{"id":62154,"date":"2021-11-08T21:04:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T21:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62154"},"modified":"2021-11-08T22:55:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T22:55:11","slug":"the-limits-of-ancestry-dna-tests-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62154","title":{"rendered":"The limits of ancestry DNA tests, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2019\/1\/28\/18194560\/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>The limits of ancestry DNA tests, explained<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vox<\/a><br \/>\n2019-01-28<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/B_resnick\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Brian Resnick<\/strong><\/a>, Science Reporter<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IIWlatQt4KE\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<small>Danush Parvaneh\/Vox<\/small><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/23andMe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">23andMe<\/a> wants to sell you vacations based on your <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/DNA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DNA<\/a>. But what are they really basing that on?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Identical twins<\/a> have virtually identical DNA. So you\u2019d think if a set of twins both sent in a DNA sample for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Genealogical_DNA_test\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">genetic ancestry testing<\/a>, they\u2019d get the exact same results, right?<\/p>\n<p>Not necessarily, according to a recent investigation by the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Canadian_Broadcasting_Corporation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canadian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a>. In fact, the journalists demonstrated that twins don\u2019t often get the same results from a single company. And across the industry, estimates of where an individual\u2019s ancestors lived can differ significantly from company to company.<\/p>\n<p>In one instance, the consumer genetics company 23andMe told one twin she was 13 percent \u201cBroadly European.\u201d The other twin\u2019s test, meanwhile, showed she had just 3 percent \u201cBroadly European\u201d ancestry, and had more DNA matched to other, more specific regions in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Europe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Europe<\/a>. What\u2019s more, when the twins had their DNA tested by five companies, each one gave them different results.<\/p>\n<p>One <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Computational_biology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">computational biologist<\/a> told the CBC that the differences in the results were \u201cmystifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So what accounts for these differences? Overall, discrepancies in ancestry testing don\u2019t mean that genetic science is a fraud, and that the companies are just making up these numbers. They have more to do with the limitations of the science and some key assumptions companies make when analyzing DNA for ancestry&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2019\/1\/28\/18194560\/ancestry-dna-23-me-myheritage-science-explainer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>23andMe wants to sell you vacations based on your DNA. But what are they really basing that on?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8,842],"tags":[18815,11431,32311,21842,13560,32313,32312,18116,2419,8858],"class_list":["post-62154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-videos","tag-23andme","tag-ancestry-com","tag-brian-resnick","tag-canadian-broadcasting-corporation","tag-cbc","tag-danush-parvaneh","tag-joe-pickrell","tag-vox","tag-wendy-d-roth","tag-wendy-roth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62157,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154\/revisions\/62157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}