My brother and I did 23andme and got our results back. He's about 40% French/German, 50% British, 10% Iberian. This makes sense - my mum is French and my dad is English, and his family has been here for hundreds of years.
I got completely different results though: 98% Scandinavian, 2% other northern European. The only possible explanation I can think of is that I'm adopted.
My parents have never said anything to that effect, and my earliest memories are with them. What else could it be, though?
I guess it makes a kind of sense, I'm taller then either of them, whereas my brother is slightly shorter than my dad. My hair is curly, while theirs is straight. It's always been put down to natural variation, though. My face also looks kinda like my mum's.
I'm... not sure how to handle this. Should I say anything to them? Would it just upset them?
Or those genetic tests are unreliable scams
Your mom cheated and cucked your dad with the baby
What's 23me?
>>16969633
Not OP, but it's supposed to be the best one of the genetic testing companies.
It's been a while since I did high school biology, but how is it possible to be 40% or 10% something? Or even 2%/98%, for that matter? Only the 50% one sounds like it could be possible from what I remember
>>16969625
I wouldn't tell your dad, but I'd talk to your mum about it if it's really bothering you. Personally I'd email 23andme and ask them wtf happened and that you guys are brothers. They might have actually messed something up. And if they didn't mess up, and their testing really is this incorrect, they can learn how to fix it from your results. I think it's a good idea to contact them.
>>16969645
That's a good idea, thanks. I suppose if they claim it's right I could always do another test with a different company and see whether it comes back with a similar result.
Mom cheated
You're a bastard
>>16969656
>>16969632
Then wouldn't I be at least part French, like her?
What 23andme does with its ancestry is tries to determine what region of the world your SNP variations are commonly found in. I'm half Russian but my 23andme results only show 5%, and I know I'm 100% my parents' kid. It just means that most of my SNP variations aren't necessarily coming from my Russian ancestry.
Go to the family finder and see if you can find your brother on it. If you don't have someone listed as a brother then you aren't related to him.
>>16969625
Get your parents to take the test, too. They offer ways of comparing genomes of family members to see exactly which genes came from which parent.
A paternity test is also very easy to get if you still have doubts. You're probably interpreting your results incorrectly.
>>16969625
Here are possible explanations:
You are adopted
The company had two samples mixed up
Here is what it's not:
Your mom cheated (She would have to be half scandinavian and even then this would be a statistical anomaly)
Well, here's the thing about genetics.
You always get a random combination of genes from both parents. So hypothetically if both parents were 50% french, 50% english, you could be pretty much 100% french or english if the random genes rolled that way. Genetics is rarely the nice and pretty numbers we use to simplify and understand them.
>>16969625
Look at the genome comparison by chromosome tool (you'll have to send him a "share data" request and he has to accept it), and check the overlap.
Should be about 50% or so between you, something high. If it's really low (0% or 0.1% or something) then you're probably not closely related (one's adopted).
I'd show you an example (mine with my brothers) but that account info's probably buried in some folder in a 10-foot-tall stack.
There can be errors of course though: for example, it says me and my brother have totally different Y chromosomes (not possible unless our father's XYY or such, which he's not).
Try to get your whole family to do the test, it's fun and can be informative, and will clear the situation up for sure. It's pretty much impossible to tell whether your parents are actually your parents (and what genes they're each responsible for) without having them get the test too.
Afterwards, you can plug it in to various 3rd-party tools to get reports on specific genes, since the test is very high-quality, and the website report is only a brief overview.
>>16969657
This. I don't doubt that people have learned some unfortunate things about their history through that site, but this doesn't sound like such a case. He doesn't have his father's genes, it's true, but he doesn't have his mother's genes either. Adoption seems the most likely scenario.
>>16969761
If Op is 98% scandinavian, it would require both parents to be 50% scandinavian. It would also mean that op's brother didn't inherit any scandinavian markers. The odds for this scenario being true are incredibly low.
>>16969640
>It's been a while since I did high school biology, but how is it possible to be 40% or 10% something? Or even 2%/98%, for that matter? Only the 50% one sounds like it could be possible from what I remember
That math works for simple binary (on/off) genes, going back only one generation. But when you start handling multiple generations, you can get some wacky numbers. Take that 2%: this could be plausible if we consider OP's great-great-great-great-grandparents. He should have 64 of them. If 63 of them were all from Scandinavia, and one was not (maybe an immigrant from northern Europe), that could, over the generations, produce something like a 98/2 split in someone of OP's generation.
I'd get a second opinion from a reputable or trustworthy service, before going overboard and doing something rash.
>>16969837
Contact the company that did the test to ask about the weird results
Get a second test done in a different company
If it still looks bad then you probably want to ask your parents, start from the mom and explain the situation. You could have been adopted, a weird hybrid from cheating or possibly even mixed up in the hospital, those things happen every now and then too.
The last part you can check with genetic testing against your parents, cheating with a paternity test and adoptation your parents would probably just reveal to you in any case.
You could also let it rest after confirming the results from 23andme and a second company, maybe you just don't want to know.
