Genealogy (23 and me, Ancestry etc)

[AgonyandIrony]

Yes, and according to family legend...it was the birthplace of the mafia in the us...i used to hear stores during sunday dinner how NOONE from any family ANYWHERE could come to NOLA w/o his approval...

@AgonyandIrony ...is a transplant and his some historical insights to NOLA

The crime families in New Orleans were no joke, the Gambino family had a pretty tight rule for a hot minute, but a lot of the brothels were ran by some pretty incredible women. The entire history of New Orleans is fucking incredible.

Check out the books The French Quarter and Empire of Sin, both really really well written and comprehensive. French Quarter is my favorite, the flotilla brothels where nine men a day went missing and the river pirate stuff is wild.

 

[HOLA]

I don't even like my ancestors who are living why should I care about the ones from 300 years ago? Besides, you go back far enough - and it really isn't that far - and we're all descended from the same people. The most common recent ancestor of every European or person of European descent lived around 1400.

 

[HOLA]

Ferdinand De Lesseps. Built Suez Canal. Disastrous attempt at building Panama Canal.

That dude knew how to fuck though. He was still impregnating women when he was in his 80's. He was featured pretty heavily in The Path Between The Seas by David McCullagh.

 

[Horus]

careful, you might get a surprise. I have some cousins that have no idea that they have an illegitimate half brother (some family secret apparently). If they did it they might find out something that causes some grief in the family.

Anyway, I've done both 23 and me and ancestry years ago. There was some stuff in there I had no idea about (nothing exciting). The regions you are from can change as they update their technology. So don't go rushing out getting some ethnic tattoo lol.

I traced my family tree on both sides back to around the 1500s or so. Sadly people along the line just become names and dates of births/deaths with not much other info about them.

There was a story going around several years back that the companies that do dna were selling info to the Chinese who were looking to develop a virus targeted at caucasians...

 

[Seano]

careful, you might get a surprise. I have some cousins that have no idea that they have an illegitimate half brother (some family secret apparently). If they did it they might find out something that causes some grief in the family.

Anyway, I've done both 23 and me and ancestry years ago. There was some stuff in there I had no idea about (nothing exciting). The regions you are from can change as they update their technology. So don't go rushing out getting some ethnic tattoo lol.

I traced my family tree on both sides back to around the 1500s or so. Sadly people along the line just become names and dates of births/deaths with not much other info about them.

There was a story going around several years back that the companies that do dna were selling info to the Chinese who were looking to develop a virus targeted at caucasians...

My father's side of the family is like that, there's nothing interesting about them at all. They've lived in the same area since the US was founded, no joke. Everyone I've traced on ancestry on my father's father's side lived within 25 miles of where I am now I guess that makes me boring too.
My mother's side is fascinating, every thing I mentioned in the OP was on her side.
You're right about finding shit you may not want to know. I convinced my whole family to do these things and we found something unsettling about my aunt that no one has picked up on yet.

 

[HOLA]

I don't understand why people are into this. Who cares who my ancestors were? It has nothing to do with me now.

And if I found cousins I've never met they'd probably be douchebags because most people are.

Everyone likes to imagine they're a special snowflake descended from royalty. But we all are. We're also all descended from the opposite end of the spectrum. Just think about the math behind it. It increases exponentially. 2 parents, 4 grandparents...64 4x great-grandparents...4,096 10x great-grandparents...1,048,576 18x great-grandparents...You go back 40 generations and it would be over a trillion, more than the total number of humans that has ever lived.

That's why when they do those family trees showing all U.S. presidents are "related" or descended from European royalty it's ridiculous. Of course they are. If you're of European descent you are descended from Charlemagne. You're also (sorry Islamophobes) descended from Muhammad. That's how it works.

 

[Horus]

I don't even like my ancestors who are living why should I care about the ones from 300 years ago? Besides, you go back far enough - and it really isn't that far - and we're all descended from the same people. The most common recent ancestor of every European or person of European descent lived around 1400.

It's common when you're young to not give a fuck. I don't think I cared. For some reason a lot of people hit around 40 or so (or older) and start to wonder about their roots and it becomes a sudden interest.

 

[Seano]

Everyone likes to imagine they're a special snowflake descended from royalty. But we all are. We're also all descended from the opposite end of the spectrum. Just think about the math behind it. It increases exponentially. 2 parents, 4 grandparents...64 4x great-grandparents...4,096 10x great-grandparents...1,048,576 18x great-grandparents...You go back 40 generations and it would be over a trillion, more than the total number of humans that has ever lived.

That's why when they do those family trees showing all U.S. presidents are "related" or descended from European royalty it's ridiculous. Of course they are. If you're of European descent you are descended from Charlemagne. You're also (sorry Islamophobes) descended from Muhammad. That's how it works.

eh, there's more to it than trying to find out if you're related to royalty. I found out all sorts of wild shit about my ancestors that I had no idea about.

 

[milkmandanl]

My family names with connections are Balistreri and Alioto. They were the Milwaukee crime family. Vito Guardalabene was my grandfathers cousin. He never knew him or any of them, obviously.

my family name and township where they came from....Is the same as actual Sicilian mafioso...including a Don with the same first name as my fathers...same last name and from the same town up the mountain near Palermo...

 

[milkmandanl]

The crime families in New Orleans were no joke, the Gambino family had a pretty tight rule for a hot minute, but a lot of the brothels were ran by some pretty incredible women. The entire history of New Orleans is fucking incredible.

Check out the books The French Quarter and Empire of Sin, both really really well written and comprehensive. French Quarter is my favorite, the flotilla brothels where nine men a day went missing and the river pirate stuff is wild.

i've always said new orleans is not only the most corrupt city in then us...but the oldest...older even than DC...my sister married inTo Jean Lafittes pirate family...

 

[AgonyandIrony]

i've always said new orleans is not only the most corrupt city in then us...but the oldest...older even than DC...my sister married inTo Jean Lafittes pirate family...

That's pretty baller. The story of Lafitte is pretty amazing. After the pardon from the War of 1812 some of his men stayed on and went legit. Check this out, the story to rescue Napoleon and bring him to New Orleans was wild.
https://gonola.com/things-to-do-in-...icholas-girod-and-the-plot-to-rescue-napoleon

You ever drink at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop? That voodoo daq hits just right on a hot day.

The Spanish involvement in New Orleans is super interesting, Don Alejandro O'reilly went scorched Earth for awhile.

 

[Hitman81]

Did mine a few years ago. Turns out I'm really white.



Got some pretty close DNA matches too of people I dont know.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

Wouldn't work in some cases. My grandfather had only one son who passed away long ago.
Interesting though.

You don't need direct descendant. Your Y DNA would be the same as your father's, his grandfather's, his father,'s, etc. If you do a Y DNA test, you would get a very limited number of results but every match would have the same grandfather at some point. It's a good way of tracing lineage 100s or even 100s of years ago.

 

[Seano]

You don't need direct descendant. Your Y DNA would be the same as your father's, his grandfather's, his father,'s, etc. If you do a Y DNA test, you would get a very limited number of results but every match would have the same grandfather at some point. It's a good way of tracing lineage 100s or even 100s of years ago.

Who offers this service? I have heard of it but seemed to misunderstand that a male had to do it.

 

[JustAkidFrom209]

I definitely need to try it out someday. I have Slavic and Turkish ancestry from my mother but I haven’t seen my father since I was a kid and very interested to know which ancestry he is from as I look more German than I do Russian.

 

[IIIIIIII]

i'd be interested in knowing my full ancestry, but then i don't want to give my dna to some random company, who will now have all my dna info. seems like too much info to divulge. if it could be done in a more secluded, private way, i'd be up to find out.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

Who offers this service? I have heard of it but seemed to misunderstand that a male had to do it.

I did mine through https://www.familytreedna.com/

Yes, a male has to do it. If you care about your paternal ancestry, it's the one you would want to do and is really the only hard science DNA test. It's not like the autosomal tests where it tells you DNA percentage. It's just matching the Y chromosome. For instance, I have 27 matches at the 12 marker, less at 12 and even less at 37. The more markers, the more recent the connection. Those at the 12 marker will typically have shared the same grandfather within the past 1000 years. Once you start seeing the surnames, you can really paint a picture combined with the autosomal test and just general research.

Despite the avatar, I just assumed my ancestry was Irish. Once I started researching my surname, it looked like it might actually be Scottish. Once I did the Y-DNA test, the matches all have Scottish or Northern Irish surnames. Further more, I found evidence that those surnames specifically were friends or part of the same Scottish clans. That pretty much confirms that my paternal heritage is Scottish and then they moved to Northern Ireland once the English took over and then ultimately came to America from Northern Ireland as Scots-Irish.

If you've hit a brick wall or want to dive more into your paternal ancestry, Y DNA tests are well worth it.

 

[Seano]

I did mine through https://www.familytreedna.com/

Yes, a male has to do it. If you care about your paternal ancestry, it's the one you would want to do and is really the only hard science DNA test. It's not like the autosomal tests where it tells you DNA percentage. It's just matching the Y chromosome. For instance, I have 27 matches at the 12 marker, less at 12 and even less at 37. The more markers, the more recent the connection. Those at the 12 marker will typically have shared the same grandfather within the past 1000 years. Once you start seeing the surnames, you can really paint a picture combined with the autosomal test and just general research.

Despite the avatar, I just assumed my ancestry was Irish. Once I started researching my surname, it looked like it might actually be Scottish. Once I did the Y-DNA test, the matches all have Scottish or Northern Irish surnames. Further more, I found evidence that those surnames specifically were friends or part of the same Scottish clans. That pretty much confirms that my paternal heritage is Scottish and then they moved to Northern Ireland once the English took over and then ultimately came to America from Northern Ireland as Scots-Irish.

If you've hit a brick wall or want to dive more into your paternal ancestry, Y DNA tests are well worth it.

So if my grandfather has no living male children, this won't work to find more about him, right?

 

[mrbaapt]

Take your raw data from 23 and process it here:
https://promethease.com/

 

[StM682]