A cautionary note

[Father Bill]

A further thought: The news you discover might also be a problem, or even in extreme cases, a tragedy for some of those you love, because part of your DNA is part of theirs too.

Just... use caution and think first.

[Tobus]

I'm often accused of being a technophobe, luddite, or a paranoid hermit because I have always refused to join Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other popular social media platforms. My stance has always been that it's not a matter of if, but when your personal information will be exploited. Looks like I was right on that count. And my stance on DNA testing has been the same. I can imagine that I'll be proven correct on that matter as well.

Honestly, in this day and age of zero corporate accountability, mass marketing, and contant hacking and selling of private information on the dark web, how could anyone truly believe that their information is safe? It's way too late for most of us to try to retract our names, addresses, phone numbers, banking information, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other critical personal information from internet databases in which they may reside. We just have to patiently wait for the inevitable day that those companies get hacked and our identities get stolen. But to my knowledge, no one has a sample of my DNA, and I intend to keep it that way. It doesn't matter how curious I am about the genetic results, I just don't see myself crossing that particular rubicon. Once my DNA is "out there", it's too late for whatever could possibly be done with it in the rest of my lifetime. I just don't see it being worth the risk.

[The TALL TN Scot]

I admit that I was curious to try a DNA testing kit, but never got one. My wife thought it would be neat and got me one to commemorate reaching 20 years with the military. While it may be dangerous to have this mindset, I figured, "Why not?" because Uncle Same has had my DNA on file since 1998 and as I have learned, NOTHING is safeguarded against discovery to a party that wants the information badly enough.

Mine came back with some interesting, albeit somewhat generic, information. I haven't really looked into it yet and there may be more pertinent information in the results, but for now I am not overwhelmed.

[FossilHunter]

A further thought: The news you discover might also be a problem, or even in extreme cases, a tragedy for some of those you love, because part of your DNA is part of theirs too.

Just... use caution and think first.

Are you referring to genetic diseases? In that case it might be better to know.

Unless I misunderstood you.

[Father Bill]

Are you referring to genetic diseases? In that case it might be better to know.

Unless I misunderstood you.

That is in my mind, ond of the (few) advantages, although perhaps more rare than we might think. No, I was referring to the sort of thing that comes out as in the last post about the father/ grandfather and all of the family disruption such a discovery could cause.