#DNA tests

[red-envelopes]

DNA Testing?

Hello! If anyone has any experiences at all with DNA testing for any reason whatsoever (fun, genetics, health, ancestry, etc etc), or knows anyone who has gone through it and knows the process, could you please let me know your experiences? The process, the company etc, basically how it all went!

Especially welcome input from adoptees but anyone at all is ok!!

[gentlebilady]

You know how people who do ancestry dna tests often end up in the middle of big family drama because somebody lied? Yeah, I think that's happening to me.

[therelativecartographr]

Sarah Zendler’s Maiden Name

[kazifatagar]

New: Hubby's Hobby Turned Him Into the Father of Several Hostess Babies!

Three years ago, a woman’s husband discovered he might have a son from a past fling. A DNA test revealed two children, not just one, both from former hostesses. Now, he’s messaging yet another hostess from his past, suspecting he might have another child. The pattern is clear: hostesses and surprise kids. Read More LM News Lee Zii Jia Now Seen Wearing Controversial Olympic Clothing  Hobby The…

[reasoningdaily]

USA TODAY: DNA tests, black history: Tucker family ties to 1619 Virginia slaves

HAMPTON, Va. – As Walter Jones walks his family’s ancient cemetery, shovel in hand, he wonders about those who rest there. 

The gravestones date back as far as the 1800s. Some bear the names of folks Walter knew; some have faded to illegibility; some are in pieces. And, under the brush he’s cleared away and the ground he’s leveled, there are burial sites unmarked by any stone.

The cemetery means so much to Walter because his extended family – the Tuckers of Tidewater, Virginia – believe they are as much an American founding family as any from the Mayflower.

They have a widely recognized but possibly unprovable claim: that they are directly descended from the first identified African American people born on the mainland of English America, an infant baptized “William” around 1624.

It’s been 400 years this August since William’s parents arrived in the Virginia colony. The Tuckers, like many African Americans, struggle to trace their roots. They have no genealogical or DNA evidence linking them to those first Africans, but they have oral history and family lore.

And they have the cemetery, a repository of what unites them and what baffles them.

This graveyard, Walter says, is “the only thing you can actually put your hands on, put your eyes on.’’ 

He’s thinking of that July day two years ago. He was leveling earth when the blade of his shovel hit something solid.

He looked down. A round, gray object seemed to have emerged from the dirt. He dug under it a little and lifted it up. It looked like a section of a bowl.

He moved more dirt and spotted something else round and gray. He brushed it off and held it against the first object to see if they fit together.

He didn’t realize it at first, but he was holding a human skull.

Researchers would conclude that it belonged to an African American woman who was about 60 when she died – roughly Walter's age. But they couldn’t say when.

The Tuckers want to know their story because our stories help define us. Especially those that explain where we came from.

Many Americans can find out from a Norddeutscher Lloyd Line manifest or an Ellis Island log or a parish registry in Cork, Palermo or Cornwall. For African Americans, it’s not so easy. Their story, often as not, was stripped from them.

This is a story about one family’s search for its story. It’s about a storyteller who loved that story maybe too much; the searchers following in her path; and the mysterious old cemetery that, some feel, holds the key.

The Tuckers believe their American story started in 1619. According to a letter by the tobacco planter John Rolfe, the widower of Pocahontas, a ship landed in England’s 12-year-old Jamestown settlement and “brought not anything but 20, and odd, Negroes, which the Governor and the Cape Merchant bought for victuals’’ – provisions.

The “20 and odd’’ already had been through hell. 

They were taken prisoner of war in what is now Angola by African mercenaries working with the Portuguese; marched to the Atlantic coast, where they were branded, penned, forcibly baptized; and finally chained head-to-foot below deck on a Spanish ship headed for Mexico and a life of slavery.  

Virginia had no law to permit or ban slavery. But the Africans became slaves in fact, if not law. In 1624, two of them, identified as Anthony and Isabella, were listed in the household of Capt. William Tucker, a military commander and settler.

The following year, the two appear again in a census, this time along with “William theire Child Baptised.’’ Another African child, unnamed, also appears for the first time in the same 1625 census. But William is the first identified by name.

The Tuckers believe that he is their founding father; that William was surnamed Tucker, after Capt. Tucker; and that their ancestors lived on or near Bluebird Gap Farm, site of Capt.Tucker’s plantation, in what is today the city of Hampton.

But the Tuckers have so far been unable to prove their claims to the satisfaction of most historians and genealogists.

An African Ancestry DNA test for a family elder, Floyd Tucker, showed that his DNA coincided with that found in a tribe in what is today Ghana – not Angola, from where William’s parents came.

It’s unclear how far William’s line goes forward, and how far the Tuckers’ goes back. A professional historian hired by the family has yet to find anything to narrow the gap.  

One problem is that England’s American colonists kept poor records; settlers were more concerned about making it through winter or fighting Indians. Often, what records were kept subsequently were destroyed, by everything from fire to worms.

Today, experts say that any family – white or black – is hard-pressed to establish genealogical connections before 1800 unless their ancestors were rich, famous or criminals.

Just because the Tuckers can’t document their connection doesn’t mean they don’t have one, said Beth Austin of the Hampton History Museum. “But it’s really still just a theory. That’s all we can go on.”

Did William survive infancy in the precarious colony? Did he have children? Did his children have children? Regardless, he was the symbolic beginning of so much in American life – of the hands that picked the cotton that financed the Industrial Revolution; of jazz and gospel and hip-hop; of Ellison and Baldwin and Morrison; of King and Malcolm and Fannie Lou Hamer; of the Afro, the high-five and the dunk shot.

And yet, after he was baptized – on a date and in a place unknown – history’s first identified African American simply vanished.

None of the Tuckers loved the story like Thelma Williams.

As a child she’d listen for hours to her grandmother, who’d been born sometime in the last quarter of the 19th century. The old woman told of family recipes and remedies, about slave uprisings and Indian wars. While other children played or did their chores, Thelma listened, rapt.

Of all these stories, her grandmother told her, there was one she had to remember: We were on the first slave ship to come to America, and we are descended from the first black child born here. 

Although the idea that the Tuckers went back to the first Africans in America had circulated in the family for years, it was slowly dying until Thelma grew up and got her hands on it.

She spent days in courthouses and libraries across eastern Virginia, checking birth records and deeds. She tracked down family elders, usually leaving the visit with a photograph or two. She went to Richmond. She went to Washington. She filled a spare bedroom in her small house in Hampton with her research, including stacks of handwritten notes.

Help us record black history and American history

Our family stories often define us. Especially stories that explain where we came from. Yet these stories were often stripped from African Americans. We want you to share your stories as part of the 1619 Voices Project. Call us at (202) 524-0992 and tell us: What is an oral history that has been passed down in your family?

Her grandmother’s story was proving true. There had been a child of the first Africans who’d lived in the household of a white man named Tucker. Tucker had a plantation near what is today a public park in Hampton called Blueberry Gap Farm. And once, when an elderly Tucker was brought by his children to the farm, he blurted out, “This was our home.’’

Thelma came to understand, she told the AP, the importance of the Tuckers’ connection to that first African child: “It’s important that people know we didn’t just fall out of the sky.’’

The younger Tuckers began to pay attention, especially Thelma’s cousin Wanda. Wanda remembers the older woman’s excitement: “You won’t believe what I just found!’’

Thelma’s children sometimes resented their mother’s obsession. Her husband accused her of “living in the past.’’ She’d find a way to turn any conversation around to family history and genealogy. She’d accost acquaintances at the grocery store to fill them in on what she’d discovered. When she learned your last name, she’d tell you what plantation your people lived on.

One of her daughters laughs at the memory: “Nobody liked it!’’

Searching for answers: Wanda Tucker's spiritual journey to where the slave trade began

Angola was barely mentioned in the history of the slave trade. USA TODAY invited Wanda Tucker there to search for her roots.

Jarrad Henderson, USA TODAY

Undaunted, Thelma handed out a synopsis of the Tucker story at family reunions. She spoke to community groups and anyone else who’d listen, including the mailman.

Her efforts were responsible, in 1994, for the family’s official recognition in the Jamestown Settlement history park’s reenactment of the 375th anniversary of the Africans’ arrival.

A replica of that first ship, the White Lion, sailed up the James River. Some of the Tuckers, in period dress, were on board, honored as founding Americans. Thelma stood on the riverbank in a purple dashiki, beaming.  

The event cemented the Tuckers’ status as “the first family.’’ The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk described the Tuckers flatly as “the descendants of the first Africans born in North America.’’

The Tuckers became the face of 1619. A group photo of them was featured on a National Park Service brochure for visitors to the spot where the first Africans landed.

She’d only tell relatives parts of the story, never the whole thing. Thelma believed that the story was a book, and she was the only one to write it. She compiled a manuscript, which never got published because she wouldn’t relinquish control.

Then she died, at 64, in 2006.

Her research went to her daughters and became caught up in a family rift over real estate, divorces and other issues.

Thelma’s daughter, Shree Green, says her mother’s research could shed light on the family tree. She says that she and her sister want to publish it, but they’re not ready. The other Tuckers say they’re mystified.

This June, Wanda stood by Thelma’s simple horizontal headstone in the family cemetery. She lamented what the loss of the research meant to the family story.

“It’s like she took it with her to her grave.’’

They couldn’t afford a gravestone. So sometimes, to mark a burial spot, the slaves would plant a seed. And the seed would become a tree, and the tree would grow higher, 2 feet a year.

The place where Thelma was laid to rest is dotted with oaks and pines 50 feet high. It almost certainly dates to the time of slavery. It feels like the nave of a cathedral.

The Tucker family cemetery lies seven miles from where the first Africans landed in 1619, and a mile from the site of Capt. Tucker’s plantation. It’s incongruously surrounded by squat 1950s tract houses and almost invisible from the street.

But after Thelma’s death, the cemetery was neglected. Neighbors used it as a dumping ground – for a couch, a refrigerator, a water heater. Snakes crawled through the vines, and the vines crawled up the tree trunks. Kids used it to play jungle. 

Then, on May 17, 2013, the Tuckers picked up their local newspaper, The Daily Press, and saw this headline: “HISTORIC CEMETERY DRAWS MAYOR'S EYE.’’

City officials said it had “languished for years under iffy ownership and infrequent maintenance.’’ The mayor said the graveyard apparently had been abandoned.

The story shocked and embarrassed Wanda, Walter and their relatives. They told the city the cemetery wasn’t abandoned. It was theirs – they had the 1896 deed. They galvanized to form the William Tucker 1624 Society and began meeting regularly to clean and prune it.  

The result amazed them. The cemetery contained more than 100 unmarked graves, as many as the number of marked ones. That’s when it hit Walter: “This could be where our earliest ancestors are buried.’’

The discoveries spread the cemetery’s fame and seemed to bolster the Tuckers’ claim to history.

The Tucker 1624 Society received a $100,000 grant from an environmental nonprofit for cemetery work. The legislature approved an easement to protect the cemetery from development and ensure public access. Gov. Ralph Northam visited the cemetery last August to sign the legislation.

“Cemeteries can be a way for us to retrace our history,’’ he said.

News reports often speculated – and sometimes stated as fact – that William actually was buried there. Northam himself referred to “William Tucker’s presence here …’’

Today, the family is divided on whether to explore the cemetery’s secrets. Walter and Wanda are willing to have graves opened and the remains exhumed to discover who was buried and when.  

Walter believes that since the cemetery was used by a relatively limited number of families, there might have been burials as infrequently as once every few years. If so, he reasons, its first burials might have occurred in the 1700s or even the 1600s – William’s time.

But Tucker elders think the dead should be left in peace.

For now, Walter concedes, they have a veto. But some day, “I’ll be the elder.’’

The Tuckers’ claim demands more research, historians say. Austin, the Hampton museum historian, sums up the Tuckers' dilemma: “We just don’t always have the information to tell the story we want to tell.’’

Their story faces a competing, if less-publicized, claim to a 1619 connection. A retired corporate executive named Shelton Tucker, also a Tidewater, Virginia, resident but not directly related to Wanda’s family, also says he’s descended from William.

There are tensions between these two Tucker clans – “a Hatfields and McCoys kind of thing,’’ says a local historian, Calvin Pearson.

Shelton Tucker resents the public focus on the other Tuckers’ claim. “The red carpet family,” he calls them. “We’re all Tuckers, but when the cameras show up, it’s always them. They’ll say anything to get in front of a camera.’’

Until someone proves otherwise, the Tuckers continue to celebrate their status as the “first family.” They’ve made the search a family affair.

 Walter’s sister, Carolita Jones-Cope, 60, handles calls from the media, which have been pouring in. She's planned a ceremony Friday at the family cemetery. Vincent Tucker, 57, leads the 1624 Society. Brandi Davis Melvin, 42, brings her three young daughters to the cemetery to spruce it up. 

Brenda Tucker Doswell, 77, speaks and sings at programs celebrating her family’s story. She’s picked out a long skirt made of African fabric to wear when she sings Friday at the cemetery. “This is 400 years,” she said. “That’s what we commemorate and celebrate.”

Verrandall Tucker personifies the family’s pride in its story. He shows newspaper clippings to customers at his men’s clothing shop. He’s screened a video of a TV news report about the family’s lineage at his church.

Sometimes he changes out of his dress clothes, closes his shop and leaves a sign: “Gone to cemetery.’’ 

Wanda Tucker has taken on what may be the most challenging task – the search for historical validation.

For hours last month she turned the pages of a huge ledger, squinting in the fluorescent glare at the faded cursive script, puzzling over archaic spellings. At 61, she's a practiced researcher – Ph.D., professor, department chair. But this is the search of her life.

Her family can trace its roots no further than the early 1800s; before that, the trail goes cold, leaving a 175-year gap in a genealogical chain to William.

Which is why she was poring through the 166-year-old Register of Birth at the courthouse in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. 

The link to William was only one story the Tuckers told about their history. They also believed that, in the long night of American slavery, they – unlike the vast majority of blacks – remained free. 

Last month she was searching for birth records for Thomas Tucker, her great-great grandfather, who she thought was born about five years before the Civil War. She wanted a specific date.

The records started in 1853, so she began there, scouring the ledger for a Thomas Tucker born to a woman named Millie. But there were none – not even any Thomases. So she started over, looking simply for a Tom born to a Millie.

And suddenly, after two hours of searching, there he was on page 21 – born Oct. 20, 1856.

She’d added another leaf to the family tree.

But then her eye drifted across the page. After the columns with newborns’ names, birth dates and mothers’ names, there were three other columns: White. Colored/free. Colored/slave.

And Wanda saw that, despite all she’d been told, the column checked was the last one. Slave.

If that story was not true, what about the most important one of all?

She’s had time to think about that question, and she still believes William was her ancestor: “Until somebody proves me wrong, it is the story I am holding onto, and the one I am going to keep telling.’’ 

That's what makes the cemetery so important. Whether or not the Tuckers can ever prove a connection with William, it shows that they have endured slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Klan, Jim Crow and separate but equal.

“We’ve survived,’’ she says. “We’re still here.’’

[sugar-salt-sea]

cuddy lets wilson and house get away with whatever at that damn hospital because they have big eyes and horrible personalities

[corkinavoid]

DDxDC The More The Merrier

Exactly a year after Talia brought Damian to Bruce, she shows up again. With another child. That looks like a carbon copy of Damian. She introduces him as Danyal, Damian's twin that was in an undercover mission for the last few years.

Bruce's eye twitches, but he deals with it. At least it's not a clone - Damian proved his mother's words to be true, Danyal really is his twin brother. So the Bats are just kind of forced to accept the fact. And the kid.

Danyal is a literal fucking menace. Contrary to Damian, he doesn't stab or bite, but he is absolutely chaotic. And, in addition to that, he has zero self-preservation instincts. None of it. The only two people in the family he has a truce with are Cass and Steph. Cass, because he has yet to take her by surprise, and Steph, because she is his partner in crime. Tim, though, Tim is on the verge of going insane with two little assassin bats running around the manor.

A year later, on the anniversary of Damian and Danyal's arrival, Talia shows up again. With, you guessed it, another kid. This one is a bit older - sixteen or so - and he has an angry glare that can be compared only to Jason's on a warpath. Dante, he calls himself, and the Demon Twins narrow their eyes on him. Bruce knows this look intimately. Sibling rivalry at its finest.

The next year is full of said sibling rivalry, performed by three highly skilled assassins. Dick is constantly worried one day one of them will die, and not because of a Rogue attack. The kids are fucking wild, acting like rabid dogs on steroids. They destroyed a wall once by throwing Dante through it. Alfred gave them a lecture. It didn't help.

The next year, Bruce opens the door to Talia even before she rings the doorbell. He looks at the four-year-old girl that looks like a mirror image of Damian, Danyal and Dante, and asks, tired and defeated:

"How many more?"

Talia only smiles. The girl looks at him with big, innocent puppy eyes that don't fool Bruce anymore.

Tim, who watches the scene through the surveillance cameras in the Batcave, pulls up a file and starts drafting his last will.

[canisalbus]

If only Machete wasn't so distinctly white and waifish. Otherwise one could possibly use a lookalike to fake his death and just run away with vasco. But finding someone that resembles machete would be almost as hard as making the choice to end a life to save your own.

.

[hauntedphgrph]

mikey and gee dont look crazy similar until u see their faces side by side in the same angle and you're jusr like Oh. thats kiki and bouba

[hicginewsagency]

DNA: 32 ‘dads’ demand cancellation of children’s passports

Simon Peter Mundeyi revealed new complaints32 Men Petition Immigration to Cancel Children Passports After DNA Testing At least 32 men have written to the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control –DCIC demanding the cancelation of children’s passports after DNA testing has shown they are not the biological fathers. Simon Peter Mundeyi, the Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson,…

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny and Ellie had majorly screwed up. Now here they were in the hydro-electric car Danny had designed for applying to Wayne industries/whoever would give a fifteen year old a fat paycheck, sitting in the middle of Gotham, at night, surrounded by glaring bats.

Crap.

Time to bullshit his way out of this.

He looked at Red Robin and sheepishly grinned, "...hi dad."

Ellie, the little gremlin, didn't even hesitate before adding, "We are so grounded. I told you we shouldn't have messed with the broken time machine but nooo."

The bats were either taken about or cackling and Danny to this chance to put the petal to the metal and get out of there

Tim is now obsessed with finding his future kids.

[zhelin-thames]

Dick finds out he's a dad

Dick Grayson stood in the shadows of the Batcave, staring at the hologram projected before him. Bruce had insisted on the DNA test. The results glowed in neon green: 99.99% paternity match.

“You’re telling me this kid is mine?” Dick asked, his voice low, almost incredulous.

“Not just any kid,” Bruce replied, his gravelly tone giving little away. “He’s Danny Fenton—better known as Danny Phantom. The half-ghost.”

Dick blinked. “Wait, ghost?”

Bruce turned, a flicker of something—concern?—crossing his usually stoic face. “He’s... unique. His DNA shows ectoplasmic anomalies. He was raised by ghost hunters in Amity Park, but his mother—Maddie Fenton—was someone you met when you court if owls took you. ”

The memories flooded back. Maddie had been a fiery, brilliant scientist volunteering for a physics exhibit. They’d shared a whirlwind romance that ended as quickly as it began. Dick never imagined their brief connection had left something behind.

Before Dick could process the revelation, a low hum echoed through the cave. The Zeta Tube activated, and a figure stepped through.

Danny Phantom floated inches above the ground, his snow-white hair and glowing green eyes standing out starkly against the Batcave's darkness. He looked like he’d been fighting ghosts—or worse. His suit was torn, and green ectoplasm dripped from his knuckles.

“Okay,” Danny started, his voice tinged with frustration. “Who the heck are you, and why did you call me here?” His gaze shifted to Dick, narrowing slightly. “And why do you look like a younger version of Batman?”

Dick stepped forward, hands raised in a gesture of peace. “I’m... Dick Grayson. Nightwing. And, uh, apparently, your father.”

Danny froze mid-air, his glowing eyes flickering. “What? No. That’s not—my dad’s Jack Fenton. Big, loud guy, bad with tools. Mom never mentioned you.”

Bruce interjected, his deep voice cutting through the tension. “Maddie likely kept it a secret. But the DNA doesn’t lie.”

Danny’s laughter was bitter, almost hollow. “So, what, you’re telling me my whole life’s been a lie? Oh, and by the way, I’m half-dead and apparently the son of a superhero? Great. Just great.”

“I know it’s a lot,” Dick said gently. “But you’re not alone in this. I want to help.”

Danny’s gaze softened, but only slightly. “Help? You think you can just waltz in and play dad? I’ve been fighting ghosts and saving the world since I was fourteen. I don’t need another parent.”

“I’m not trying to replace anyone,” Dick replied, stepping closer. “But if you’re in trouble—if you need someone to back you up—I’m here.”

Danny hovered for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then, with a weary sigh, he landed, his boots touching the cave floor. “Fine. But if you try to lecture me about curfews or ghost powers, I’m out.”

Dick chuckled, relieved. “Deal.”

From the shadows, Bruce watched the exchange, his lips twitching into the faintest hint of a smile. Danny Phantom, the half-ghost hero, had found something he didn’t know he needed:

.

.

.

.

.

a family.

[starchaser45]

"You have proven yourself to be an allie against magic"

"What would you know Merlin you don't have magic"

"Merlin isn't a sourcerer I would know"

That's it that's the pendragon DNA test they're all blind 😭😭😭

[rocketbirdie]

my current mental landscape

[chaneajoyyy]

I did a DNA test. Apparently, I am more Native American than white. I knew I had Native blood, but not almost 65%. My pale skin hides the truth. 😭

Well dang! That’s a huge percentage!! That’s what these DNA test do! Tell the truth!

[gaddaboutgriffon]

DPxDC #3 A Tale of Two Jacks.

What if Jack Fenton and Jack Drake were alternate universe versions of each other?

Things diverged a few generations back when the nightingales stayed true to their Monster hunter roots in the DP universe, but in the DC universe took the treasure from monsters lairs to build the family fortune and branch out into other businesses. And the last name changed to Drake a few generations before the other universe changed to Fenton. Also all the really powerful magical artifacts and weapons were hidden away in a secret basement Jack didn’t get around to showing Tim before he died.

Oh and I guess this sort of makes Tim and Danny counterparts. Though not quite as the Jacks each married a different woman. So half brothers, if you squint? Eh whatever.

Anyway this was inspired by @dcxdpdabbles prompt. https://www.tumblr.com/gaddaboutgriffon/756909205456388096/wait-isnt-tims-dad-also-named-jack-of-we-could

Where a Deaged to about 5ish years old Danny gets sent to Tim drake to take care of until it is safe for him to return to his home universe. This leads to a misunderstanding that Danny is Tim’s baby half brother. The DNA test would support it if Danny’s dna wasn’t all scrambled by the ghost zone portal.

So how do you guys think this all plays out?