Can They Do A Genetic Test For Ethnicity?

 I have been having "issues" over my ancestry of late ..  I guess they have always been there, but now with the passage of time and such I"m beginning to rethink them and wonder if they could in fact be true ..      With the advent of modern genetic testing of late, I'm wondering if I can find out once and for all now if things are as I have heard rumoured or not in our family .. 

 Does anyone know if a blood test (genetic) can be done that will show a person's ethnic composition, as far as race? 

Not sure but I thought I heard recently that humans are too genetically similar to distinguish race through DNA. Definitely a lot closer than terrier breeds, at any rate.

I know I'm part of at least two kinds of Celt, part English,  Part German, Part Swiss (assuming German), part native American on both sides and who know's what else got in there along the way... 

I'm not an expert on this, but I've heard some stories about this.  They can compare your DNA to that of other persons and determine which gropups your DNA is similar to.  It is popular now for African Americans to have their DNA checked to see where in Africa they are from.  I believe that the DNA only checks a small portion of the real ancestry so much is not able to be studied. 

Google DNA and Ancestry and you'll get a bunch of companies that do this.

 Yes, a genetic test can be done to determine race.  There are several commercially available tests.  The least expensive is google backed 23andMe.

For $399 they will provide you with your genetic health and ancestory profile (both maternal and paternal).  That means that not only will you get a percentage breakdown of each of your ethnic makeups, there's a cool feature to research what each means.

As far as health, you also get information on what genetic predispositions you have.  For instance, there is a certain marker that tells members of certain ethnic groups that they are 20 to 80% more likely to develop Parkinson's Disease.

The test is spit, not blood based.

Here you go Counselor

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/us/12genes.html

Very interesting, and thanks guys!    This may finally be a big load off my mind (or maybe on it  .   )

 One of the ancestral things I would like to find out about is whether any of my father's lineage might have been Jewish (by birth) .. Everyone on his side of the family seems to have that dark-haried (curly), dark-eyed, olive-skinned look to them predominantly (many people ask whether we're Jewish),     I know that normally religion is not something that shows in the genes, of ccourse, but knowing that the Jewish lineage is more suscepitble to certain diseases (esp. among the "Ashkinazis" - sp.? - ) makes me think that there are possibly some genetic markers out there associated with "the Tribe" .. 

I think there are also services that will do a genealogical search for you. Fortuneately for me, since the internet has come along my mom has become obsessive about researching our family tree. I know that one of my female ancestors on my dad's side was French and one of my male ancestors on my dad's side was German and everybody else to at least 13 generations back came from either England or Scotland. So that pretty well narrows it down for me.

On a similar note, I read somewhere that they've done genetic coding,  or whatever it's called, quite extensively in Europe and found that like 1 out of every 8 Europeans alive today is descended from Ghengis Khan. I guess it's true what Mel Brooks said, "It's good to be the king."

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  Dang. Fishman ..   you're almost in the Double Century Club already???    You're really burning up those pounds!    And the new pic looks great, too ..    Keep it up   ^5

Thanks podnah. I'm getting on the scale Friday morning and expect to kick that 200 lb door down. I'm kinda excited about it. 200 lbs in 10 months? Whoda******thunkit? Never in my wildest dreams.

I found this fascinating because I am adopted and have no clue as to my actual genetic background