry or find distant relatives?

Hell yeah, I regret it. They share information with law enforcement without warrant. They also share with health insurance companies without notifying you, plus they will knowingly out trans people to their employers. Although some here probably see the latter as a plus and not a negative, looking at you Rowling defender anons.

are you as exhausting in real life?

Self-own....

Oh, I am worse. Especially today, what with the constant attempts to destroy trans people. You can either sign up with me to resist those, at every opportunity, or side with those wanting to destroy trans people. It is your choice. But until trans people can escape these issues affecting our every waking moment, I don't see why you should either.

Also, Free Palestine.

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-10 23:10 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 03:47 (UTC) - Expand

Calling someone exhausting for being worried about being outed to their employer (or having been outed to their employer and suffered who knows what consequences)? You sound straight. Or too rich to need a job. Or both.

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 06:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 17:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-14 18:07 (UTC) - Expand

1. It is illegal in the US and Europe for health insurance companies to use any DNA testing to set rates or affect policies.

2. How is it outing trans people? You can use these sites and make your tree private and your info private by not making yourself discoverable/looking for matches. Additionally, you can use a fake name/random email address. Someone's not going to find "Frog 123" and know it's you. Employers barely check references, you think they're going to look up your fourth cousins?

3. Yeah, maybe opt out of sharing your DNA profile if you're a criminal or your family is full of criminals. But if I have some fourth cousin who's a serial killer, have at it, cops.

1. There are many things that are illegal in the US and Europe that are done on a daily basis by health insurance companies. They're betting on the red tape and tons of lawyers to stop people from complaining. And they're right.

2. The DNA companies know who you are. They can, will, and have sent that data to your insurance company or the police who then tell your employer. Thus outing you.

3. See point 2.

I defend JK Rowling but not outing trans people at their jobs.

But JK Rowling would defend outing trans people at their jobs.

My mom had it done (ancestry) and it just confirmed that we're the whitest people to ever white. We have found a few relatives, but we knew vaguely that they existed. My great-grandfather abandoned his farm, family, and 14 kids to go have a new one of each in California (dust bowl). So we find people in Cali every once and a while.

Our family lore was that we came to the US from Ireland during the famine, and we've always had a healthy hatred of the oppressor, England. Turns out we're French by way of the 1066 invasion when our family was granted land in England for helping William, only to come over to the New World in the 1600s. Mom was inconsolable. It's one thing to actually be English, but FRENCH???

Wait, what? Your family got land and moved to England in 1066 and then moved to the (eventual) US in the 1600s and you consider your family *French*?

They spent nearly 600 years mingling with English people and living and breeding in England! Your family, by the time they moved to the New World, were not French.

They were more English than I am and I've lived in England for 40 years and was born to two English people. Before that I have Irish (grandparent, immigrant) but by your logic I'm a Spanish Viking, apparently.

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 00:54 (UTC) - Expand

My sister did one and was happy about it. I want to do one eventually. See if we get different results or not.

My friends husband did one and found out his dad is not his bio dad. Opened a whole big can of worms in the family.

My cousin did one and found out his bio family (he was adopted as a newborn) lived in the town over and he got to meet all sorts of new cousins and aunts and uncles, which was cool. They all came to the next big family party.

My dad did one and found out his very detailed family tree/history was spot on. Nothing new. He was kind of disappointed, I think he was hoping for a little drama lol

I can't speak from personal experience, but if you do this, please research and make sure you're aware of all the pros and cons. Aside from the DNA results shared with law enforcement issue that another nonny raised, DNA testing can open up a big ol' can of worms for you and your relatives. The number of people who've done it for fun or ancestry research and accidentally dug up uncomfortable family secrets is TOO DAMN HIGH.

Just know what you're getting into.

Man, my family is such a mess, I really can't imagine any bad surprises. Lol. We can only go up from the people I grew up around. And considering how much of my family has been to (and is in) prison, too late for me to keep DNA from law enforcement.

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-10 23:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

kaijinscendre - 2024-04-10 23:42 (UTC) - Expand

I did the Ancestry one hoping to open two cans of worms LOL I want to find my biological family and if what bio mom said was true, then bio dad has no clue I exist. But I’m also old enough that he’s probably dead. It would be his other children (if he had any) who would be in for the surprise of their lives. I don’t know if the same would be true on my mother’s side. But it is something I’ve thought about very carefully for many, many years before doing the test. I also waited until my parents died (adoptive, but I call them my real parents). My main motivation is to hopefully meet any siblings and their families. My SO and I don’t have kids or sibs, so no next generation. We’re the end of both our lines.

I was hoping for drama and was disappointed. I used to have dreams that I was secretly adopted and was actually a rich heiress. Nope, still descended from subsistence farmers. Oh, well.

I did Ancestry DNA and also uploaded my DNA to Gedmatch because they have a lot of fun, free tools.

I found out my grandma on my dad's side was an immigrant from a country I was unaware I was linked to, so that was neat. (I'm not close to anybody on that side and the aunts and uncles and my dad are gone, so there was no one to share this info.) No major surprises or anything, but I did discover that the people on my tree on thrulines (which is now pay only, I think) are really long-lived! So that was good news.

Jsyk, GEDmatch is one of the companies used by law enforcement to solve cold cases via DNA matching. That doesn't mean just you, but also potentially your relatives. If you're cool with that, great. But it's something to consider.

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-11 22:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DNA Services

(Anonymous) - 2024-04-12 02:40 (UTC) - Expand

My mom made everyone in the house do 23andMe years ago because she's always been a genealogy nerd, and I had to add it to my email blocklist because even if you unsubscribe from everything they still throw weekly emails at you and as someone who wanted nothing to do with it to begin with it was INFURIATING.

We didn't even learn anything fun from it, except that they think there's a margin of error's worth of Korean in mom's otherwise-99+% Ashkenazi Jewish results.

No, but there was a data breach and 50% of the data stolen was related to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. So I would not be surprised if a bunch of murderous goons are going to hunt down Jewish people and kill them in their homes.

Ancestral DNA was used to solve a cold case where I live, so I'm in favor of it, but only for murder and rape.

My cousin did, and found out that there is Chinese ancestry in the family, which was a big surprise because the whole family is Scots/Irish and only started emigrating in the 20th century. My brother and some other cousins have done tests to try to find out more, and we've been able to confirm this and narrow it down to one particular branch, but as far as we knew that branch was fairly well documented and lived pretty much all around one town in Scotland, so ???

I've done both Ancestry and MyHeritage. I found Ancestry was more accurate than MH, as MH somehow saw 0.2% Native American in my genealogy when I'm actually of English, Scottish and Irish decent (Australian born). None of my ancestors were anywhere near North America afawk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only