Ep 81: Exploring our Ancestry - Looking at Our DNA Test Results

Hey everyone how's it going welcome back to the podcast today we're going to be talking about DNA tests yeah not not so much like more a povich style but we're talking more like 23 and me maybe ancestry DNA dot com or even national geographic got into this game so we are on to this episode where I thought it'd be fun to ask some colleagues to take a look at their DNA samples because well I'll tell you why later but I invited a couple people to come along and so coming on this episode are two people one of them is my current student teacher but soon to be a full-time biology and chemistry teacher in daily city and she is named Sirica hey Sirica how are you doing I'm doing great Curtis thanks that you know we talked about this in December and it was like December 3rd and Sirica's I ordered my kids December 4th though she ordered like the day after and I was like oh okay I haven't even ordered mine and then it was just kind of a delay and so here we are in May but thanks so much for agreeing to come on Sirica oh absolutely all right and also coming along is a coworker of over 25 years we've been working together it is Alan and Alan started working about the same time as me as the pure resource coordinator then a social studies teacher now currently our librarian so hey welcome to the show Alan hi Curtis glad to be here I'm glad to have you so this is going to be fun so we are talking about DNA tests we sent in our test we got our results back and full disclosure two of us have not looked at the results yet but one of us took a little peek at them I wonder who that was she she needed to what you had a reason for yeah so my dad had actually my dad's mom had hired someone years ago to figure out what they were and so they hired a private investigator and she had my dad memorize the list of things that he was and just her fun I memorized mine or memorized it so I'm just curious to know like you know how accurate it is and and there's a lot of them it's not just like one or two things yeah yeah so that's part of the fun of this is for me if I did it by myself I think it'd be pretty boring because I know I know all the way back to both great grandparents on both sides of my family and I'm pretty sure we're all from China so I don't think the results would be very interesting so I invited some people to have maybe a little more interesting background than I do that we'll talk about in a second so let's let's dig into that a little bit so actually let me do this so before we look at our results live on the air for some of us we're going to put on I'm going to put on my science cat for a minute here and talk a little DNA we're going to talk a little biotechnology here so these are companies you've heard them right 23 me you've heard ancestry.com and the now national geographic there these are companies that have been around for a little while and I think most of them are local I know 23 me is like right down in South San Francisco but basically what they do is they're in the field called bioinformatics and bioinformatics is basically the merger of biology and computers and these companies get a lot of data from a lot of different people and they store it and then they're able with a with a fancy algorithm that is a secret they're able to compare people's DNAs to all the known samples that they have in their in their database or their library of genes and so basically what you do if you haven't done it already take a little you get a yeah order the thing online what was it $579 something I got more than you said it was I just remember I got it on sale because I got it on Christmas so they had a sale but I don't remember yeah see well Alan we ordered it a week after the sale I think we should have bought on December 4th we should have done on the early bird deal but so everyone out there you want to save a little money that's a good you know black Friday I think is a good time to kind of take a look at these things so we did it with ancestry DNA there's 23 me was a little more expensive and so I just went with the cheaper of the two so we went ancestry I've heard I've heard that ancestry is a little better for Asian ethnicities I don't know but that's one one thing I've heard maybe maybe that information is also anyone who works for 23 and me come at us and give me the latest information but that's what I have heard so I'm not going to try to push one company over another we just we just went with price so we went with the cheapest one we are teachers we are teachers public public servants we're out there serving your kids but yeah so basically what you do is get a little envelope you order it and it comes like in four days it comes pretty fast once you order it and it comes with a little test tube and a little like preserving solution or something like that too I forget what it is but you're basically spin the tube and it's not real hard it's pretty painless you have to spin into it and then you mail it off and then they send you updates they say hey we got your sample hey we're analyze your sample I think I think the whole thing is about a month yeah they say up to two months but for us for me it's pretty quick yeah so it's pretty exciting so we've been sitting on the street got these results like four months ago but we will we will reveal them soon and so the way it works as I understand it is that they just take chunks of DNA now audience out there I don't know if you know this but most of us human beings are like over 99% the same so if you take any human being on the planet and you looked at our DNA it would be ninety nine well for the for the genes that code for something our genes will be 99% the same now there are differences between people obviously you know I'm looking across it Allen with his curly hair and his freckles that he's the Rika with their straight right wax your hair is a little wavy yeah but I'm looking at I'm looking at people on the street or in public and they look a lot different than you right but actually genetically we're very very similar but there are little differences and so what these companies do is find the areas of our chroma like called the genome right they find areas of our DNA maybe it's chromosome 11 maybe it's chromosome 21 they look at our different chromosomes they find areas where there's the most variation and so they find the areas that will be the most different from one place to another and they kind of highlight that and they kind of create this database that says okay most people from England or Anglo-Saxon background have this genetic marker now it isn't necessarily a gene it just could be some sort of a leftover in our in our DNA that's been there for thousands of years and so if you are descended from Anglo-Saxon you'll have that mark if you're descended from Han Chinese you'll have this mark and so they kind of they created this database that they can now just with power of computing just take your sample and look at those chunks and just line them up now is it a hundred percent accurate no but is it does it give you kind of a snapshot yeah I think it's I think it is and so we're going to take a look at that we'll see if we agree or disagree with the results but that's kind of the key that and here's here's the real secret sauce to all this is they have to have a database of people from all over the world so like I said they have Anglo-Saxon so if you can trace your roots back to the Anglo-Saxons that's gold for them they want to have someone with who knows their heritage as much as possible as little mixing as possible so if you're like 10th generation tie you know from Thailand that's really good for them they want that but you know people move and people blend and people you know so that complicates things a little bit so you know someone from Singapore you know the Singapore has this history of migrants and you know people in and out and you know so that would be a lot harder to say your peers Singaporean right because what is that you know so it's more likely going to point to Malaysia or point to China or point to a continent where there's a larger population so so that's a little bit of the science and we'll talk about the flaws oh yeah question there so how like what about like Native American yeah group side I think we had I'd ask you about this for a while I can't remember what you had said about the data is thin I think for Native Americans because there's just not as many people contributing to the database and would they're like would you necessarily see DNA difference between like um you know yeah like you know especially you know tribes that or you know people that had traditionally shared land in similar areas and that sort of thing yeah no that's going to be hard that's going to be hard for them to distinguish so I think well we'll see right but I think with Native Americans they they group it okay so yeah and same with you know smaller parts of Southeast Asia like the Hmong people you know they it's not really a country so there's a lot of migrant going on migrant sea going on there so it's not it's not great for smaller people groups or or groups that don't have their data you know so the more they get the better so my friend did 23 of me and she said she gets like a yearly update as their databases change so as they collect more data and they can say oh here's a marker for Navajo people then maybe they're able to separate it out a little bit so yeah well that is that is the rub right it's kind of hard to know what is pure anything anymore, you move so much, but if you find you know if you find a tribe that they just stayed to themselves like in the middle of South America there's some tribes of people that have never moved, that'd be more pure, yeah, but yeah most of these most places that are colonized, you know, you're gonna have a mix. But I guess what I'm wondering too is like, would there, is there a sort of a genetic difference between like a Northern, you know, Cheyenne and Southern, or Northern Sue tribe, you know, like, you know, or something like that. Yeah, you know, it depends on how long they were separated. So if you were separated for thousands of years, so like, you know, people in Alaska, native Alaskans and South Americans have probably been separated for 20,000 years, you know, so they might have more differences, even if they're native, right there, but Sue, Northern Sue, Southern Sue, probably they, if they, if they separated it'd be a couple hundred years. So that's probably not enough to have a lot of differences. Yeah, so they'll probably be pretty similar. All right, everyone out there liking the science education, this is good, right? All right, I love it. I love it. So we talk about Asian things, but I'm always happy to talk science on this podcast, everybody, hang tight, we'll get into the results in a second. One thing that I saw was kind of cool was that I sign up for the, I don't think what it's called the family tree or something thing. So did I. The one month trial. And my cousin got pingged, like, he got an email that said, hey, someone has, has is really closely related to, he just done it. And so he emailed me and said, hey, you showed up on my ancestry thing. So that's cool. So I guess it works, you know, that they found that we are that closely related. So he goes, now, what, what do you find? So like I said, I did take a little peek at my results. And one of the people that was found to be related to me, for whatever reason, you know, it's going through the list. And this one guy just kind of stuck out to me because he had such a professional looking photo as his profile photo. And I was like, oh, I'm just curious, I'm going to stalk this guy on Google. It turns out he's a country artist and he even performed with Luke Bryan. And yeah, so he's from the robins inside. But yeah, it's just interesting to know. And funny enough, in real life, I don't know any family from my dad's side. And all the ancestry results, everyone minus one person was from my dad's side. So it's, it's weird. In real life, I only know my mom's side. But online, I only know my dad's side. So this guy probably is pretty quite like within second cousin or something. I, when I was doing a little bit of research, I know that his closest family are the Robinson. So I just, I know it's from my grandfather, but I don't know exactly how it breaks down. So some kind of a cousin. Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah, no, I think it's cool because you know, once you get to this country, a lot of people will move out and they don't, they don't keep in touch. So you may have relatives that are one or two degrees away that are actually genetically pretty close to you. Well, why were you in, like when I asked you guys to sign up, you both sounded kind of interested in finding these results. What, what were you hoping to find out? What were you curious about? How about you Alan? Well, for me, you know, my mom's Japanese and, you know, she always, well, she always thought about how her dad always say that they were 100% Japanese. And, you know, but, but on my dad's side, you know, it's African-American, but also I know we have a lot of Native American ancestry and we definitely have a lot of, you know, Caucasian or Anglo-American. And so, you know, I don't know, you know, we had a pretty extensive family on my dad's side, but it's been, we've just grown apart for so long, you know, we really just don't really have any contact with, you know, people outside of my nuclear family, you know. Do you know percentages approximately? For my dad, I mean, not really, I mean, we've got like an account that his grandmother wrote, my grandmother, you know, going back to the end of slavery and, uh, where apparently my great, great, great grandfather was a plantation owner after the end of the Civil War, he married one of a woman who was, who wasn't slave prior to that. They had three children. And so, you know, I knew that, we know that there was some, you know, intermixing, but in plus you can just look at some, you know, some of our ancestors and see, you know, are some of our relatives and see, you know, some were very light skinned, some were very dark skinned and, um, you know, so it just, um, yeah, I was, I was, I wasn't, I'm still not sure what I'm going to find. Yeah, because I haven't though. And then how about Native American side? Is it grandma or is it grandma? That's on my, um, yeah, on my, but I think on my father's side, it's both on his father and mother's side. Oh, okay. Because they're both that is on my, my grandfathers, um, African American out of Louisville, Kentucky area. And, um, my grandmother was African American also, but very, she was very light skinned and she was their families out of Virginia, northern, well, kind of central Virginia. But they had all like migrated up to Philadelphia years ago. So my dad grew up, he was born in Harlem, but he grew up in Philadelphia, basically. And, uh, so, you know, I'd seen a lot of old pictures. I mean, some of these folks I remember from when I was a kid, but, um, I was, I, yeah, yeah, I'm very curious still to see what we're going to turn up with. I wonder, and you know, like there's, there's some controversy too with, with Native American folks about, you know, the getting shares of Casino, revenue, and things like that. I wonder if people are using DNA tests to show. Well, I know some of that is about being on official roles and stuff like that. And, and while certainly blood is, is a, certainly a consideration, but, yeah, I think land is also a consideration. And, and possibly being a part of the community, as well, you know, are you involved? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then mom says pure Japanese. Absolutely. Or, uh, from Japan, from, she's from Nagoya. And, uh, I think her father's from Tokyo area, but her mom's from Nagoya. Yeah. And the, on the mom's side in Nagoya, I know they go, you know, they can trace their lineage back pretty far. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, excited. Well, almost there, Alan, almost there. Okay. So, how would you describe your heritage if you just described it to someone? Um, I, well, I get it a lot because people will look at me and like, oh, like I'm just so curious. You know, what are you? And I, I always love to ask, like, oh, what do you think I am? And, uh, I definitely have gotten a lot of things. Some people think I'm full Indian. Some people like, I can't really tell. Some people think I'm Hispanic. It's just, it's all over the map. Um, and, uh, yeah. So normally what I tell people is I'm half white and half Indian. That's just kind of like the plain. Yeah. Yeah. The easiest way. Um, but I always do tell people I'm like, well, or for the people that asked me, oh, well, when you say white, well, what do you mean? What white? And I was like, I can break it down for you. Like, you want to know. And, uh, yeah, I'll usually list the list. So. So what are the main ones of the white side? You ready for the list? Yeah. Okay. So it's Irish, English, Pennsylvania, Dutch, Scottish, Spaniard, and Filipino. Wow. Okay. And so it's kind of hard to know percentages of that point. It's supposed to be in order for most of these. Okay. Which is interesting. Uh, yeah. And, um, all I know in actual percentages is that my grandma was a quarter Filipino, but she grew up in the Philippines. Okay. And then she came over. So my dad is supposed to be 12.25, which means I'm supposed to be six point one, two, five or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then your, your mom Fiji in Indian. Yeah. So my great grandmother, um, used to be, uh, live in India. And then she was brought over to Fiji as a slave. And so then we know our family generations down, um, just a few generations, uh, kind of evolved there in Fiji. And so yeah. So we're a little bit different. And, um, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is going to be exciting. And then my side, basically 100% southern Chinese. All right. All right. Are you guys ready for this? Let's go to the results here. Let's see. Uh, let's start. We'll go with ladies first. How about that? So, uh, Sri Gowani, open your results and let us know what you found. Okay. Um, so my results show that, uh, this is from, let me see, this is from greatest to least, um, per parent. So for my mom, it is, uh, southern India is 32% northern India, 16% and then Bengal is 2%. So that's, that's from her side. Yeah. Um, and then everything else is from my dad. So that's the most is England and northwestern Europe. I'm not really sure what that is exactly. I'd have to look on a map, but at 16%, um, and then I have northern and southern Philippines, they're split, um, but each are 10% and that's the next most. That's pretty high. Uh-huh. And then I have whales, which is 5% Ireland, which is 5%, which I obviously believe the data, but my sister has freckles. And I don't and I'm a little jealous side. I'm curious to know per percentage is a little higher Sweden and Denmark is 2% Nigeria is 1% and Central and Eastern China is 1% all right you're a sister Interesting that might be for the Philippines. Yeah, it's for my dad's side So yeah, yeah, it might be the the the Filipino side had a little Chinese mixed in maybe maybe yeah, yeah, yeah cool So it's not super far off from what you know. No, I actually was doing a little bit of very basic math and Essentially for my dad's side it is like two-thirds roughly of the white quote-unquote and then one-third is Filipino So funny enough, there's a lot more Filipino. Yeah, you know in me Which is it's kind of cool to know But it makes sense because if you look at my dad and his siblings they all have the same mother So my grandmother, but they all had different dads except they're all white all the dad's are white so they all have Or a half white and then half of my grandma Uh-huh every single one except for my dad looks straight Asian like very Asian features Yeah, and it's very interesting. They're like well if she's only a quarter and then you have that like they came out looking like they were like Half at least at least half, you know, and and this totally makes sense, but it's surprising. Yeah. Yeah So did it did it change anything for you at your perception or anything? Honestly the only big surprise for me was the fact that I was 20% or from you know 10% northern Philippines and then 10% southern Philippines It just makes me so curious as to know how that math Became what it is, you know because you know if you go by a very stereotypical Plain Jane math. I should be what was it 6.25% 20% is a lot more than 6.25. So it's very interesting how genetics works Yeah, and I think the numbers if I get this right the numbers mean that you have What is it 20% of your genes Match genes in Filipino people. So it doesn't mean that you know because I don't does it even add up to 100 I don't even know if it is. I think it's pretty close to it. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that you are quote unquote 20% Filipino It means that you have a good chunk of genes that match genes that are found in other Filipino people right so You know and like the Chinese right so that that gene probably shows up in a lot of Southeast Asia, you know people So it doesn't mean that like I think my brother in law who like me should be 100% Chinese got a bunch of Burmese genes But it doesn't mean he's part Burmese. It just means that maybe there's some genes that overlap with the Burmese population So it's pretty cool. It's it's I don't think you can look at it like like a cup That's being filled with different liquids and stuff like that. It's a little more nuanced than that But yeah, that's a big it's a pretty big chunk. I think I'm the biggest yeah That totally makes sense. I just feel like the biggest all-Hop question I guess is everything else lines up pretty well. Yeah, so that's the only one that's a little off in percentage So I'm just like oh, that's very interesting to know and then okay more science gets so when when you inherit an egg or a sperm You're not inheriting exactly 50% from your grandma 50% from your grandpa You're actually inheriting a mix so eggs and sperm when they go through this thing called myosis to be formed They shuffle everything so you could get a lot more from one side of the family than the other So I guess we could got a bunch from Filipino grandma more and so maybe your sister got more from Irish Her little freckles. Yeah, yeah, so it's kind of weird how that works But it's it's it's not like you're producing clones right making babies is a mix so every sibling even For eternal twins right they're born in the exact same time, but different egg different sperm is always a crapshoot There's always going to be some variation which is good which is good for our our species All right, thanks Syrika and we'll move on to mr. Allen. All right. What'd you get Alex? Okay, let's see Then drum roll, please Japan estimate 50% You know what it works Let's see. I mean, let me let me open it all up here. Let's see if I can get a So I've got with Japan 50% Nigeria's 16% okay whales 8% I knew we had like some well shit well, yeah Cameroon Congo western bend bend to people 6% Norway 6% England Southwestern Europe 5% Molly 4% Ireland 2% Senegal 1% I recalls Ghana 1% wow been bending and Togo 1% you know native American Yeah, interesting so Yeah, that's yeah, I find that very interesting You know, cuz I mean we be it even have photographs. Yeah, you know That would be my great-grandmother and you know even like I mean you look at my like early pictures I've seen on my grandmother. I mean she looks like she could be an American like you know, so very interesting. Yeah, I'm So there's another thing it says you can view 18,000 plus regions tested Yeah, I don't know I'd have to I'd have to look into yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually very surprised about that. I mean I have to say it really makes me question Because I know like my father and my father did a pretty extensive family history where he went down into the record, you know halls of these towns in Virginia And got even the like I have photocopies of the records and stuff and so Yeah, I find that very interesting. I don't know quite what to make it so I just pulled up the first thing that popped out and it says There's an article line So they they said there's definitely a chance of missed Native American So okay, so there's a title says why indigenous America's region may not appear in your ethnicity estimate And I give you some reasons, but basically they said ancestry DNA test surveys over 700,000 locations in your DNA But there's still a chance that we missed evidence of indigenous American DNA This is because you may have inherited genetic markers that ancestry DNA does not use to identify indigenous American ethnicity Additionally, some Native American communities are underrepresented in genetics research Largy due to distrust in tribal communities because of centuries of Extractive extractive and exploitative research practices, so There's just not a lot of that makes some sense when you when you read that it makes me think so You know, so we're talking about 1865, you know when what I'm pointing the date. I'm pointing to And you know a lot of those Eastern tribes as a Virginia tribes were extreme intermarrying, you know that you know that went on It could possibly even be that they as a people that the people that she came from no longer exist as a people, you know only in It's so they're not going to be giving their DNA. So right. I mean, so so that is because definitely all of our Native ancestry would be out of that area, you know, which was all you know part of the removal and you know So while certainly there were pockets of native pockets that remained And there was quite a bit of intermixing between African-American populations Native American populations in those areas as well You know, but yeah, I it could very well be Um that you know either what's left of those tribes are repopulated You know were moved removed and put out and you moved out to you know, Oklahoma area Um or just no longer Yeah, you know exist at all. Yeah So it's tricky it's tricky and then maybe they don't like to say You know if they just don't have enough information. Let's say they only have 50 people from Burma or Myanmar, right? They don't want to say We can say without a doubt your Myanmar or Burmese because there's just it's it would be Too small the sample size to be able to compare it. So if they only have a few people left from that tribe, you know, it's just Be inconclusive to not include it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's so well. I'm getting it. So it actually gives me Something different to think about that I would have even thought that I was going to be yeah It's a real mix though a lot of African countries. I think you heard said at least 10 African countries Yeah, and then a bunch of European Yeah, your mom was not lying though, but she said She said she's pure Japanese man. She was And I think of Asian countries, you know when you're on an island a lot of times there's not as much mixing, you know and you know Japanese are a bit like that. Yeah, yeah very Nationalistic yeah, and so yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense on that side Did it break the Japanese down at all by region or was it just not at all but they do Completely assigned it to just parent too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So a little bit expected and a little bit unexpected I think that's probably part for the course. All right. Thanks Alan. All right. Are you ready? Yes, yes, we're all please. All right. Let me see. I'm not expecting this to be shocking. Okay. Now where am I? I'm on the home page. Hello, DNA story. Okay. This is a little bit. Not really, but a little bit. All right. According to my DNA story, they're saying 87% southern China. All right. Not a shocker, but here's something interesting. 8% from Vietnam. But again, you know, people moved around. People moved around that. That is kind of higher than I would think. I thought it'd be kind of maybe a little bit smaller than that. 8% Vietnam. So all my Vietnamese brothers and sisters out there. Hey, how are you doing, holler? Central Chinese, 3% and then the die people, D.A.I, 2%. This located primarily in Myanmar, Laos, and Yunnan, China, 2%. So no, no, huge shocks there. The Vietnamese a little higher than I would expect. But that's cool. Let me see. What else can you put down here? Is there anything else you can put down? Have you put down on the website? Is there anything else cool? I haven't looked at it if I'm related now. Yeah, that's the only other thing is your relatives thought they have. Yeah. DNA matches. I mean, I just. We should all be so lucky. I have 47 fourth cousins are closer. And they're all chants or chants. I have a lot of second cousins that pop up. Okay, and then you know them? No, I know one, two, three of them. One for my mom's side, two for my dad's side. But the rest I don't know. Yeah, and then of course, my first cousin shows up. They have 14% shared DNA. So that's pretty strong. So it does work. What is exactly like a four to four to six? I don't know. In my family, we do, we don't use the American style terms. Like, it's saying second cousin. And I know one of them. And to me, she's my aunt because she's my mom's cousin. So yes, in American terms, I think your mom's cousin would be your second cousin. But to us, because it's that like hierarchy, right? It's like you and then your mom. And since she's your mom's cousin, they're on the same level. So that's why it's considered an aunt to me rather than a second cousin. Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. So second is a couple of different meanings. Yeah, your parents cousin than you, I think is second, but also your cousin's kids and my kids are second cousins, right? I think so. I think so. Yeah. So your cousin's kid. Wait. So my cousin's kids and my kids are second. Oh, I think so. I think so. I call that second cousin. See, and for us, we just say regular cousin to, but yeah, that would be you. So they share a great grant parent. And so third would be share a great, great grant for the cousin. Means you share a great, great, great, great. So it is sort of just pushes the connection back. Yeah, higher up. You're someone up there. But then so many generations different. Okay. So yeah, so no, no shockers here. It's kind of helping for someone famous. I mean, hey, I got the guy who has a musician and something man. He's, he's, I think he was in, I think it was Tennessee. It said and he, the fact that he performed with, with Luke Brian. Yeah. That's really big. I love Luke Brian. And then one other thing that they offer is health screening. Well, I think this is one of their more controversial pieces. They've kind of, I feel like they've kind of downplayed this lately. But when it first came out, they were kind of saying, hey, we can analyze your DNA and tell you within a percentage, your chances of having type two diabetes or Alzheimer's. And I think they backed away a little bit because scientists were kind of like, I don't know if you can say that. Let alone the effects on someone. You know, it's like, okay. So you have a hundred percent chance of something, of course. That's a big deal, right? But if you have a three percent chance of Alzheimer's, are you really going to change your lifestyle? And what percentage would you need to have to really make it substantial? You know. I feel like you're kind of opening up for lawsuits and stuff. I think well too. Like it seems like. Some guy spends all his savings, you know, because he has a 50% chance of heart disease. But I also feel like you're always going to have those people. And it's your choice. It's no one's forcing this and, you know, like holding a gun to your head saying, you, you know, you need to know, like this is your health, right? Yeah. But it's like your choice to know and it's your choice to make any decisions or not to make decisions based off those results. So I don't, I think it's important to have that option. But I don't think that these people should be suing the company saying, "Oh, I spent all my money because you told me no." Yeah. It's clearly stated that it's just an estimate number one. Yeah. Number two, they're not telling you, you know, with any guarantee that you, you're going to get something or you need to make changes or suggestions, right? Yeah. I think maybe the controversy was kind of like, "Okay, you're profiting and can you really predict anything?" You know, I think people were kind of like, "Are you, you know, what are you selling? Are you selling really good information or is it just all of us have 10% chance of something, you know?" Yeah. That was a lot. I haven't done that with this company. I didn't do it either, yeah. My dad, I mean, I don't want to say made. But I convinced my dad to do one for him and his came with the health screening or all that stuff. Okay. And his is, it was pretty close to what he knows. He has a lot of medical problems, but there's some ones that he was a little bit interested to find out, because they were a little bit higher of chances than he thought. But it was all relatively stuff that he knew, like diabetes and something with eyesight, the generation. But it was just, yeah, it's interesting. And I genuinely want to do that for myself. Yeah. Some people want to know. Some people don't want to know. So I agree with you, though. It's your choice. Take it with a grain of salt. It's not, you know, this is not a crystal ball. It is a statistics game, right? They're kind of doing some math. And they're saying, "Hey, people who have this genetic marker tend to have, you know, it's not 100% slam dunk." But yeah, so I didn't do it either. And I don't know if I want to. But maybe it's the data gets better. Maybe, you know, maybe the data's getting better every day. That's the thing about these databases. It's the more data, the more better, right? So they're working on it. They're working on it. Would you recommend this service to other people? What do you think? Not this brand per se with this idea. I would. I mean, if you want to know something a little more, I mean, I do agree that you need to take the results as a grain of salt. But, you know, I don't think that they're just, like, complete fabrications. You know, I think that, you know, maybe the 1% stuff. I don't really know what that-- How does that really affect you? Yeah, I mean, or whatever. Yeah, but I would. Yeah, I think so. Especially for folks that are mixed heritage, mixed race, you know, I think, especially if it's more than just 50%. You know, it's kind of interesting to narrow it down a little more just as a talking point. You know, it's not like Syriek is going to go to the Philippines and look for long-lost relatives or anything like that. But it's kind of cool. I think for me, it goes-- it's a personal choice. I think if you want to know, then I think it's a great resource, right, to get started. The one big thing that kind of popped into my head was if you are adopted. And, you know, if you're adopted or if, you know, like in potentially my future case, like if you use a donor, right? Right. And it's like you'd biologically have half siblings and is that going to change how you feel about yourself? Or, you know, that's the only thing the rough area where it's like, do I recommend it to those people? I don't know, because I don't know how they'd react. But I think it's a great resource, like I said. But, you know, I would just be careful in terms of situations like that. But for the average person, yeah, I think it's a great thing to-- It's fun, yeah. I think it'd be a fun gift to give to someone. You know, it's not super expensive. But it's maybe something they wouldn't buy for themselves. I mean, I did have some reservations, maybe, about the whole DNA thing. I mean, I don't know why. I mean, they're not necessarily founded in anything, but just kind of like-- Someone else has your DNA. I mean, like, not founded in anything. You're like, you know, concerns and necessarily that I have. But it does cross my mind a little bit, like, you know, in the future, who knows what's-- That's how my dad felt. Like, he's very, you know, you don't need to know my information and very like that. And so, I was surprised when I got the-- I got this actually as a gift for him for Christmas. And he had no hesitation. I was like, I can return it. It's fine. He's like, you know what? This is for you. This is what you want. So, he did it. But he's also that type. And it's true. Like, you know, I have a lot of health issues too. And it's like, now that it's in the database, am I going to have a harder time getting life insurance? Or-- higher rates of stuff and I think there needs to be a line where it's like, you know, we can we have access to it But it's not used against us. Yeah, yeah, you would hope Didn't they catch that the zodiac? Which killer is the catching? I wanted these serial killer. Yeah, and he'd laid low For all these decades and then one of his relatives did one of these tests Yeah, yeah, they found him and they got So I don't know man, so all my relatives out there don't commit any hate his friends my DNA is in the system Tell my daughter it's not to commit any crimes This DNA is in the system But yeah, I think if you do it for fun and hopefully I didn't read the fine print But hopefully the fine print is there to protect us a little bit But yeah, everyone knows where you can get these services. I think it's fun. I you know, I don't know 8% Vietnamese maybe I'll go Get some fun tonight, you know hang out with the family. You take a trip. There's some day. Yeah, yeah, that'd be very cool Oh, hey, so we usually end our episode this is not kind of a typical episode But we end our episode by asking our guests to choose an infatuation because we are the infatuation podcast and infatuation Is anyone in the Asian community that you look up to or that you admire and you may know them? You may not know them. They may be alive. They may be deceased. So can you think of an infatuation? Let me give you a second to think about it All right, Alan you got an infatuation. I Got to go with mom. Yeah, you know, she gives me a lot of wisdom and You know, she's pushing 90 and she's still got it. Yeah And you know every chance I get I just try to get what I can from her, you know I mean just every chance I get really, you know, because when she goes there's It's amazing what she remembers of like our family on my dad's side and her, you know like and It's amazing really sometimes. I'm like, how do you remember that? Oh my God like, you know It's that Japanese diet man. Yeah, I got a thank you for that too. I try and stay on that a bit as well Yeah, aren't Japanese women the longest living group of people Japanese in general to have the I think as a country's one of the longest life spans Yeah, I hope it so 90s like middle age She's good for a lot. I think now that's cool. Yeah, I hope so. All right. Yeah. How about you three you got an infatuation? Well, I have a follow up question because I actually would like to know the answer. Do you consider Indian descent Asian I do Yeah, I do I mean, I think we're going with continent, right? So yeah on the continent some continent in the Pacific Ocean over there We're going going that whole half of the world, so yeah So I would say that if you consider Indian descent Asian then I would say My grandma's sister actually, so my great aunt And that's because she was the first one to come over from Fiji and so that's a huge step and then you know There's that whole process of like waiting, right until you're allowed to come and then when she came Um, you know being the sponsor for my my grandma, right and doing all that and they scraped together money And had to endure a lot of racism, right during that time when they came and then she actually became paralyzed she fell off of Two two or four story building oh, and I want to say four because she they said that she shouldn't survive But she was paralyzed for the rest of her life, but she still had to take care of Her kids and you know like her siblings kids and she did everything in a wheelchair My mom tells me these stories of how they lived in the projects and You know, they would literally have to help her carry her wheelchair up the stairs, right because they don't back then they didn't have Yeah, yeah stuff, but yeah, she she did a lot and I think she set the ground. So she's my person. Yeah, no awesome And yeah, I don't know the definition is fuzzy, but I think we go East Asian and South Asian Central Asian. I don't know. It's a big continent I actually reached out to a woman. She's in northern Russia From what they call the coldest village on earth. It's Yakutya And they all speak Russian, but they all have their own that saw dialect as well and they look straight up Chinese Look at that, but there's an ethnically Russian, you know Yeah, yeah, I know some people like that. Yeah, Kazakhstan and various places. Yeah, Central Asia. Yeah, so I don't know man. We are we are all all embracing to anyone who considers themselves. So yeah, I don't know I don't know the official definition, but I think anyone From that region I consider Asian And then it's kind of crazy to think back at what you started with how we're all 99 point or more than 99.9 percent right identical genetically Yeah, so I mean, we're all humans Then just where do your ancestors come from? It gets a little fuzzy, but you know what? We're gonna we're gonna include that so cool. Thank you for for coming. Thank you for answering. Thank you for doing this test with me Everyone out there you can write to us and let us know your results You can write to us infatuation podcast at gmail.com If you're interested in doing this go ahead I wish I was sponsored by one of these companies. I give you a discount, but I have no connection with any of these companies We are not sponsored, but you can go check out these companies. You know who they are And so you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook at the infatuation podcast and we'll put all these details in the show notes You can follow us wherever you get your podcasts. You can always give us a rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts Oh, and now just a heads up you might hear some funny noises on this pocket We had a fire alarm go off in the middle of this podcast and the bell rang so you might hate here You might have heard kids in the courtyard or a custodian coming in to empty the trash, but it's all good So anyway, I'll be half of Alan syrica and myself. We hope that you are all happy healthy and safe out there and tell we talk to you again Bye everyone [Music]