Hand-Me-Down Genes

I’ve mentioned before that, after ten years of retired idleness, this year I’ve applied myself to getting some long-standing items off my TODO list. I’m a lazy beaver, not a busy one, but I’ve been less lazy than usual in 2023. (Perhaps, in part, because, on several counts, I can’t believe it’s actually 2023. I remember a time when 2001 seemed far off… in the future.)

One long-standing item off my “Gee, I Oughta…” list was doing one of those DNA assessment things I’ve seen advertised for years. I was adopted as an infant, so I’ve never known my genetic heritage.

Now, at long last, I do. And a bunch of other stuff besides.

I won’t keep you in suspense:

• Scandinavian: 60.9%
• Levantine: 28.8%
• French/German: 5.6%
• Northwestern European: 3.1%
• a few other ingredients, all below 1.0%

According to 23andMe.

According to Ancestry.com:

• Sweden & Denmark: 37%
• Levant: 26%
• Norway: 25%
• England & Northwestern Europe: 11%
• Finland: 1%

So, roughly three-quarters Northern European and one-quarter Near Eastern.

Back in the day, adoption agencies made some effort to match babies to couples, so the large Scandinavian fraction isn’t a surprise. Both my parents are first-generation Norwegian-Americans; all four of my grandparents, separately, came to America from Norway.

I was vaguely disappointed there was no trace of Italian or Hispanic. My eating tastes certainly lean strongly in those directions, especially the latter. (When I lived in Los Angeles, once I discovered it, Mexican food was a weekly thing. If not oftener. Definitely my favorite set of flavors, although Italian food is a close second.)

[My first experience with hot sauce was at a Taco Bell I stopped at walking home from what’s now usually called middle school (7th grade). My family had recently made the move from white-bread Minnesota to Los Angeles (serious culture shock), and I’d never seen, let alone eaten, a taco. The spiciest thing I’d ever eaten was BBQ sauce. I got a physical rush off the hot sauce, and a love affair was born.]

The Near Eastern part explains why I’m not super pale and usually tanned okay (when I played it smart and didn’t fry the first time out). It might also explain my oily skin. No kidding, twenty minutes after I’ve washed my face, it’s oily again.

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Before going further, I should cover the who and how of it all.

I can’t recall when I first heard about 23andMe, but it was probably around when they were founded in 2006. Ancestry-dot-com was founded much earlier, in 1997, but didn’t get into the DNA analysis business until 2012 (when they acquired GeneTree, which got into DNA analysis back in 1997). They continue to be what they always were: heavy into family trees.

There are other companies who do DNA analysis, but these were the two that got my attention over the last years. Rather than spend time trying to figure out which was better, I sent off for both kits. I figured that getting two (presumably independent) assessments done would let me cross-check between them. And they do agree on most points.

Amazon (dot-com) sells both, so I ordered both, and they arrived together.

[One reason, aside from basic laziness, it took me so long to do this is not knowing where to buy the kits. It’s impressive, depressing, wonderful, and scary how effectively Amazon (dot-com) has wormed its way into my life. I’ve dodged most of Google’s attempts, and am backing away from Apple, but am hooked on Prime delivery of almost anything I can think of, Prime Video, and most recently Prime Music. Damn. It’s always something.]

Years of seeing TV cops do DNA checks on suspects led me to expect some sort of cheek — or possibly nasal — swap. While the details differ slightly, both the 23andMe and the Ancestry kits required (prolonged) spitting into a plastic tube. Enough spit (not counting bubbles) to fill the tube to a certain mark. It’s not that much, very little really, but it took me more than one or two goes. And you’re not to eat or drink anything beforehand.

Then you seal the tubes. The details here vary the most between them, but in both cases, you not only seal the tube with a cap, but as you do so the mechanism adds a preservative fluid to the spit. (No actual handling of it required.) You shake it up good, put it in a special sealed envelope, put that in the supplied package, and drop it in a mailbox. Very easy, and the instructions are simple to follow.

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You also need to register the kits on their respective websites. Simple enough, but you need yet another password for each. Each kit has a serial number you enter that ties you to the kit so they can recognize it when they receive it.

[Despite the recommended advice, I’m not ready to abdicate access to important websites to a Password Manager that, potentially, can: crash, be offline, be hacked, or be discontinued or obsoleted. My Password Manager is a notebook. Completely different media. Air-gapped, too!]

The registration process requires your email address, and, of course, you get an email welcoming you and acknowledging the successful registration of your kit. The two emails I got on April 25 mark the beginning of the process: the day I signed up to the websites, spit into tubes, and packaged and mailed them. Clock is ticking.

Within two days the emails start coming:

April 27: 23andMe, “Your 23andMe sample was received”.

May 1: Ancestry, “We’ve received your AncestryDNA sample”.

May 4: 23andMe, “We’re reviewing your genetic data”.

May 6: 23andMe, “Your reports are ready”.

I was starting to wonder what’s going on with Ancestry, but the next day:

May 7: Ancestry, “We’re extracting your DNA”.

May 10: Ancestry, “Get ready for your DNA matches!”

Oh, exciting. Soon?

May 13: Ancestry, “We’re analyzing your DNA sample”.

May 13 (8 hours later): Ancestry, “Your AncestryDNA results are in!”

Took Ancestry an extra week (exactly), but two-and-a-half weeks seems reasonably fast to me. And sometimes slower means more careful or even more accurate. No complaints about the process from start to finish.

I will say, as with many online platforms, once you’ve signed up, they won’t leave you alone. You end up getting a lot more emails. Some notify you about genetic connections to others, some about new traits they’ve added to your DNA assessment, some invite you to lifestyle and health surveys, and some try to sell you more services.

To the extent I have any criticism, it would be about all the email, but it goes with the beast, and they’re no different from others of their ilk. And I imagine there are settings that would disable some or all of it, but — at least for now — I’d hate to miss anything.

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In addition to your genetic heritage, both offer considerable information about your genetic traits. (For more money, you can unlock even more information.) These traits span quite a gamut, from whether you’re likely to be able to smell asparagus in urine to whether you’re likely to have back hair or celiac disease. A lot of them apply to health and genetic disease — good, and perhaps scary, information to have.

One bit of good news is that I don’t seem to have anything alarming in my genetics. No nasty health-related variants detected, but a “slightly increased risk” of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (oh, dear, I love to read), and a “slightly increased risk” of Celiac Disease (don’t care, I love bread). None of the many genetic “carriers” that wouldn’t affect me but could affect my (non-existing) children.

The two assessments, though generally on the mark, didn’t always agree or get it right. For one example, 23andMe gave me “slightly higher odds of disliking cilantro” and Ancestry pegged their little meter on Dislikes cilantro:

I’ve never been a coffee user and rarely use tea. The Diet Mountain Dew I used to drink (but gave up) was comparatively low in caffeine. These days I don’t consume any. As for dancing, I actually love it, but know I suck at it, so generally don’t subject others to it. (But when no one is watching…)

But I love cilantro! (If you don’t know already, cilantro is Spanish for coriander and commonly applies to the leaves of the plant. The seeds make the spice called coriander. For some people, due to genetics, cilantro tastes like soap.)

There are also traits you get from one but not the other. For instance, Ancestry also pegs the meter for Spicy foods on Least likely. But, as I discovered in 7th grade, I love spicy food, at least the kind found in Tex-Mex cooking. It’s true I’m not big on hot curry or Thai dishes, but that may have more to do with the foods being cooked — too much strange plant matter; I’m a meat and potatoes (and bread) man.

All-in-all, though, most of the trait stuff seemed accurate. Both said I was unlikely to lose my hair, and, after almost seven decades, I haven’t. Ancestry somehow detected I’m an introvert (pegged that meter, too). 23andMe said I was more likely than average to be afraid of heights (totally wrong) but less likely to fear public speaking (true, but possibly acquired).

It’s kind of fun going through them to see how they compare with your experience.

They do take some pains, 23andMe especially, to warn you that genetic results indicate tendencies, not (in most cases) guarantees. A gene may exist, but it must be expressed to affect you, and genes aren’t always expressed. In fact, 23andMe sometimes requires that you watch an advisory notice before you’re allowed to access certain reports.

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Both sites are really big on surveys. All kinds of surveys. They’re all optional, of course, but they do pester you a bit. New ones come along, which results in email invitations. They’re your basic online surveys, both sites have their own survey software (presumably secure, obviously not offsite). It’s generally painless, fairly brief (8-12 minutes on average, I’d guess), and sometimes kinda fun.

Ancestry has, among others, surveys about: Hands, Hair, Feet, Lifestyle, Personality, Creative Skills, and many (many) more.

23andMe has just as many, although I couldn’t find an easy listing of them all.  Under “Top surveys for you” they have: Healthy Aging, Your Hearing, Your Recent Emotions, and more.

23andMe seems to have a big focus on your continuing health evolution. They have an entire section that allows you to enter your own health data (blood glucose and pressure, BMI, and other data you might get from your most recent doctor visit). They also offer numerous “Health Communities” with genetically related and general information pages on many health conditions.

Ancestry, as already mentioned, has a big focus on family trees and connecting long-lost family members. I think their goal is the entire family tree of relatively modern humanity — which actually is a cool idea (but I’ll likely never know what branches of it leads to me).

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From both sites I have gotten a few notifications from other users apparently distantly related to me. Because of their focus on family trees connecting, Ancestry also has its own private message system that allows users to exchange messages without giving away private information.

I got a message there from someone (completely unknown to me) who was apparently a 2nd or 3rd cousin. And, damn, if her profile pic didn’t look a little bit like me. She was interested in building her family tree, but I couldn’t help her on that.

I quickly discovered that I’m not interested in my putative genetic relatives. I’ve never had much curiosity about my birth parents. It would be interesting to know the why, but — as I’ve said often — the past just doesn’t attract me much. Been there, done that. Got the scars and wrinkles, emotional and physical, to prove it.

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Both sites are rabbit holes you can spend considerable time going down. Both sites offer lots of interesting information. There’s no obvious winner between them and no reason not to do both. If I had to pick one, it’d be 23andMe by a nose. I’m not interested in the family tree stuff that’s big at Ancestry, plus they seem a hair pushier about trying to sell me stuff.

Stay genetic, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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