This was posted 4 years 11 months 23 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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AncestryDNA AUD $88 (Was $129) + $30 S/H @ Ancestry

110

Got this as Christmas present for my mum. She was adopted in England during WW2 and her birth records were deliberately left incomplete, like in the movie Oranges and Sunshine. So her roots have always been a mystery. A little less so with this, hopefully.

Copy and paste from last deal https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/444715

This deal was last offered 9 months ago -

AncestryDNA—The World's Largest Consumer DNA Database.

Order your complete kit with easy-to-follow instructions.
Return a small saliva sample in the prepaid envelope.
Your DNA will be analyzed at more than 700,000 genetic markers.
Within 6-8 weeks, expect an email with a link to your online results.

This is part of Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals for 2019

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  • +6

    I'm not the paranoid type but wasn't there a story of the CIA collecting DNA profiles to make a database?

    Edit: Was the FBI for FamilyTreeDNA - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/busi…

    • Yeah, don't give them your day-ta! ;)

      • Lol. It's good that they have caught criminals from this but sooooo shady and totally unethical not to let their customers know. As if they aren't ALL doing it.

        • oh so that's how it happens! Like in those Murikan Crime/Action movies!

  • +1

    Great gift for Christmas family reunion.

    • +1

      Yeah great gift for your third cousins you never met who turns out to me a murderer who left their DNA at a crime scene 20 years ago and gets linked to the crime through your DNA in the database :)

  • +1

    Dont forget the 10.50% or 5.6% cashback. I am not sure which one applies.

  • +5

    These services are extremely dubious. For example the same DNA returns different results from different services,.

  • +2

    So basically, am i paying to get myself registered into a big DNA pool for only god knows what they do with it?

  • Consider if you discover you have a higher risk of cancer or disease, you would have to report this if you are buying life insurance, and in the future, potentially health insurance. This could be devastating if you were refused cover or a claim denied because you didn't mention the results of this test.

    • Yes, this is true. You have to report it.

    • This doesn't give health results.

      • +1

        I understand this point, but once the genie is out of the bottle, it can't be repacked.
        It seems believable to me that a future legislation change might allow insurers to request genetic test data, or the testing companies might sell their results database to a health reporting company in a jurisdiction with poor privacy controls who could then make the data available to Australian insurers.

        In my mind it is a bit like credit reporting or car insurance. The insurers have a strong incentive to gain access to the info, and you can bet their lobbyists are arguing that gaining access will lower premiums for healthy people. It only takes one incompetent government to allow them to make supplying data an option and all the insurers will jump on board by adding a clause saying you must grant them access to review any genetic data available, and suddenly you can't find insurance that won't demand it.

        Go and apply for life insurance outside a default super plan now and you must disclose a huge range of invasive health information, adding a check box that is compulsory to allow them to consider genetic data if available is a very small step.

        I personally was very excited and interested to find out my own genetic background when these tests launched, but I am glad now I didn't, as it seems the testing companies can't be trusted, and I only expect that to get worse.

        At least as long as you can report you haven't had a genetic test, and the data doesn't exist in a database somewhere you have a fighting chance you will be assessed as average risk.

        Five years ago, an unpaid telephone bill didn't hamper your chances of getting a mortgage, now the laws have changed and it does. I don't think I have any rare genetic risk factors, but it would suck to discover you did because all your newly found aunts and grandmothers died of BRCA breast cancer, and then you were refused insurance when you might need it more than ever.

  • +3

    Damn. The comments, particularly from the earlier post the OP linked to, are cancer.

    • Yep. I knew from past deals this would take some hits. I agree with the criticisms here that these tests accuracy are dubious and they use your data for other purposes. Nonetheless, my mum has been nagging for this as a gift for a couple of years, despite me explaining the shortcomings. Anyway, may still be fun and if you are gonna buy, buy when on sale!

      • +2

        The accuracy regarding identifying close relatives is very good. If your mum has any parent, aunt/uncle, half sibling, niece/nephew or 1st cousin in the database, they will show up in her list of matches when she gets her results.

        Many adoptees have successfully used this test to identify their biological parents.

        • Thanks, I didn't know that.

          • +1

            @rokufan: Even if she does not have any particularly close matches, 2nd and 3rd cousin matches can help you figure out a lot. You share a set of great-grandparents with a second cousin, and each person only has four great-grandparent couples so it definitely narrows things down.

      • I guess it's simple for the Anglo 'Johnson' or 'Thompson' types who knows all the Johnson's and Thompson's before him - there's no real need for a test. Not everyone knows anything past their parents, or even their parents.

        It's a price some are willing to pay.

  • +6

    I've done 23andme and Ancestry.com. Results are consistent between the two (ancestry, shared relatives are consistent via third party service).

    There are valid concerns regarding privacy, so it's worth spending some time to understand it.

    You can run the result file through a service like Promethease for info - though unless you're going to spend the time to understand it that's probably not worth while. The outcome will likely be Do more exercise, eat better to avoid something.

    Found a long lost relative who was trying to track down family. Well worth it from my point of view, though ymmv.

  • +2

    FWIW, with 23andme, they don't even require a full name. You can sign up with A as your first name, B as your last name, from a burner email address, at a public library. Presumably they'll accept a prepaid credit card too. Mail the kit to a parcel locker or your neighbour.

    Yes, the government can probably link the prepaid credit card data to the public library's internet logs and CCTV, to any IP data they might be able to get from 23andme, but it's probably easier for them to just contact your doctor instead. :)

  • +1

    For anyone looking for deals on Ancestry itself (and not the DNA stuff) you can get a nice discount if you 'gift' a subscription to someone.

    Eg.:

    Current price for 6months full access to Ancestry $169.99 (apparently on sale from $249.99) for 6 months.

    But if you gift a subscription it is $134.99 for 6 months, or $239.99 for 12.

    The ozbargain thing to do would be to create a second account and gift a subscription to your first account to receive the discount.
    Edit: You can buy yourself a gift subscription.

    Also the gift subscription doesn't automatically renew like the regular subscription so you can forget about it and let it expire.

    Obviously you can use Ancestry for free at a Library, but that is a dumbed down version and doesn't let you attach records to your family tree in the same way as having an actual subscription does.

  • My grandma is long lost. How do they have DNA from a century ago? Let alone a third-world country

    • What would you like to know regarding your grandma? They can compare the DNA of living descendants to figure out relationships - they don't actually need the DNA of the common ancestor a century ago.

      • i want to find her if she's still alive pls :(

        sorry exaggerated a century probably ~ 80?

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