That urge to explore, to go beyond what we know, is programmed into our DNA — a central part of the story of human history, where people journeyed first out of Africa, and then beyond, to populate the world.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="alignright wp-image-25537 size-medium" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452.jpg 1254w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
And now our DNA doesn’t just compel us to discover new frontiers, it gives us the map of where to go.
Customers at 23andMe have begun to use their DNA test results as a roadmap of sorts. They have created travel itineraries, picked trip destinations from their newfound ancestral lands, and even visited with relatives they met through 23andMe.
“I got my results one day, and I jumped on the map view to see if I had family in any of the places where my ancestry is supposedly from,” said<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/more-deserving/"> Rachel Kilgore</a>, a product manager in Los Angeles. “There was one distant cousin in Norway!”
<h5>Mapping It Out</h5>
Rachel may have been in the vanguard when she used her 23andMe results three years ago to map out a summer vacation, but her story isn’t so unusual now as a steady stream of people have followed her lead and used the discoveries they made with their 23andMe results to help plan their travel.
People have used their 23andMe results to help direct their <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry">travel to their ancestral roots</a> in Africa, the United Kingdom and Russia, for instance.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ancestry-Comp-Home-e1498680599352.png" alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-24211" width="300" height="190" />
Risa Rubin used her 23andMe results to help her and her brother find members of her mother’s family who they thought had died in the Holocaust. Risa eventually<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/meant-to-be/"> traveled to Israel</a> to meet her newfound cousin Ayelet. Mike Lattimore knew he’d travel to Africa, but he said his results helped push him in the<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/the-keeper-of-memory/"> right direction</a>. For Alyssa, another customer with African ancestry, her results directed a journey to Ghana that turned into an extended stay where she<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/alyssas-23andme-ancestry-story/"> volunteered at an orphanage</a>.
When scientists first mapped the<a href="https://www.genome.gov/glossary/index.cfm?id=106#human_genome_project"> Human Genome</a> in 2003, they knew it would guide scientists studying disease for decades to come. What they didn’t know was that it could help people navigate their own personal journey of discovery.
“I strongly feel that we should invest in finding our ancestry because it really helps us as human beings,” said Mike.
This summer, we are launching the Golden23SM Sweepstakes to send 23 winners on trips around the world based on their DNA. Starting today through August 3, one lucky winner will be chosen each day to embark on an exciting genetic adventure. Travel packages are valued up to $20,000 and include round-trip airfare for two, five nights of accommodations, customized itineraries and more. Learn more and enter <a href="https://23andme.com/dna-travel">HERE</a>.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A purchase will not improve your chances of winning. Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. states and D.C., 18 or older. Sweepstakes ends at 11:59 pm PT on 8/3/17. You must complete the 23andMe Personal Genetic Service™ to qualify to win. Itineraries are not for entire duration of stay. For free entry method and complete details, see <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-travel-rules">Official Rules</a> that govern this Sweepstakes. Sponsor: 23andMe, Inc. Void where prohibited.
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23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

DNA Travel, It’s a Trip

This Father’s Day is a little different for Esther Blue.
This year, after finding her biological father, Farhad, with the help of 23andMe, she can actually wish him a Happy Father’s Day.
For all her life, Esther had lived with questions about who her father was and where he came from. With few clues and years of futile searching, she had largely given up hope of learning even the basics.
“I didn’t have anything,” said Esther, a 29 year-old journalist and mother of three living in Arizona. “I just knew that he was originally from Iran.”
At one point she’d even talked to a private investigator to help her find her biological father, but the investigator turned her away.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad-300x251.jpg" alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25446" width="300" height="251" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad-300x251.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad.jpg 500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“He told me to save my money.” There wasn’t enough to go on, she said.
It doesn’t happen for all customers, but Esther was fortunate that cousins she didn’t know also happened to use 23andMe.
All the stars had to align for her to have made this connection and they did, her cousin later told her. 
When they did, the speed with which she made her connections felt overwhelming. She used 23andMe mostly to see if what her mother had told her was true, that she was half Middle Eastern and, on her mother’s side, Latino. So the first thing Esther looked at were her ancestry results.
“I wanted to confirm I am Middle Eastern,” she said.
She did, seeing a large percentage of ancestry from the Middle East in her results, as well as ancestry from southern Europe and Native American ancestry. But she didn’t expect the close cousin matches. In her DNA Relatives, she saw a handful of second and third cousins, including a few who had Iranian ancestry.
She sent a message to one of them, her second cousin Pejman. Within hours, she got a message back. When she shared her photo with Pejman, he knew right away who her father was.
“I thought it would be this long journey to find things out or that maybe I’d need to speak Farsi,” said Esther. “I just didn’t expect this. My whole life changed in one day.”
Esther’s cousin asked a family member to contact her biological father, who was in France visiting his other daughter, Esther’s younger half sister, Julia.  When they tracked him down, he thought the urgent message was because someone in the family won the lottery. When he learned the news, it felt as if he was the lucky winner.
“My God, after 28 years I have another daughter,” he said<a href="http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/rtmtv-dna-test-leads-woman-biological-dad"> later</a>.
It’s hard for Esther to describe that emotional first meeting.
“Someone needed to pinch me, I thought ‘How could this be real?’” said Esther. “A miracle happened.”
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[vc_video link=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA1FSwnbc94&#8243; align=&#8221;center&#8221;]

Happy Father’s Day

Inside each of us is a beautiful, rich genetic story. Some of which is told through the people with whom we are related.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25268" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/You-Related-1.jpg 414w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> 
23andMe’s new Ancestry Report has reimagined how you see these relatives — both close and distant — not just matching you with people with whom you share pieces of DNA, but putting those matches into context that tells you something about yourself.
Our new Ancestry Report introduces you to the 23andMe customers who make up Your DNA Family in a whole new way.
<h6>Your DNA Relatives, Let&#8217;s Do the Numbers</h6>
So how many relatives are we talking about, here? As you trace your family tree back in time, you can see that you have more ancestors with each generation. Look back 150 to 200 years, for instance, and you likely have 64 fourth-great grandparents. That many people have a lot of descendants. In fact, using a simple model where each family has only two to three children, we estimate that the average person has 4,700 fifth cousins out there!
You can find a number of these cousins when you use 23andMe’s DNA Relatives tool. Most 23andMe customers find hundreds, or even thousands of DNA Relatives who have also chosen 23andMe to explore their genetic heritage. That’s a lot of people — and a lot of stories — to sort through!
Your DNA Family helps you get started with a high-level overview of your 23andMe DNA Relatives grouped by their prediction relationship to you. These groups include close relationships (up to second cousins), third to fourth cousins, and distant cousins (5th cousins or more distant).
The significance of these distant cousins isn’t so much about the number of matches you have, but what these matches can tell you about your family history. You may see this in how your DNA relatives share surnames, or ancestry or hometowns. This information could help inform some of what you may already know about your ancestors and where they came from. Or you may learn something new.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25234" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/relative_buckets_wide-1.png" alt="" width="979" height="523" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/relative_buckets_wide-1.png 979w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/relative_buckets_wide-1-300x160.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/relative_buckets_wide-1-768x410.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/relative_buckets_wide-1-880x470.png 880w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 979px) 100vw, 979px" />See Your DNA Relatives Around the World
Seeing your relatives in a new way offers you insight about your ancestry you might not otherwise have. The Your DNA Family report features map to show you the <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25222" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-300x221.png" alt="" width="300" height="221" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-300x221.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-768x566.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-1024x755.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-880x649.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles-1180x870.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/us_map_with_toggles.png 1652w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />distribution of your DNA Relatives across the United States and around the world.
The pattern of how those matches plot on that map may reflect both decades-old migration  or more recent patterns. But they tell you a story that could include a family lodged in one region generation after generation, or ancestors who immigrated across continents or oceans seeking new opportunities.
<h6>Ancestry Composition Patterns</h6>
Human history is the story of migration, and clues to that story is also found in your DNA.
While your history is tied to the history of each of your cousins through at least one common ancestor, it is also tied to specific regions in the world.
23andMe’s Ancestry Composition can show you the mix of ancestry you have, but we’ve also added in features that help you compare that mix with your DNA Relatives.
This helps you explore the commonalities and differences in your ancestry. You can see this in a summary of the Ancestry Compositions of your DNA Relatives. You’ll find out how many different populations are represented in the ancestry of your DNA Family as well as how many of your relatives have ancestry from each of those populations.
<h6>Traits of Your DNA Relatives<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25265" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/traits_module-300x186.png" alt="" width="300" height="186" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/traits_module-300x186.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/traits_module-768x477.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/traits_module-880x546.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/traits_module.png 918w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></h6>
23andMe’s New Ancestry Report also looks at this pool of DNA Relatives and asks what beyond segments of DNA do you share.
By looking at shared traits, the new report offers you another way of looking your DNA Family.  For instance, maybe you have more DNA Relatives who can wiggle their ears, or a chorus of singers with perfect pitch. Perhaps your DNA Family has more than its fair share of vegetarians.
The New Ancestry Report looks at  a collection of common habits, tastes, characteristics and abilities — drawn from responses to  surveys 23andMe customers answer —  and then we tell you how your DNA Family stands out. We can do that by comparing the percentage of your DNA Relatives who report having each trait to the matching percentage of all 23andMe customers.
<h6>A Starting Point for Your DNA Relative Search</h6>
Want to dig further? Connect with relatives using the DNA Relatives tool. In the tool, you can find individual relatives and explore their profiles one at a time. Message your cousins to share information, and compare DNA segments with multiple matches to find clues to your shared family history.
To begin and end with words from our CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki:
“Every day I watch people connect with their DNA family, and see how the concept of family can evolve into something greater — and even more meaningful.” 
Find out how your DNA Family can help you discover your rich genetic story.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25231" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AC_comparison_apr12th-e1492192125921.png" alt="" width="640" height="518" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AC_comparison_apr12th-e1492192125921.png 640w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AC_comparison_apr12th-e1492192125921-300x243.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />

Meet Your DNA Family

If Lisa hadn’t used 23andMe, it’s hard to imagine how she would have ever known about Nelly.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24612 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-300x300.jpg" alt="lisa-p-quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Lisa hadn’t been searching for her. When she tested with 23andMe, Lisa was mostly just curious about the science of personal genetics.


“I was fascinated that the technology had advanced so far so quickly, and that I could get my DNA tested so easily,” she said.
A 47 year-old designer who lives in Durham, North Carolina, Lisa first heard about 23andMe in a Wall Street Journal article that ran a few years ago.
She thought the name was cool, but put off testing until a friend who’d used 23andMe convinced her to give it a try.
“On a lark, I decided to take the test,” Lisa said.

While she was still very interested in the science, Lisa was also curious about whether she could learn a little about her grandfather’s family. Her grandfather had been adopted, and raised by a loving and well-to-do family. He didn’t know and didn’t share much about his biological family with his daughter, Lisa’s mom. As a result that page of the family history was largely blank.
There was some speculation about his ancestry – that he was Irish – but nothing firm.
“I decided to take the test to either confirm or deny what little I knew,” Lisa said.
The speculation about having Irish ancestry was correct, but there were also some surprises, like having Balkan and Native American ancestry. Lisa’s biggest surprise was finding a close “DNA relative” she never knew she had.
“Within two days I got an email from a woman who matched as a second cousin,” Lisa said.
It was a lucky break because Lisa’s new found cousin was a gold mine of information, quickly filling up the blank pages in the family history.


“She opened everything up,” Lisa said.


Her cousin, a forensic genealogist, had pieced together her grandfather’s origins and the story of his grandmother, Lisa’s great grandmother Nelly Scofield.
Lisa learned that Nelly’s husband died and that she couldn’t care for her two young sons, forcing her to give up Lisa’s grandfather and his brother. The two boys went to different families, and were raised apart. According to Lisa’s cousin, many years later when Lisa’s grandfather was about 21, a man came to his work.
“I’m your brother,” the man said to Lisa’s grandfather.
He’d found his brother to tell him that he too had been adopted, that he had recently found their biological mother and that she wanted to see him. Instead of going to see his mother, Lisa’s grandfather told his brother to go away.


“He had a good life and a good family,” said Lisa.
That was the last contact the two had. Exchanging messages with her cousin, Lisa learned that the family had always known of her grandfather’s existence but they didn’t have a name. Lisa’s cousin also shared with her a newspaper clipping about her grandfather’s brother’s reunion with their mother, Nelly. And she shared more details about the family with Lisa, including their roots reaching back to a small island off the west coast of Ireland, and their love of music.
“It’s was amazing to learn what ancestral traits my grandfather had in common with his unknown relatives,” Lisa said.
And it wasn’t just his looks, but also his hobbies and talents, Lisa said.
“Who plays the Irish accordion when they don’t even know they are Irish?” she asked.


But for Lisa what was most powerful was what this connection meant for her mother, who will soon be meeting her cousins in person.
“She now knows, even if her dad didn’t, who his birth family was,” Lisa said.
And Lisa has advice for others considering using 23andMe.


“If you are even thinking about taking the test, do it.” She said. “ It&#8217;s anonymous and you don&#8217;t need to share anything, if you don&#8217;t want. But you never know what secrets are waiting to be unlocked and how your life might change just from spitting in a tube!”

Whoa Nelly

To enhance its research and enrich its customer experience, 23andMe is launching the African Genetics Project, <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24241" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-300x244.jpg" alt="Africa_icon" width="300" height="244" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-300x244.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-768x625.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-1024x834.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-880x717.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon-1180x961.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Africa_icon.jpg 2014w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />recruiting people who emigrated from, or whose parents emigrated from several specific countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa is the birthplace of all humanity, and its people are the most genetically diverse in all the world, yet our knowledge of that diversity is limited. This newest project follows continuing efforts by 23andMe to enrich our understanding of the human story and increase diversity in genetic research, while also providing more detailed ancestry results for 23andMe customers with recent African ancestry.
23andMe’s African Genetics Project is offering kits at no cost to people with all four of their grandparents born in the same African country or from the same ethnic or tribal group within one of the following countries – Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory coast, Liberia, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan and Togo.
The west African countries in that list are a priority for 23andMe because the majority of slaves brought from Africa to the Americas were brought from these African locations. We are also gathering data from individuals with all four grandparents from Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia to aid in identifying ancestry for more recent immigrants and to improve our reference populations for Africa.
This effort is unique in many respects, but primarily because it allows people of African ancestry who know where in Africa their family came from, to help others with African ancestry discover more about their own African roots. The effort may also yield insights into the TransAtlantic slave trade, and migrations within Africa over the last few hundred years.
While the goals of this project are focused primarily on improving ancestry insights, the African Genetics Project is part of a long list of efforts undertaken by 23andMe to improve diversity in research. Some estimates show that<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475163a.html"> more than 90 percent</a> of the research into the genetics underlying disease is on individuals of European descent alone, but for many conditions an individual’s ethnicity plays an important role and the insights from those studies fall short of helping people of other backgrounds.
There are a number of reasons for the lack of diversity  – historical, cultural, economic and social – but by reaching out and recruiting people from all backgrounds it will also ensure that everyone benefits from advances in genetic science.
Over the last five years, 23andMe has undertaken several initiatives on that front including its <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/roots-into-the-future/">Roots Into the Future</a> project to study the genetics of disease impacting African Americans, the first-ever <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/a-webinar-on-the-genetic-landscape-of-the-usa/">genetic portrait of the United States</a> that mapped the country’s Native American, African and European ancestry, and more recently a NIH-funded project to develop a new way to detect disease causing genetic variants among ethnically mixed populations.
Taken together, these initiatives have helped 23andMe improve diversity in its research. The African Genetics Project is part of that same effort and it will allow 23andMe to identify genetic similarities of people from specific locations in Africa. This in turn will not only improve what we can tell our customers with African ancestry, but will also aid our research into how people migrated within and from Africa over the last 5,000 years.
Learn more <a href="https://www.23andme.com/africa-project/">here</a> and enroll today.

The African Genetics Project

A recent article in Quartz with the headline “<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6586" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg" alt="23andMe_Logo_blog" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog.jpg 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />in genetics research, and biomedical research in general. 
It’s also an opportunity to address mischaracterizations of our science within the article, and motivations ascribed to our research that are just plain wrong.  We’ve raised these issues with Quartz and feel strongly enough to share our thoughts more publicly to hopefully steer the discussion in an informative and worthwhile direction, since it is a conversation that should be had by the broader scientific community. 


Genetics research has a diversity problem. This is widely recognized, but when you see the data it’s staggering. For example, a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708540/#R2">2011 article</a> cited data showing that only 4 percent (!) of all genome-wide association studies had been conducted using samples of non-European descent.
<h6>The Implications</h6>
There are very real repercussions when research is limited to just one group. The seriousness of this situation was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/science/genetic-tests-for-a-heart-disorder-mistakenly-find-blacks-at-risk.html?_r=0">demonstrated in a recent study</a> showing that due to biased research, African Americans are more likely than whites to mistakenly be told that they carry a mutation putting them at risk for the heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, when in fact they do not.
This type of mistake has serious emotional and medical implications.
The lack of diversity in genetics research is reflective of the general lack of diversity in all aspects of health research. There are lots of reasons – historical, cultural, political. For good overviews we suggest reading this piece from <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/30/racial-discrimination-modern-medicine-384961.html">Newsweek</a> and this article from <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918">Oh, et al.</a> These authors eloquently and forcefully explain the situation.


What does this have to do with 23andMe?

<h6>23andMe&#8217;s Reference Data</h6>

Though we do conduct our own research and are increasingly able to provide reports based on our own published studies, for the most part 23andMe is dependent on peer-reviewed scientific research published by others to fuel the reports in our product. Lack of diversity in what is studied by the research community at large therefore impacts the results we are able to provide to customers. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24211" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ancestry-Comp-Home-300x190.png" alt="Ancestry Comp Home" width="300" height="190" /> 
When it comes to our Ancestry Composition feature (which tells people the proportion of their DNA that comes from each of 31 populations), the results we provide to customers are derived by comparing their DNA to what are known as “reference datasets”.
We use publicly available data from academic initiatives that have specifically sought to characterize large swaths of the human genetic diversity of our planet: the <a href="http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~bio336/Bio336/readings/Li2008.pdf">Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP)</a>, <a href="http://www.sanger.ac.uk/resources/downloads/human/hapmap3.html">HapMap3</a> and the <a href="http://www.1000genomes.org/">1000 Genomes Project</a>.
We augment this public data with information provided by a small percentage of our customers whose data meet our rigorous standards for being included in a reference dataset.

<h6>Is Bigger Better?</h6>

The author of the Quartz article focused in on the numbers of people in our most granular population references. She specifically questioned how we can claim to provide accurate results about her ancestry (she identifies as Korean, but her 23andMe results indicated Japanese and Chinese ancestry, as well as Korean) when there are data for “only” 76 Koreans in our reference data set. It’s an understandable worry – so much of what we hear about these days in science is the power of “big data”.  
Bigger must be better, right? Not necessarily.
For Ancestry Composition, high accuracy can often be obtained with relatively modest sample sizes. Size matters more when it comes to granularity, not accuracy.
We’ve done a comprehensive evaluation of our algorithm and reference datasets, and are confident in the accuracy of the results we report for customers with Korean or any other ancestry.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty you can check out this <a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry_composition_guide/">white paper</a> (in which we describe the multiple steps that go into producing accurate results and the metrics demonstrating how well our algorithm works), this <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/23andmes-newest-feature-explores-your-ancestry/">blog post</a> or this <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/20121027_ancestry_painting_methods_poster.pdf">scientific poster</a>.
<h6>Granularity</h6>
The gist is that we only go as granular as we can for a given confidence threshold. Customers can adjust their results from a 90 percent confidence level (“Conservative”) down to 50 percent (“Speculative”). If we say that a section of DNA is most likely Japanese or Chinese or Korean at one of our higher confidence thresholds, we stand behind it.  If we weren’t sure that we could make the distinction, we’d go up a level and say that that DNA reflected “East Asian” ancestry.
The information would not be incorrect, simply less specific.
While the impact of adding more Korean individuals (or individuals of any of the groups we currently have represented in our reference datasets) is likely to be small in terms of improving the accuracy of our Ancestry Composition results, it could help us add more granularity to our results – i.e., groups of people from more specifically defined geographical areas. That way, for example, we might be able to distinguish between Cameroonian and Ghanaian ancestry, instead of lumping ancestry from these different locations under the label “West African.”


The author of the Quartz article correctly points out that we do have a lot of data and granularity for Europe (providing, for example, separate French &amp; German and British &amp; Irish groupings), but not for the rest of the world. She implies that this is driven by a lack of effort or concern on our part. The truth is that we have a great deal of customer data to enhance the public data available for Europeans because the vast majority of our customers have European ancestry, and several thousand of them are eligible to contribute to our reference dataset. This is not because of a “commercially driven ethnic bias,” and we have for several years been making in-roads to improve the diversity in our research and reference data.
This is where we come back to where we began – this is not just a 23andMe issue but an issue with diversity in genetics research in general.

<h6>23andMe&#8217;s Diversity Efforts</h6>

There’s only so much we can do as a single company, but we are trying. We funded the genotyping of the HGDP samples, data which are publicly available. <a href="https://www.23andme.com/roots-study/">Our Roots into the Future</a> project enrolled 10,000 African Americans in our research program, and our <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andmes-african-ancestry-project/">African Ancestry Project </a>helped contribute to our West African reference dataset. We recently collaborated to obtain data from for over 400 representatives of populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One of our researchers was <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/announcements/23andme-scientists-improving-diversity-in-genetic-research/">awarded NIH funding</a> to develop new methods for uncovering genetic variants associated with disease, especially in those with non-European ancestry. There are additional programs in the works, and we look forward to sharing more as we can.


We’re also always looking for more publicly available data that we can use to improve our product and inform our research. But it’s not as simple as just pulling studies for a given group or purchasing reference data.  There are important scientific and ethical considerations that must be attended to when collecting population data and 23andMe is not willing to compromise our standards in the interest of appearing more diverse.


We can always do better. We want people – researchers, customers, journalists – to keep holding us accountable and pushing us to lead the way in consumer genetics and genetics research. But accusing us of racial bias and shoddy science is unfair. It reduces an important conversation to clickbait.


Please share your comments here but don&#8217;t limit it to our blog – discuss your ideas, raise awareness and spread the word that the lack of research diversity is a real problem. We want people to have informed opinions and conversations on this topic since the impact of genetics research will only continue to grow.

The Real Issue: Diversity in Genetics Research

&nbsp;
Maria felt conflicted.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24234" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Maria quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


Here she was celebrating her parents’ 63rd wedding anniversary, and the last thing she wanted to do was upset her elderly mother. But on the flipside she had to ask her.
Maria now knew her mother’s secret, a secret that brought up many questions, serious questions. Maria wanted to know why her mother hid her true origins. Maria wanted to ask those questions and so many more, and her mother was the only one who could answer them.


“So I said to myself: ‘If she mentions the necklace, I’m going to say something,’” said Maria, a mother of young twins who lives with her husband in New Jersey.

<h6>A Mother&#8217;s Secret</h6>

Her parents had come back to New Jersey for their anniversary celebration. The couple met in New York City at a high school dance. Maria’s mom was 18 when she married her father. The couple raised four kids together, part of a large extended Italian family. But that large family was all on Maria’s dad’s side of the family. She knew nothing about her mom’s family.


“My mom’s story was that she was adopted and her parents died and she had no siblings,” Maria said.
Her mother told her kids very little about her biological family except to say there was a rumor that they were Italians who’d immigrated through Argentina to the United States.
Yet after testing with 23andMe and seeing her results, Maria discovered that her mother’s story just didn’t add up. Maria was only half Italian, and almost 20 percent African.


“When I saw it at first I was like ‘wait a second!’” Maria said.
She thought it was wrong.
When she told her sisters and brother they were in denial.
“Mom can’t be black?” they said.


Or could she?
<h6>Hidden African Ancestry</h6>
Both Maria’s sister and brother tested and they too had close to the same percentage African ancestry. So after that initial shock, Maria started to dig a little deeper, connect with cousins found through 23andMe, and that’s how she pieced together her mother’s family story.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24235 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg" alt="IMG_4769" width="300" height="213" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353.jpg 723w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The family’s story is surprising, but finding “hidden African ancestry” is much more common than many know. While most African Americans are aware that they have “white” ancestry – a vestige of the ugly history of slavery – fewer “white” Americans know that they may have “hidden African ancestry” in their families. This too is a legacy of slavery and segregation in America. For those families with hidden ancestry, it means that at some point in history someone in their family likely “passed” for white.
Each story is unique but commonly this was to escape the consequences of racism directed at African Americans that limited job and education opportunities.
For Maria learning this about her mother, didn’t so much change her identity as it changed how she looked at her family.
“It’s strange,” Maria said. “I grew up thinking I was one way and actually I’m not who I thought I was.”

<h6>Identity</h6>

Maria wanted to know why had her mother kept this secret for so long, but before she asked her questions she wanted to be sure, so she dug a little deeper. And then that day at church she said a prayer. She told herself that if her mother asked about the necklace she’d take it as a sign that it was OK to ask her mother.
As they left the church her mother noticed the necklace telling her daughter how much she liked it. Maria took it as a sign to start asking questions.
“It’s your sister’s necklace,” Maria told her mom.”


Her mother, who had always told her children that she’d been an only child, was stunned.


“’My sister? What do you mean my sister?’” Maria’s mother said.

<h6>The Great Migration</h6>

Maria told her mom whom it had come from and that she had not just found her mother’s sister but connected with a brother and a few more aunts.
Maria had learned that her mother wasn’t of Italian origin, nor was her biological family originally from Argentina, as she’d once told her kids. Her mother was born in Illinois. Her parents were African Americans from Mississippi, and her mother had had at least 19 siblings. Her mother’s family had moved from the Mississippi to Chicago for job opportunities, part of the wave of African Americans to move north in what is called the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444">Great Migration</a>.”


Maria had learned that at some point her mother and three of her siblings, who could pass for white, moved to New York City. Maria’s mom was 15 at the time. The four siblings used a Latino sounding last name. Over the years they either lost ties or cut off contact with the rest of the family back in Illinois and Chicago. Maria’s mom soon met the man, who would be her husband at a school dance. When they got married it caused another rift in the family. After the marriage, Maria’s mother lost contact with her three siblings in New York.
Maria learned about this from relatives she found through 23andMe. One of the connections she made was with cousins in California who were the children of her mother’s brother.
<h6>Siblings Connect After Decades Apart</h6>
After making the connection Maria told her mom and together they traveled together to visit her mother’s 96 year-old brother. The two hadn’t seen each other in 64 years. Maria was also able to find two of her mother’s sisters who were still alive. She talks to them weekly and recently traveled to Chicago to meet one of them and her newly found cousins in person. These connections have given Maria a chance to see family photos of her grandparents, her mother as a young woman, as well as aunts and uncles she never knew she had.


“It’s fascinating and crazy,” Maria said. “I never knew these people existed and now it&#8217;s like I&#8217;ve known them my whole life.&#8221;


As for learning about her and her family’s African American ancestry, Maria said it didn’t really change how she thought about herself. It did change how she thought of her family, and the power of being connected to all these family members she never knew before.


“To me it’s an amazing story of a family’s racial divide, but with a very happy ending,” she said.

Bridging A Family’s Racial Divide

Fast and sure on the ice, Olympic gold medalist <a href="http://apoloantonohno.com/">Apolo Anton Ohno</a> was less sure about his ancestral background.
<div id="attachment_23315" style="width: 295px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23315" class="size-medium wp-image-23315" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Apolo-Ono-C-fixed-B-285x300-285x300.jpg" alt="Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno and Extreme Genes radio host Scott Fischer." width="285" height="300" />Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno and Extreme Genes radio host Scott Fischer.</div>
Raised by a single father, who’d immigrated to the United States from Japan, Apolo didn’t know much about his mother’s side of the family. On a recent episode of the syndicated family history radio show <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-115-olympic-gold-medalist-apolo-anton-ohno-dr-robin-smith-on-dna-week/">Extreme Genes</a>, Apolo said he turned to 23andMe to find out more about his ancestry. Along with the eight time Olympic medalist, the show featured 23andMe product scientist Robin Smith, PhD, who highlighted some of the company’s ancestry features and tools.
During his segment, Apolo explained that growing up outside of Seattle, he was sometimes asked about his nationality. “What are you?” is how the question was often asked.
“I’m half Japanese, but they’d ask what’s the other half,” Apolo told the show host Scott Fischer.
He didn’t know much about the other half of his ancestry.
His mother and father had divorced when he was very young and he stayed with his dad. He didn’t have much contact with his mother and because she’d been adopted she really didn’t know much about her family history.
But he was always curious about his ancestors, he said during the show.
On his Japanese side, he had a rich source of family lore not just from his grandmother, but because it is custom to carefully catalog the family going back generations. There are extensive household registries called koseki, as well as death records and records compiled by families themselves that helped Apolo trace back his Japanese family history. 
On his mother’s side, he had very little to go on. That’s why he turned to 23andMe. He learned the other half of his ancestry was rooted in England and Ireland, which might explain that even though his hair is black, his sideburns and goatee are red. He also learned that he has a little North African ancestry.
Apolo said his curiosity wasn’t just about learning about himself, but learning more generally about the human story. He mentioned reading about the discovery of 120,000 year old bones in China that change our understanding about the timing of human migration.
“It’s awesome,” he said of the science.
Before Apolo’s segment on the show, 23andMe scientist Robin Smith discussed some of 23andMe’s tools customers can use to explore not just their ancestry, but also their own connection to the human story.
Robin, who started his career as a geneticist focused on spinal cord regeneration, works on writing health and trait reports for 23andMe along with helping the company’s ancestry team develop features. One of the projects Robin worked on is 23andMe’s new Neanderthal report.
All humans outside of Africa carry DNA signatures of Neanderthals, a sister species to modern humans that went extinct about 35,000 years ago. Using new sequencing data, 23andMe can pinpoint where those Neanderthal variants show up in your genome, Robin said.
The report also looks at the different traits some of those variants are associated with – back hair and height, for instance.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-23316" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Neanderthal-Report-640x397.jpg" alt="Neanderthal Report" width="640" height="397" />

Olympic Search

23andMe offers a look into what your genes say about you, and this week the first <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23266" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-300x134.jpg" alt="chromosomes" width="300" height="134" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-300x134.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-768x343.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-1024x457.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-880x393.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes-1180x527.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/chromosomes.jpg 1440w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />wave of our customers will begin getting that glimpse through our new experience.


The new experience offers multiple ways to understand what your genes say about you, whether you want to look at your ancestry, the traits you share with family, how your genetics plays a role in food preferences, or what conditions you might pass on to your children.
The new experience is also the first and only direct to consumer genetic test to include reports that have marketing authorization from the FDA.
The new experience includes some of the same features and tools that 23andMe first pioneered including our Ancestry Composition reports and DNA Relatives tool, but how that information is conveyed to customers has been fully reimagined.
There are simpler and more elegant ways to trace inheritance, and easier ways to share and compare data with others.
To see for yourself, take a look at this short video and look at some of the features being offered in the new 23andMe experience.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pon3zOxMH8M?list=PLFvkfbvHpp1lUT1UqvtFW3KTx5pEKogr6" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Ancestry Composition — Page 5