Comments on: Zero in on Mexican Ancestry on Cinco de Mayo

By: BethannH

BethannH — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 18:03:30 +0000

Hello Barbara,
Thank you for your interest in 23andMe. 23andMe only has one comprehensive health plus ancestry product. For $99 you will receive information about your health and ancestry. People trace their paternal lines through their fathers. This means that your son’s paternal line came from his father. Consequently you can not trace your paternal line through your son. You would need to have your father, brother or uncle tested. I hope this helps!

By: Barbara Gordon

Barbara Gordon — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 01:45:21 +0000

Hello,
I have a few questions…If I am a female and I want to find out my paternal ancestry, can I use my son? My parents have passed away and I have no brothers or sisters from my father and I wanted to confirm that my paternal ancestry is originateted in South America, is that possible? Also, if I have my son tested, will his maternal and paternal ancestry be seperated into seperate catagories so that I can tell which he recieved from me? And finaly, is the ancestry and medical history purchased seperatly or is it all in the same kit? I am VERY interested in this product.
Thank you,
Barbara

By: BethannH

BethannH — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:50:38 +0000

Assuming a halving of the DNA evidence each generation, people with one African ancestor 5 generations back (great great great grandparent) can expect to see about 3% African ancestry. Assuming that each generation is about 30 years (people have children around age 30), that would be about 150 years ago.

If you go further back, by chance alone some people with a single African ancestor 5-10 generations ago will still see evidence of that ancestry in their DNA, while others will not.

By: Max

Max — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:59:35 +0000

Vidal, you may be right that african blacks were introduced into Mexico; but they were not free; theirsocial status was lower than that of the indians; and most of them were men, to be used in mines and other works; for a time they came to replace the indians that died from the diseases introduced by the spaniards. Now the big question, does this mean “all mexicans” have african genes? I doubt it. Some, very likely, and they can still show it: example: large noses with curly hair; but the skin color is not a reliable indicator, for some pure indians are really dark-skinned.
How much percentage you need to have to be considered “african”? clearly, 2% is nothing. In fact I would really doubt of the meaning of that 2% as proof of african descent. Why? because that would suggest a very long-time ago event of mating, say thousands of years, whereas for mestizo mexicans, we are talking about 400 years max. clearly not enough to decrease the “african crossing” significantly. And people of this company can correct me if I’m wrong. Therefore, if you really had an african ancestors from say, 1700, I would predict that your gene test would show greater than 10% of african descent, not less. But please, I want to hear of real cases, and then, theory can be corrected or confirmed.

By: BethannH

BethannH — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:25:03 +0000

Hi Jorge R,
Thank you for your interest in 23andMe. We do not currently offer our services in Mexico.

Here is a link to a list of the countries that we currently offer our services: https://customercare.23andme.com/entries/21262316-do-you-take-international-orders

We do hope to expand to more countries but do not have a specific timeline for each country. The offering depends on various issues such as transportation ease, local laws about genetic testing and sample transportation.