Autosomal BGA Ancestry Testing via "Chip Technology"

[DKF]

Many of us old time genetic genealogists have long ago given up on presently available biogeographic autosomal tests as valid measures to illuminate the part of our ancestral make up that can not be seen via YDNA, mtDNA testing, and genealogical research. Each of the tests on the market has so many flies in the ointment that it grieves me to see how people are trying so hard to read meaning in results that are at best inaccurate and very likely highly misleading. Many of us have been waiting for companies developing "chip technology" to come on stream with a viable product. Companies such as deCODEme and 23ANDme now offer such a product which will also provide a risk analysis for common diseases (e.g., Alzheimers), and some not so well known conditions (e.g., restless leg syndrome); testing physical attributes (e.g., eye color and hair color genes); and "standard" mtDNA and YDNA testing (hopefully at a higher resoluton soon). Within the ancestry component of the results is a BGA test involving thousands of markers (not 200 or less). As their database continues to grow you would be able to check every so often and see how your results might change. This is powerful technology and will soon replace everything in its path. This is SNP technology will not however replace what for example FTDNA offers in the way of standard YSTR testing for genetic genealogy (nor apparently anything more than very basic mtDNA testing).

Yesterday Dr. Ann Turner posted a link to the Rootsweb List relating to a video Megan Smolenyak made of her husband's results. Megan navigates through the website, clicking on everything of interest, and you get to see what a typical set of results would look like for those who chose deCODEme. Here is the link:

http://www.rootstelevision.com/players/player_dna.php?bctid=1351299777

I plan to wait a bit until I see which of the competing companies provide the best mtDNA and YDNA coverage (23ANDme don't have anything for the Y at the moment but it is in the works). I know that deCODEme tests for hundreds of YSNPs but I did not see anything beyond the basic M343 or whatever marker they were using for R1b. Eventually they will be showing results for downstream SNPs as part of the package, and will presumably not require another expense later as an add on. See Ron Scott's website at
http://www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ncscotts/ for further information.

David.

[penguin]

Thanks for posting that link. My connection is slow so it's taking a while to load and play. It's awfully long; hope it gets past the intro soon.

decodeme vs 23and me was discussed on at least one other thread on this forum.

i agree with you completely about how the dna tribes and euro 2.0 do not provide appropriate information and I've been cringing as I watch people try to manufacture coherence. when euro 2.0 came out, I excitedly read the journal article on which the testing was based- it was awful. i don't read the threads on those topics anymore- it's too painful...