Millions of people, including me, have had genetic analysis by 23andMe. The huge database has led to amazing family discoveries, such as a cousin who was discovered (at age 45, along with his children) and reunited with his unknown father the week before his father died of cancer. This cousin never felt like his supposed siblings but – surprise – has talents and character that fits right in with our family. (Not to mention that he looks just like his father except with darker skin.) He changed his last name to his biological father’s name and has been welcomed into our family with open arms.
Unfortunately, 23andMe has announced bankruptcy. Anyone with data at 23andMe should probably delete it since it will not be secure.
Log in to your 23andMe account and go to the “Settings” section of your profile. Then scroll to a section labeled “23andMe Data” at the bottom of the page. Click “View” next to “23andMe Data.” You can download your genetic data if you want a copy for personal storage.
After that, scroll to the “Delete Data” section and click “Permanently Delete Data.” You will receive an email from 23andMe. Follow the link in the data to confirm your deletion request. [end quote]
I have thought about having a test, just for the halibut, to see where the French/German portions are…probably a good share of Italian/Roman because my dad’s dark complexion and wavy black hair didn’t look very Nordic, even though his forebears were supposedly from the Normandy coast. Never got around to it tho.
Think very carefully before you take one of these tests. if you read the fine print, you are agreeing to share your genetic information with third parties. This might have downstream ramifications for you, or even your relatives.
Third parties such as Ancestry.com, which has (had?) a direct business promotion with them and uses their data to “suggest” connections between paying Ancestry members.
He would have to buy the company–and also required to comply with privacy/secrecy policy of 23andMe originally used by the company with its customers. This specific point was mentioned in the local news this evening.
Deleted my own, working on DW’s, and posted a note on our family FB page so folks can delete what they need to, at least the ties are broken that I had linked in the chart, I have all the info and more in my genealogy App, Reunion, for the Mac, so nothing lost, really, but it is a sad situation to see the possibilities of creeps on high using the info… Best to be out of there…
It, the 23 site, is giving me fits when I do try to log in, sends a code, they say, but it doesn’t show up in my email until long after I was interested… Maybe overloaded…
How do you know if they REALLY delete it? I mean, when you request deletion, I’m sure they remove it from their current database, and probably even delete the actual data in their current database. But, I suspect that they don’t go to all their backups, their onsite backups, and their offsite backups, and delete it there as well. Because that’s a much bigger job. Furthermore, I wonder how securely they do the actual deletion? Do they actually overwrite those disk segments sufficiently? Probably not.
And if they’ve already been compromised, maybe the data has already been copied to elsewhere.