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DNA kits revealing some secrets.....


Dnaguy

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On 1/21/2020 at 7:25 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

Could also explain a lot of it.  There's definitely some German on that side of the family, but there's far more grab-bag Slavic ancestry than had been assumed.  Based on my percentages, my mom is more Slavic (mix of Serb, Polish, and Russian) than German, and that was definitely not the official story.

I'm also basically Slavic - Moravian, Russian, and Georgian - and German... and 3 percent Persian. 

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On 1/11/2021 at 8:20 AM, Viper said:

so who's your Dad? Seems like a pretty big revelation left to explore.

We (my sister and I) know who our birth dad is (verified with mom), but are having trouble finding out much about him.  It looks like he was in and out of marriages through the 70s and 80s, and then died in Elkhart in 2012. He was buried in a veteran's cemetery in Houston.  I did find his junior yearbook online last night, and he looked nothing at all like I was expecting. 

We have since tracked down a half-sister, but have yet to get a response back from her.  Her last login into the site was "3 to 11 months ago" according to her profile. I've also found her on FB, but she has 3 or 4 different accounts and there doesn't seem to be much activity on any of them.  Seems to be one of those who makes an account, forgets her password then moves on to another account.  She's already pissing me off for that reason alone!  We decided we'd give it a couple of weeks to see if she responds to our message on Ancestry, and will move on to trying her FB accounts if we don't hear anything. 

We've talked on the phone for the first time Saturday morning for over an hour, then again last night for about 45 minutes.  I was worried we wouldn't have much to say and there'd be a lot of moments of uncomfortable silence.  But after the first couple of awkward moments, it was like we already knew each other.  She seems to be a cool ass chic that would be fun to hang out with. She's even FB stalked me and none of my occasional rants on religion or politics seems to have turned her away.  Not yet anyway.

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1 hour ago, Burt said:

We (my sister and I) know who our birth dad is (verified with mom), but are having trouble finding out much about him.  It looks like he was in and out of marriages through the 70s and 80s, and then died in Elkhart in 2012. He was buried in a veteran's cemetery in Houston.  I did find his junior yearbook online last night, and he looked nothing at all like I was expecting. 

We have since tracked down a half-sister, but have yet to get a response back from her.  Her last login into the site was "3 to 11 months ago" according to her profile. I've also found her on FB, but she has 3 or 4 different accounts and there doesn't seem to be much activity on any of them.  Seems to be one of those who makes an account, forgets her password then moves on to another account.  She's already pissing me off for that reason alone!   
 

Sounds like my passel of North Texas cousins...

You are right to have misgivings. That is all I am gonna say. 

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1 hour ago, EE2B said:

Is your half-sister from the area? If so, @MarkStanco and I can go stalk her for you. We could even take @RPSpeed now that he’s had his Covid shot.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure where she is now.  The last address I found for her on mylife.com has her in Houston.  But when I plug that address into google maps its an empty lot. Either she's homeless or something has been built on the lot since the google car drove by.

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54 minutes ago, Burt said:

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure where she is now.  The last address I found for her on mylife.com has her in Houston.  But when I plug that address into google maps its an empty lot. Either she's homeless or something has been built on the lot since the google car drove by.

Google Harris tc cad (I think the site is just hcad)

enter the address .  It will tell you if there is currently a house. HCAD will likely be more up to date than google maps.  Will also tell you the owner 

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  • 1 month later...

 

On 1/19/2021 at 12:27 PM, Burt said:

We (my sister and I) know who our birth dad is (verified with mom), but are having trouble finding out much about him.  It looks like he was in and out of marriages through the 70s and 80s, and then died in Elkhart in 2012. He was buried in a veteran's cemetery in Houston.  I did find his junior yearbook online last night, and he looked nothing at all like I was expecting. 

We have since tracked down a half-sister, but have yet to get a response back from her.  Her last login into the site was "3 to 11 months ago" according to her profile. I've also found her on FB, but she has 3 or 4 different accounts and there doesn't seem to be much activity on any of them.  Seems to be one of those who makes an account, forgets her password then moves on to another account.  She's already pissing me off for that reason alone!  We decided we'd give it a couple of weeks to see if she responds to our message on Ancestry, and will move on to trying her FB accounts if we don't hear anything. 

We've talked on the phone for the first time Saturday morning for over an hour, then again last night for about 45 minutes.  I was worried we wouldn't have much to say and there'd be a lot of moments of uncomfortable silence.  But after the first couple of awkward moments, it was like we already knew each other.  She seems to be a cool ass chic that would be fun to hang out with. She's even FB stalked me and none of my occasional rants on religion or politics seems to have turned her away.  Not yet anyway.

I finally made contact with my half-sister last week.  I figured out who her son is and he seemed to be semi-active on FB so I sent him a message.  That message went unread for over a week, though, because it went to his "other" message box.  So I sent a friend request and he accepted (no idea why). Then I sent him another message so he'd see the first one.  He passed on my message to his mom and she replied to the one I sent and gave me her number.  I texted her and told her to call when she had free time.

Four hours later she finally calls. The first thing she told me was she would have called sooner but her son just called and her house is on fire...and the dog must have been, too, because she could hear it screaming in the background. Who the fuck calls a stranger when their house is on fire??  I finally got it out of her that the home is in Sugar Land and her son and his uncle were living in it. She was up north of Houston near Spring and was driving there while she called.

So she tells me she doesn't know a whole lot about our dad as he left when she was in kindergarten never to be seen again.  She did call him when she was 25, and after she told him who she was he said that if she ever called again that he'd get a restraining order.  I asked if we had any other siblings and she said no, but we almost did.  Her mom was 8 months pregnant when she (at age 4) and her mom walked in one day and our dad was having a drunken threesome with two teenagers. Not sure how she, as a 4 yr old, knew their age.  And looking back, I wish I'd asked what she meant by "teenagers" as there's a huge difference between a 13 yr old and a 19 yr old.  But at the same time, I'm not sure I want to know. Anyway, her mom started fighting with the girls and wound up losing the baby.  So we have no other siblings that she knows of.

The next day she sent me the only picture she has of dear ol' dad. Then she proceeds to tell me about herself.  She went to rehab for the first time at 13, had her son at 14, got married for the first time at 16, was almost beat to death with steel-toed boots by that husband and his friend, and went to rehab again at 30.  Her last ex husband ws murdered this past October. And now she's engaged to a 74 yr old man.  She's 44.  I haven't heard anything back from her since last Sunday night.  Not really sure how involved in all that shit I really want to be anyway.

But my full sister and I are getting along great, though.  We have texted or talked every day since our first conversation back on Jan 18th.  We'll probably try and meet sometime next fall.  I'd like to do it sooner, but once softball begins in a few weeks I'll be tied up coaching that until the end of July, and then my son gets married in August. 

Edited by Burt
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4 minutes ago, Burt said:

 

I finally made contact with my half-sister last week.  I figured out who her son is and he seemed to be semi-active on FB so I sent him a message.  That message went unread for over a week, though, because it went to his "other" message box.  So I sent a friend request and he accepted (no idea why). Then I sent him another message so he'd see the first one.  He passed on my message to his mom and she replied to the one I sent and gave me her number.  I texted her and told her to call when she had free time.

Four hours later she finally calls. The first thing she told me was she would have called sooner but her son just called and her house is on fire...and the dog must have been, too, because she could hear it screaming in the background. Who the fuck calls a stranger when their house is on fire??  I finally got it out of her that the home is in Sugar Land and her son and his uncle were living in it. She was up north of Houston near Spring and was driving there while she called.

So she tells me she doesn't know a whole lot about our dad as he left when she was in kindergarten never to be seen again.  She did call him when she was 25, and after she told him who she was he said that if she ever called again that he'd get a restraining order.  I asked if we had any other siblings and she said no, but we almost did.  Her mom was 8 months pregnant when she (at age 4) and her mom walked in one day and our dad was having a drunken threesome with two teenagers. Not sure how she, as a 4 yr old, knew their age.  And looking back, I wish I'd asked what she meant by "teenagers" as there's a huge difference between a 13 yr old and a 19 yr old.  But at the same time, I'm not sure I want to know. Anyway, her mom started fighting with the girls and wound up losing the baby.  So we have no other siblings that she knows of.

The next day she sent me the only picture she has of dear ol' dad. Then she proceeds to tell me about herself.  She went to rehab for the first time at 13, had her son at 14, got married for the first time at 16, was almost beat to death with steel-toed boots by that husband and his friend, and went to rehab again at 30.  Her last ex husband ws murdered this past October. And now she's engaged to a 74 yr old man.  She's 44.  I haven't heard anything back from her since last Sunday night.  Not really sure how involved in all that shit I really want to be anyway.

But my full sister and I are getting along great, though.  We texted or talked every day since our first conversation back on Jan 18th.  We'll probably try and meet sometime next fall.  I'd like to do it sooner, but once softball begins in a few weeks I'll be tied up coaching that until the end of July, and then my son gets married in August. 

Sorry it worked out for you like that. 

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On 2/21/2021 at 12:39 AM, Burt said:

 

I finally made contact with my half-sister last week.  I figured out who her son is and he seemed to be semi-active on FB so I sent him a message.  That message went unread for over a week, though, because it went to his "other" message box.  So I sent a friend request and he accepted (no idea why). Then I sent him another message so he'd see the first one.  He passed on my message to his mom and she replied to the one I sent and gave me her number.  I texted her and told her to call when she had free time.

Four hours later she finally calls. The first thing she told me was she would have called sooner but her son just called and her house is on fire...and the dog must have been, too, because she could hear it screaming in the background. Who the fuck calls a stranger when their house is on fire??  I finally got it out of her that the home is in Sugar Land and her son and his uncle were living in it. She was up north of Houston near Spring and was driving there while she called.

So she tells me she doesn't know a whole lot about our dad as he left when she was in kindergarten never to be seen again.  She did call him when she was 25, and after she told him who she was he said that if she ever called again that he'd get a restraining order.  I asked if we had any other siblings and she said no, but we almost did.  Her mom was 8 months pregnant when she (at age 4) and her mom walked in one day and our dad was having a drunken threesome with two teenagers. Not sure how she, as a 4 yr old, knew their age.  And looking back, I wish I'd asked what she meant by "teenagers" as there's a huge difference between a 13 yr old and a 19 yr old.  But at the same time, I'm not sure I want to know. Anyway, her mom started fighting with the girls and wound up losing the baby.  So we have no other siblings that she knows of.

The next day she sent me the only picture she has of dear ol' dad. Then she proceeds to tell me about herself.  She went to rehab for the first time at 13, had her son at 14, got married for the first time at 16, was almost beat to death with steel-toed boots by that husband and his friend, and went to rehab again at 30.  Her last ex husband ws murdered this past October. And now she's engaged to a 74 yr old man.  She's 44.  I haven't heard anything back from her since last Sunday night.  Not really sure how involved in all that shit I really want to be anyway.

But my full sister and I are getting along great, though.  We have texted or talked every day since our first conversation back on Jan 18th.  We'll probably try and meet sometime next fall.  I'd like to do it sooner, but once softball begins in a few weeks I'll be tied up coaching that until the end of July, and then my son gets married in August. 

tough stuff. thank you for sharing. 

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  • 2 years later...

Bump here, but how many here are like me and had no idea that the DNA kits, specifically 23 & Me, which were the It thing, are struggling to even survive. And if these companies fail, what happens to your DNA?

Quote

 

Five years ago, 23andMe  was one of the hottest startups in the world. Millions of people were spitting into its test tubes to learn about their ancestry. Oprah had named its kit one of her favorite things; Lizzo dressed up as one for Halloween; Eddie Murphy name-checked the company on “Saturday Night Live.” 23andMe went public in 2021 and its valuation briefly topped $6 billion. Forbes anointed Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s chief executive and a Silicon Valley celebrity, as the “newest self-made billionaire.”

Now Wojcicki’s self-made billions have vanished. 23andMe’s valuation has crashed 98% from its peak and Nasdaq has threatened to delist its sub-$1 stock. Wojcicki reduced staff by a quarter last year through three rounds of layoffs and a subsidiary sale. The company has never made a profit and is burning cash so quickly it could run out by 2025. 

Silicon Valley’s fortunes were built on the lofty ambitions of entrepreneurs swinging for the fences—even if most of them strike out. Wojcicki, for her part, isn’t giving up. She’s sticking to her goal to transform 23andMe from a supplier of basic ancestry and health data into a comprehensive healthcare company that develops drugs, offers medical care and sells subscription health reports. 

She still has to prove the business can sustain itself. She’s raised about $1.4 billion for 23andMe, and spent roughly 80% of it. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/23andme-anne-wojcicki-healthcare-stock-913468f4

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My loon of an adopted sister tracked down her birth mother's phone number and address and promptly called her up only to have the first person to answer the phone say "Someone says you are their mom," and then the mom gets on the phone and loudly denies having my sister.  Fun times.  I had told her to just mail her mom and see if she wants to call on her own time but reason and patience are not her strengths.  Wild assed conspiracy theories are though.

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1 hour ago, Ten Bears said:

My loon of an adopted sister tracked down her birth mother's phone number and address and promptly called her up only to have the first person to answer the phone say "Someone says you are their mom," and then the mom gets on the phone and loudly denies having my sister.  Fun times.  I had told her to just mail her mom and see if she wants to call on her own time but reason and patience are not her strengths.  Wild assed conspiracy theories are though.

Imagining you are Native American makes reading this post even better.

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