Ancestry Traits

[Petros]

Will this be any use?

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[Gadget]

Will this be any use?

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Did you miss out this link, Petros :

https://support.ancestry.co.uk/s/article/AncestryDNA-Traits

Add - it seems to be very similar to 23&me and costs $20

[phil57]

Depends what your interpretation of "any use" is. As an aid to genealogical research and tracing or identifying ancestors, probably very little. As a source of amusement or personal interest, maybe, but I'd want to know more about how Ancestry determine personal traits and the accuracy of their assertions as well as the science behind it.

The link that Gadget posted seems to suggest that the claims may not be at all certain, and that some may be imputed rather than derived from direct analysis.

So useful as a source of interest and amusement is my take on it.

[Gadget]

A paragraph from the link that I gave:

Think of your trait results as a peek inside your DNA, rather than as a definitive prediction about your traits. If your trait result says you have curly hair, but your hair is straight, the markers we looked at aren’t “wrong,” they just don’t tell the whole story.

Most traits are influenced by many genes—some of which we don’t even know about yet. And environmental factors can affect your traits, too. Your set of genes is called your genotype, and the expression of those genes is called your phenotype.

Your phenotype is a combination of DNA we know about, DNA we don’t yet know about, and your environment. As science progresses, more of your traits may line up with your DNA, but they will never all line up. Your genes are just a starting point for who you eventually become.

 

[Romilly]

I for one won’t be buying it.

As Gadget says, it’s very similar to what Is already available on 23andme.

I also upgraded to something similar on Living DNA a few years back. Both pretty useless in my opinion.

Romilly.

[Biggles50]

You can get some traits for free if you upload your raw DNA data file to certain comparison websites like genomelink.