• I am a completely boring white guy.  My maternal and paternal haplogroups are the main European ones, and the Ancestry Painter (which looks at autosomes) says I am 100% European.  Not 98%, not 99%, but 100%.
• No health findings to speak of, except for a significant risk of macular degeneration.
• There’s a story in my family of Indian ancestry, but it’s just a story, so I was happy to see that 23andMe has a Native American Ancestry Finder. But again I was disappointed. I have no detectable Indian ancestry in the past five generations. So, the story is probably not true.

Then I downloaded my raw data. This is one of their strengths of 23andMe. If they fold, I still have my data, and I can pay other providers to analyze it at any time in my life. Or do it myself.

Next I took the raw data and ran it through Promethease, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Promethease (I love that name) is a software program that analyzes data from 23andMe or Navigenics. It outputs a very long and detailed report, relying on information in SNPedia (which is a genomics wiki also run by Mr. Cariaso). In my case, Promethease took about two hours to run, and then I stayed up half the night looking through the report. I was overwhelmed by all the data, and more than a little confused. But still it was great fun, and I recommend it. I’m toying with the idea of posting my Promethease report, which some other folks have done.

Then, today, the Relative Finder data came in. Wow! Apparently, I have lots and lots of cousins (well, duh), five of whom wanted to make contact. Most of them are genealogists, but I think I’m not going to be much help to them, since (despite all my good intentions) I have not traced my ancestors past my great-grandparents. But still, it’s very exciting, somehow, to find these real connections to people all over the world. I responded to all of them, and we’ll see where that leads.

There’s something else I’m looking forward to, when I have the time. I’d like to run my data through Structure, which is a program for analyzing population structure.  I don’t think I’ll learn much (because of my white-bread heritage), but I want to do it just for fun, since I found instructions on the European Genetics and Anthropology Blog.

And inside that box is: instructions, the test tube for your saliva, and a prepaid envelope to send it back to 23and Me.

The instructions say “You must register this kit before using it.” I already had an account, so this step took only a couple of minutes. By the way, even if you don’t think you’ll use 23andMe’s service, go ahead and sign up for a demo account. You’ll see exactly what their customers see. It’s fascinating!

The actual spitting part was easier than I thought, and only took a couple of minutes. I’ve read that the reason they ask for so much saliva is to make it hard for people to send in other other people’s DNA without their knowledge (it’s easy to get a hair, but hard to get tablespoons of spit).

Then I packaged it up and sent it off. All very easy. Can’t wait to get access to my results!

PGP screenshot

The Distinctive Traits Survey is interesting, it asks you to “list any traits that you view as making yourself distinctive compared to other people. Your answers might include traits that are physical, psychological, behavioral, etc.”  I’m still pondering this one before I proceed.