Thread: Ancestry DNA Test and Family Trees

Thanks, Tom.

Advertising is one thing but governments are well known to use smart phones et al to gather intel.

Oh yeah Sorry!

No way I will do this DNA stuff, it's all intelligence gathering. No different than the "bot" pictographs that make you select all the squares in a frame is training recognition software, the "age game" where you take a picture of yourself and add a filter to age you is along the same lines, facial recognition software training and database building. Same with the DNA.

Big Brother is here, and working in the industry, it's scary the stuff they know. People think Amazon is an ecommerce company, it's not, it's a logistics company. At a developers conference I was at, guy pointed out that if Stephen King was to release a new book, they could tell you the exact amount of books a certain book store would sell, and the times it would sell - scary the stuff he showed about their AI.

I use an ad-blocker, anonymizer, have a piece of plastic that they gave out at a conference that covers the web cam on your lap top, maybe paranoid, but we're not far from the time ( if at some stores it's not already there), where you walk into a shop, and the ads will change in recognition of you, and the store will already know whether you're a high or low value customer.

Google/Alphabet is building a "smart city" here in Toronto down at the waterfront, you walk in there, they'll know everything about you, they'll monitor walking patterns, everything.

Information is the new product of First world countries, and those jobs will be held by only a very few, so many jobs in technology have now been offshored and outsourced overseas, one of the reasons I guided my son into the trades, he's now an apprentice electrician. They can't automate that job and can't "offshore" it.

I feel very badly for many kids nowadays, whatever you may feel about him, watched Steve Bannon debate David Frum here in Toronto about current affairs, but one line stuck out particularly telling. He was simply saying regarding the wave of populism that it's just a matter of what direction we go - Left wing or Right wing populism. And the old people in the audience weren't going to be the one who decide, it will be the young people. Then he compared our current "millennial" generation to 18th century Russian peasants, just a bit better dressed and better fed, but living in a "gig" economy, no pension, no job for life, no home ownership, massive student debt, not able to fully participate like their parents - the first generation to do worse than their parents.

So, it was his take that these kids will decide, is it going to be minimum government and economic nationalism, or Left wing and massive state control and involvement. Either way, as Dylan said, the times they are a-changin'!

Amazon you say?

https://www.amazon.com/Archie-McPhee.../dp/B07CXZBRW5

The powers that be don't need a DNA test to find out about you, they pretty much have everything they will ever need to know about you including your Medical records blood group national insurance number, your credit rating where you were born what street you live on, plus your and Mrs shopping preferences through your online purchases, what your weekly food shop is, in fact, there is nothing they don't about you.

Originally Posted by Phrank

Information is the new product of First world countries, and those jobs will be held by only a very few, so many jobs in technology have now been offshored and outsourced overseas, one of the reasons I guided my son into the trades, he's now an apprentice electrician. They can't automate that job and can't "offshore" it.

Warning: thread hijack in progress. About 20 years ago we to a tour of the Ring of Kerry in a small bus. During the tour the old bus driver was wondering what will happen when every one gets trained on computers as they were the future. He was wondering who you call then to fix your toilet. Your at lest as smart as that old Irish bus driver and that is not bad company to in. I totally agree, get a trade and get a real job.

Bob

I haven't done one of the DNA tests for all the reasons above (i.e. not keen on handing my DNA to a private corporation and don't trust the results anyway), BUT I have been digging around through the documents on Ancestry for a few years. The results have been really interesting.

A few branches of the family tree reach back a few generations, then sputter out. For example my Dad's Dad's family were protestants in Dublin, and the survival rate for documents relating to that community are notoriously scarce. So I could only trace them back two generations past my great grandfather.

My Mom's Mom's family on the other hand suffer from the opposite: try to figure out which Johan Meyer out of the MANY who emigrated from Germany in the late 19th century is the right one. They're on almost every bloody ship's passenger list!

But other branches were much more fruitful. I discovered ancestry from Wales and France that I hadn't known about, that I have roots both from Ross-Shire in the Scottish Highlands, and the wonderfully named Blubberhouses in Yorkshire. The weirdest thing was a concrete connection to the Tudors, specifically Jasper Tudor. Which in turn means, to steal a line from the Smiths, I am the eighteenth pale descendant of some old queen or other. Charlemagne (now known chez moi as "Uncle Charlie") is my 3rd cousin, 38x removed. On a more personal basis, the guy I wrote my PhD thesis on turns out to be my 1st cousin twice removed of the husband of my 15th great-grandmother. No, not sure exactly what that means either, except that I'm happy I did "Uncle Henry" justice with my research.

But for me the best part was just learning more about the farmers, book-keepers, clerks, soldiers, saddle-makers, and all the other folks who scraped whatever living they could so that I could be here. It's pretty humbling to know what many of them went through.

So while the DNA thing isn't for me personally, I'd definitely encourage anyone with an interest to do some digging in the documents available via ancestry. I'm pretty sure they have free trials from time to time.

Seems that many are more interested in their razors origin than their own! Lol. "I've got this razor, makers mark been sanded clean, no country or other marks, can any of you guys tell me what it is? Hahahha

My family all did it. I got talked into it. I have a lot of everything. From Jewish to Viking. I figured that much. Just a mutt, mix bread, Heinz 57.

Cangooner, sounds like you are your own Grandpa?

I am thinking about getting a DNA test, pretty sure I am a mixed bag with everything though. Not really worried with other people having information on me though, nothing to hide. It is crazy that I move out of state and after a few weeks, I get friend suggestions on Facebook of people that I work with (even though I don't have any friends in common). My guess is because our phones have pinged the same locations for a good amount of time.

ALSO I suggest you guys check out this thread
( https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/c...data_and_went/ ) Thread talking about weird things people discovered that google knew about them. If you have a google account go to your account, data and personalization, and download your data to see what google has on you!

Like it or not if you have a smartphone, use google chrome, or used an app to take you to a destination (like google maps) then they have information on you. Basically, if you use the internet and or don't live in a cave there is a bunch of data on you. Chances are though no one will care to look at it.