I saw this yesterday and was upset since I am on 23andMe, courtesy of a birthday gift from my daughter a few years ago. The whole thing was a waste since all I ever got were second and third cousins, and I couldn't care less about meeting them. Now I'll have to figure out the steps to delete it.

While I’ve had mild curiosity about what would turn up, the idea of voluntarily submitting my DNA to be catalogued has never sat right with me. I’m unclear on the ”real” risks with this bankrupcy buy I’d probably act to have my records deleted as well.

Their long-term problem might have been "once & done" customers. Best business models have repeat customers. I've seen a few Ancestry..com commercials recently trying to pick up the slack.

23 and me was always more interested in medical research than your ancestors. Ancestors was what they used to get people to sign up. They have been fossicking through peoples DNA looking for identifiable health risks. You had to agree to allow them to use or share the information though. Presumably the point was to eventually sell the information as to where certain signs of health risks lie. Not the actual individual persons information though. I was able to learn that I did not have any of the known genetic markers for breast and ovarian cancer long before my doctor had me have the official test done.

patriciae

" 23 and me was always more interested in medical research than your ancestors. "

No, not at all. 23 and Me is/was a for profit business interested in selling DNA analysis services. It used various spins about possible results for marketing purposes, to attract customers.

I have never submitted samples to any of these sorts of companies. I do, however, have a close relative who is accomplished in geneology submit their sample. I think now the person is perhaps too frail to go about requesting that their info and samples be destroyed. This person was always pretty lax (naive) about personal and digital hygiene.

I don’t know to what extent (if at all) they considered that they were also sharing private information about their relatives and offspring who had no say in the matter.

I personally have no interest in genealogy and have never paid any attention to my own. Nor saw the appeal of having a DNA analysis done by any of the companies offering such services.

The funny thing that occurs to me is that we all had ancestors in the 19th century. And previous centuries. I see no relevance or use in knowing what my ancestor may have done or didn't do and where, or the same for yours. If your ancestor did something interesting, I'll enjoy reading about it in a nonfiction book but with no less or more interest than if it were my ancestor.

If you go back a few generations, the effect of any one ancestor on a given person's gene pool is small and gets smaller as each generation back in time is looked at.

Your great grandfather was a laborer, and you have a Masters degree in engineering, so what? Your great grandfather was an engineer and you're a barista. Again, so what? Good for you for the accomplishment, a head scratch for the one without much to show, but there's likely no influence of your ancestor on your own life trajectory. Your own actions and the absence of unfortunate circumstances got you where you are, not your ancestors.

Your own actions and the absence of unfortunate circumstances got you where you are, not your ancestors.

If my mother and her parents hadn't fled Europe during the war, I wouldn't be here. I find their stories, and those of their relatives, some of whom survived and some of whom didn't, more interesting and affecting than reading a history book (which I've also done plenty of) because I feel the personal connection. YMMV, of course.

I like how they are solving old cold cases of murders with genealogy. I wonder how this would affect that research? It is amazing how they can track down a suspect using genetic genealogy!

I have one sister that had hers done and it was interesting to find out that an old story about my Grandfather's genetics was not true. He was adopted and no one knew who his parents were or what their genetics were but there was a story that his mother was native American...well, we have none of that in our genetics! HA! So, no truth to the old family story. Pretty much just European ancestry.

Geneology is somewhat interesting to me. Both my parents were direct descendents of Mayflower passengers and of signatories of the Mayflower Compact. My sibs and I are direct descendants of at least five Mayflower passengers and have a lot of far flung kin around New England, including kin who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I have a hard time imagining myself volunteering to get on a creaky wooden ship, leaving family behind to cross the ocean to another continent.

I am not particularly religious or brave in that sense. I am always amazed at the distances colonial people travelled, just around New England. No polar fleece or pack boots or rubber or LLBean. Life was very hard for many, not to mention a few wars thrown in the mix.

" Both my parents were direct descendents of Mayflower passengers and of signatories of the Mayflower Compact. "

With all due respect, this is the kind of "so what does that have to do with you" comment that I had in mind. How did this back story or knowing this back story influence your life?

I had ancestors then too, I don't know who they were, where they were, and I don't care. Does that make you different from me or me different from you? I don't think so.

Elmer, I understand your point but I think the same could be said for a lot of history and other exchange of information. Sure, some of it is useful to understand why things are as they are, but even then a lot of that falls into the realm of ”interesting, but it doesn’t affect the course of my life any.” I personally feel that if we narrow down our interests to just that which has practical use for our individual lives, that’d be a pretty shallow existence. But that’s just me. As long as we fill our lives with ”something” that inspires us and satisfies whatever curiosities we need satisfied, I say it’s all good!

food, I'm not so sure.

I think most of the names of passengers on the Mayflower are known. Same is true for the early group that landed at Jamestown some years earlier. Much of what happened at both locations, the evolution of the settlements, the good luck and bad luck, have all been extensively studied. For some their descendent family trees can be developed to a greater or lesser extent.

Genealogy isn't the study of history as I've experienced history being studied. Biographies are written to provide analyses and understanding about people in particular places or points in time whose lives and conduct influenced others. But to be honest, most people live their lives privately, looking for happiness and survival, and whose conduct doesn't have a significant influence on the lives of their contemporaries or the lives of those in subsequent generations.

Hypo A - Let's say that I'm a descendent of one of the Jamestown party members who survived to lead a life of normal mortality and your ancestors arrived in the US in 1880.

Hypo B - Let's reverse the fact, my ancestors arrived in 1880 and you're a descendent of a Jamestown party member who survived. .

Is either A or B relevant to who I am or who you are today? Are we different people under one pattern versus under the other?

I say No and that's why my reaction to people who tout knowing their ancestry puts their potentially otherwise anonymous ancestor at some particular time and place and say - So what?

The funny thing I've experienced with several people whose family trees have been backward traced for several generations - a pair of whom are members of the religious group for which doing so is one of the tenets of their practice - they do not view their family research as a study of history and indeed, they do not necessarily study the history of the times and places their ancestors live. They often go no further than birth, death, their own family trees, where they lived, sometimes what they did (if noted on Census forms), and stop. Nothing about (I'm making this up) 4th great grandfather Cyrus was born and raised in Albany. What were politics like there at the time? What were the issues of the day? Did he know any of the community leaders or job creators? What were his political views. How much education did he have, was he literate? Nothing of what would constitute the history of an individual or the community they live in.

In the absence of true historical investigation to paint the picture of a person who long ago passed on to greener pastures without seemingly having a significant impact on his community or on others, I say - He's your relative? You have a name and vital stats and nothing else. So what?

I deleted my 23&Me account information on Tuesday - it was fairly easy, but it did require waiting to receive an email confirmation and responding to that. I downloaded my data before I had it deleted.

I don't think the results that they come up with are all that accurate - they did not identify the correct part of Germany where my grandmother and her family was from, although they got fairly close. My grandfather claimed to be Scots-Irish, and that did not show up at all, although a tiny bit of Irish and a tiny bit of Scottish did.

I think ancestry is interesting and entertaining - I do not take it as seriously as some people. I was curious about it, but I was also a bit disappointed to find out that my ancestry was 100% NW European, but I learned from it that my ancestors were possibly racist from way back - I already knew that my recent ancestors were, but I didn't know how far back that went. However, it did make me want to visit places where some of them have lived. It was also interesting to find out how large or small their families had been, and how they moved around. I didn't get this from 23&Me, but from research that my cousins have done. Because a lot of my ancestors were landowners, it was relatively easy to get information about them. I also learned that one of my ancestors was the founder of Brown University. Most of my English ancestors settled in Rhode Island in the early 1600s, and I never knew I had English ancestors until I learned that from my cousins.

“In the absence of true historical investigation to paint the picture of a person who long ago passed on to greener pastures without seemingly having a significant impact on his community or on others, I say - He's your relative? You have a name and vital stats and nothing else. So what?”

Have you moved goalposts? Upthread you asked ”so what” to Petalique regarding her Mayflower ancestors, but now you’re asking about historical impact. Does Lars’ relationship to Brown matter? I’ve got some interesting (to me) family history, from the man who built one of the Australian PM’s residences, to a U-Boat commander who infiltrated the US, to an Austrian officer who came here asking to fight in the civil war, whose referral letter written and signed by Lincoln I have. Do any of those form any of who I am? I’d agree with you in saying no. Are the stories of historical significance? I’d say two of the three I cited are, to a degree. Are all three, along with others, interesting to me? Yes.

Again, I do see your point, but I wouldn’t criticize anyone for being a bit curious about their ancestry. After all, we are all descendants of a very different, much smaller world. Almost seems natural, to me, to wonder about what coincidences led to our creation.

Back when my father was doing some geneology, poring over family documents and such, he was relaying some of it to a family friend. Her reaction: ”Who cares?” I was a little taken aback by that, but I guess she, like you, had no interest. That was the first time it ocurred to me that someone might simply not care. At the time I attributed it to the fact that her two children were adopted, perhaps causing her to be dismissive of biological roots. But maybe like you, she just truly didn’t care!

I would like to add that I am also interested in anthropology and the evolution of humans. I have a lot of books on the subject, and I find them very interesting to read. I think it is beneficial to realize that all humans evolved from ancient ancestors in Africa. I like reading about all ancient civilizations, whether they relate to me or not.

I have also studied a lot of history, and much it of painful to read, and it led me to believe that humans are basically cruel and violent, but that these tendencies are important to keep in check. I think that studying history helps to understand the present and to warn about what could possibly happen in the future. I also like reading biographies.

No argument...hopefully this will just remain a posting of anyone's own opinion.

My last name is very well known in a certain country, and people quite often

ask if my ancestors came from there, and what part, etc., etc., etc. etc...

I try to be polite and just answer, "I don't really know for sure, and to me it doesn't

matter. However, if you know of someone in that Country with the same name

as me, and they are looking for their ancestors in the U.S. so they can give them

the family inheritance of a couple of billion dollars, please let me know, and I

can certainly "be from" that town, in that Country at anytime." ;)

My hand tensinitis/injury is interfering with my desire to respond as I’d like to. Houzz doesn’t allow for speech to text. Excuse my typos and dry fingers not registering w my devices virtual/radio button keypad.

I hadn’t looked at any family genealogical information for a while, but when I looked again last night, it turns out that I am descended from seven Mayflower passengers. I find this pretty interesting because there were only 102 passengers and about half of them died before the end of the first winter and a few were born onboard.

I find this pretty amazing. No nobility or rich people or anything like that just people trying to earn a living or seek opportunity. But to get aboard that 100 foot wooden boat and cross the Atlantic is always going to be mind blowing for me. I’ve been on wooden boats in cold salt water before and I’ve had my share of caulking, scraping and repainting them. They still leaked somewhat for the skiff and rowboats there were manual scoops and bailers (later gallon plastic bleach bottles). For the 26 foot Hampton hull, there was a battery operated bilge pump. But on a somewhat punky 100 foot wooden ship, neither of those would work or were in place at the time. In fact, not long after departing, the Mayflower was hit with very strong winds and chop, and it caused the ship to leak a lot. This made everybody in an already crowded space scamper all the more for some dry berth. And the cold wet appears to be responsible for a lot of people being weakened and later dying that first harsh winter. A lot of people died.

Isn’t that my family on both my mother’s and father’s side are descended from a few of these 50 or so people who managed to survive is quite stunning to me. Some of these passengers brought with them young children, and some of the women passengers were pregnant. Some of the names are very interesting (to me).

I don’t believe anybody in our family has ever applied for membership in the Mayflower Society or Daughters of the American Revolution or anything like that although we probably would qualify. I’ve never even gone to see Plymouth rock or Plymouth, Massachusetts, although it is not far away. I have a friend who has gone for Thanksgiving a couple of times with her young children.

I have a lot of disparate interests — more than I have time for. I’ve always been curious about a great many things. I think it’s hard to grow up in New England with relatives going way back and not be interested in their lives, New England, history, and American history. But I suppose there will always be people who are not interested in much of anything, perhaps not even their own family members.

Different strokes as they say.

I don’t know that I am “touting” this. I’m sharing some of my amazement, and I am interested because it is my family and our history. It has enriched my life — knowing some of this history — but has not made me more accomplished or worthy than anyone else. The guts (or naivety) that many of these people had puts me in awe.

My parents never spoke of this if they cared or knew. I don’t think my father was interested. Only in the past few years, since my mother’s death, did the family genealogist uncover my mother’s family connection. I never heard any of her relatives or her parents ever speak of it. I don’t think the genealogist’s adult children are interested.

I know something of the lives of some of these forebears. One gr grandfather was an orchardist in a cold part of a cold state.

My grandfather at 16 joined the Rough Riders and I have photo books of him on horseback with his fellow soldiers. So young looking.

When I was growing up in a small village in a small town, we only got 2.5 TV stations. Most TV programs bored me, but I used to watch Victory At Sea. It terrified me.

My father was a good story teller. He’d create stories with vivid characters and fun names to tell us at bedtime. in later years he would tell me some of his history during the war. His ship was torpedoed two different times, The last time, when he and some of his crew members were in a row-lifeboat, the German U-boat sufaced next to them.

The German commander came to the conning tower and called out to my father and fellow crew members, asking them if they needed medical attention, did they want to come aboard. My father said that he was a nice looking captain and spoke English well.

You can bet that none of my father’s crew members were going to get onto that sub or even say they needed help. The U-boat captain asked for their captain or who was in charge. Some of the crewmembers were ducking down, trying to be invisible. One of them bravely claimed to be the captain and the U-boat captain gave them the coordinates and direction they should row to reach shore.

Suddenly the German captain had to go and soon the sub descended and departed. Soon after my father heard loud explosions. The U-boat had hit an Australian ship a few miles away. (There was more info to this adventure.)

I used to like hearing my father tell us about these times. He had had a lot of very close calls in his life. My father did not know (or seem interested) in anything about that German submarine captain. But because he had spared my father and his crew and helped them, I was impressed and grateful.

Sometimes when ships were sunk, crews were taken prisoner.

Years later I scratched my curiosity itch and found information about the U-boat captain. He was a nice looking fellow who reminded me a bit of my father.

His name was Werner Henke and he had quite a reputation for scoring a lot of hits. Later a book was written about him.

I am still thankful that he spared my father and others. I keep photos of him. I think he resembles the actor Sam Neil a bit.

My genealogy is of mild interest to me -- and pertains to my adopted son only as the thoughts and activities of my predecessors influenced me, as his mother.

My mother's views of life were formed initially by her parents -- whose perspectives were also influenced by theirs.

I think 'who we are' is influenced by not only our parents, but to some extent by the beliefs and activities of 'ancestors'. (I'm leaving out the obvious influences of our individual lives here.)

People are no longer tied by tradition to repeating the lives of their parents. I think even eastern societies no longer rigidly stress bonds to 'family honor'. Still, ties are felt by enough Americans to make genealogy the second most popular 'hobby'.

Example: One of the things non-adopted people undervalue when adoptees search for family is the basic desire to know how -- by whom -- they are related to mankind: "Who do I come from?" It's a missing piece of "Who am I?" The rest of us take knowledge of that connection for granted.

Well who would of guessed, except anyone aware of their stock death spiral in late 2021, and a pump and dump designed to create massive wealth for the officers including Sir Richard Branson through a merger with one of his shell Companies. The public company was doomed for failure the day it was formed.

Looking through 3 years of their financials was interesting. Seems they continuously spend more on selling and administration costs then total revenue. But what got my curiosity up was seeing they spent more than total revenue on research and development! over 200 million on each accounting expense for every year it was public with only a gross profit of 100million, nothing added up.

I wondered what they were researching and developing so hard with millions of DNA samples? Then an equation popped up. Adding Sir Richard Branson, +space travel + Necker Island + research from 23andme equaled "The Island of Dr. Moreau" times "jurassic park". It means only one thing, they're making space mutants from animals to populate mars. It's got to be it.

I love connections!

" who would of guessed, "

S/b would have

" Seems they continuously spend more on selling and administration costs then total revenue.

S/b "than", not "then". This is typical of a development stage company.

" they spent more than total revenue on research and development! over 200 million on each accounting expense for every year it was public with only a gross profit of 100million, nothing added up. "

Also very typical of a development stage company. All startup companies experience this, and many have even $0 revenue for some years while spending hundreds of millions to get going.

Thanks for for the corrections Elmer, do you feel better now? It just eats at you doesn't it, to find errors others make and setting then straight giving you a rush. It's great so see you still have a purpose in life to pass the days. The post was a setup for a joke, I guess you didn't get it, so sorry.

Start up for 23andme was 2009 for your information. Revenue held steady since the IPO in 2022 and could of been saved but was not their intentions. Insiders sold their awarded stock as quick as they could sucking out 100's of millions if not a billion in the first year after the IPO with a license to steel, and they did it well.

You should know this being a partner and owner of a global accounting firm. They merged with a blank check shell company with Sir Richard Branson's name on it to get on the market, both the company and branson are sleazy things to be attached to as a respectable company. This alone is enough to warrant deleting all 23andme data ASAP.

Stick to what you know. It was shovels, I think. The snippets you've gleaned are puzzle parts that you seem to not understand how their dots connect.

You made a fool of yourself on that one. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to laugh.

That response came from a long standing participant here. LNMD or something like that? She's an ER doc in Chicago and a very valuable source of real medical information.

(Got my popcorn ready, waiting for the correction.)

I always enjoyed listening to the grownups talk about family, living and passed and past. One side of my family has been chatting over text the last couple of years, some of us have never met in person, but some of us gathered for a reunion of sorts a couple of years ago, and we are gearing up for another closer to whhere members live who couldn’t make the first reunion. Does it matter to meet a cousin for the first time when we are 70? Maybe not, but maybe yes. Regardless, it’s it’s kinda fun to put a face and a voice and a conversation with a name and a grade-school photo.

I haven’t had much interest in the dna, but there’s a feature in some family members that my mom attibuted to ancestors traveling to and from a certain area of the continent, and just out of curiousity I’d like to know about that. and is that where my interest in the French language comes from? Likely not, I don’t think things work that way, but it would be an interesting connection for me.