I have done one and it was fascinsting and 100% worth it. I used 23andme.com which cost $100. If you buy multiple tests at once they knock off 10 dollars from the cost per unit.
My ancestry was mostly unsurprising, but I did find one big surprise. I am white and Jewish, but my mother always said she was a small part Native American. She had the name of her Native American ancestor, his tribe, his city, but it was jot true. However I did discover that I was a small part black, exactly the proportion you would expect if that "Native American" ancestor was replaced by a black one. Someone somewhere along the line invented that lie and it carried on for possibly 200 years.
The above poster states that some tests might find Obamaa to be 100% white. That is misleading.
If you use 23andme you get a pretty extensive review of your ancestry by descent of particular regions on your chromosomes. This gives you a full picture, and would show Obama to be half black and half white, unless his parents had some interesting surprises in their past.
Seperately, you will get analysis of your Motochondrial DNA and your Y chromosome DNA. This is different than your nuclear DNA, because neither representsa mix of your two parents.
Your Y chromosome came unmixed from your father. His came from his father, and so on. Your mitochondrial DNA is passed down to you from your mother alone, hers from her mother, etc. You will not pass your mitochondrial DNA on to your children, only their mother will.
Throughout time, our DNA accumulates mutations. Many mutations are functionally useless, they do nothing for our survival, good or bad. But scientists are able to look at specific mutations to your Y chromosome and Motochondrial DNA and determinewhen and where they arose, through studies of old bones.
These mutations that they look at are called Haplotypes. So if Obama had his Y haplotype analyzed, it would be an African one, since it came from his paternal line. And his mitochondrial DNA haplotype would be a "European" one. This is assuming both his parents truly are fully blooded African and European.
But many haplotypes originated tens of thousands of years ago, and the people who carry them today are not living where it originated. For instance, both.my parents are White but both their haplotypes originated something like 40,000 years ago in the Middle East. That doesnt mean they are middle eastern, just that they have ancestors long long ago who were.
Around 10,000 years ago, people from the fertile crescent, who were among the first people to develop agriculture, spread in to Europe. Southern Europeans are largely descended from these people, so it is common for Italians, Greeks, etc. To have haplotypes that originated in the middle east.
As you can tell I love to talk about this so feel free to ask away.
My ancestry was mostly unsurprising, but I did find one big surprise. I am white and Jewish, but my mother always said she was a small part Native American. She had the name of her Native American ancestor, his tribe, his city, but it was jot true. However I did discover that I was a small part black, exactly the proportion you would expect if that "Native American" ancestor was replaced by a black one. Someone somewhere along the line invented that lie and it carried on for possibly 200 years.
The above poster states that some tests might find Obamaa to be 100% white. That is misleading.
If you use 23andme you get a pretty extensive review of your ancestry by descent of particular regions on your chromosomes. This gives you a full picture, and would show Obama to be half black and half white, unless his parents had some interesting surprises in their past.
Seperately, you will get analysis of your Motochondrial DNA and your Y chromosome DNA. This is different than your nuclear DNA, because neither representsa mix of your two parents.
Your Y chromosome came unmixed from your father. His came from his father, and so on. Your mitochondrial DNA is passed down to you from your mother alone, hers from her mother, etc. You will not pass your mitochondrial DNA on to your children, only their mother will.
Throughout time, our DNA accumulates mutations. Many mutations are functionally useless, they do nothing for our survival, good or bad. But scientists are able to look at specific mutations to your Y chromosome and Motochondrial DNA and determinewhen and where they arose, through studies of old bones.
These mutations that they look at are called Haplotypes. So if Obama had his Y haplotype analyzed, it would be an African one, since it came from his paternal line. And his mitochondrial DNA haplotype would be a "European" one. This is assuming both his parents truly are fully blooded African and European.
But many haplotypes originated tens of thousands of years ago, and the people who carry them today are not living where it originated. For instance, both.my parents are White but both their haplotypes originated something like 40,000 years ago in the Middle East. That doesnt mean they are middle eastern, just that they have ancestors long long ago who were.
Around 10,000 years ago, people from the fertile crescent, who were among the first people to develop agriculture, spread in to Europe. Southern Europeans are largely descended from these people, so it is common for Italians, Greeks, etc. To have haplotypes that originated in the middle east.
As you can tell I love to talk about this so feel free to ask away.