Expert Panel Discussion - GGI2020 Belfast

great okay well here we are for the expert panel discussion session and this is basically going to be a free-for-all you can throw any questions you like at our expert panel and let me introduce them to you first of all we have a Michele Leonard Michelle runs her own professional genetic genealogy consultation company in Glasgow in Scotland we have Donna Rutherford who has seven fantastic Facebook group DNA help for genealogy UK we have Demi carrot who is an author of cruise news as well as several books we also have Martin McDole who is the education officer for the north of Ireland having History Society and there's lots of other experts as the audience as well so we'll be we'll be talking to a variety from so please give a warm a hand for a more Hector Sean did you have a question so straight away forward ancestry DNA so who wants to take that question because Martin did a presentation on this last year so I would say that every DNA test is worthwhile there I'm not against anyone tested mechanically and the idea work everyone should be testable every cop name every time I'm doing every type of DNA test possible so yes obviously we can't and what I think you have to be in strategic in terms of my life and you have to be strategic in terms of who you're going to be testing I have a problem with not getting segment oh no a lot of people test on ancestry and I love contact them of trying to get them to transfer or one of the other companies and then I'm able to use that information or I do understand that a lot of people use the Commonwealth Lex balance on ancestry I don't really do that I talk much on ancestry is still what I said is my presentation last year which is 63 70 moments there's not much I can do without so I will personally find and awful not obvious follow me and cobble my facility because of all because data for the second cousins I do have some good matches they just don't have them to be over here so while they finance has to be very useful thank much it's not a congress i haven't find there's a technically useful over here and you know others have and then we was gonna have a different experience so i would say yes it's definitely got a very mature part in the future and i don't think it's the be-all and end-all of everything that come ahead and I'm hoping that some of the other companies are going to end reduce u2's gonna give them an added advantage that has got a health plan to move forward and a different direction because I'm slightly concerned that everything now is moving towards health and that's not my nature for us and they were late to see sort the company to me and totally focused on to the allergen I think dick Ethan have a very good match up on his blog which he said blocks lots of copies keep stuff safe and I don't think we could trust any single company to still be here in 10 years 20 years 30 years I if you think of like my face that was the big pain point suddenly just jeans reunited when I first saw Friends Reunited it when I first start the vote and all be buddies with old school friends that disappeared anything could happen in the next 10 20 30 years as before we put our DNA into the different company databases all likely is to survive in the long term and I think only taxes if you do seem to be hanged they do have the biggest market share so a basis of English ancestry I'm getting the best it's there but you also have to think about what's happening the past so they used to sell microbes so do you make mitochondrial DNA tests and they discontinued both those tests and all people who test there including some people family members have passed away most of data there so I think that's something you really people really need to bear in mind and nothing is going to last forever so get your DNA to all the available databases so if you're an ER doctor you're a failed lead or you're looking for family then as of today as history is still the best place to test because of the size of the database but I absolutely agree with everybody that's pretty implicated giving your DNA to all the databases is really important but it's I would still encourage doctors and sellings to test Eddings history today because of the size of the database yeah I would like you all all those points it's going back to the old adage fished in all the ponds you just don't know where your best matches may choose to test and it's important to be it all the pods but as shown this point no not everybody can afford to test directly at all the companies and especially not at the seat of tape so always we hope for sales and there are plenty of them through the year DNA Black Friday etc build on your portfolio of tests over time start with ancestry I always encourage people to start there because you can they're not oh it's to Family Tree DNA my heritage jet match living dealing etc from that one test and that gets you into all those databases to start with but I do think that it is helpful especially if you have elderly relatives to have them tested directly at companies like Boeing to DNA where they both store the sample for 25 years and things like that as Debbie says future-proofing is very very important at the end of the day though ancestry has the largest database by far and for the majority of us we will find that we get the most useful matches there but that isn't always at least for everyone as Martin has pointed out I'm sticking with you Michelle Martin mentions that perhaps in the future some of the companies will develop new tools that might give them the edge what new tools would you personally like to see available in the near future near future there are so many things it's hard to and then there are just little things like I would love to see what Martin was talking about to see the X chromosome that's not available and my heritage I just want to see that there are simple things that could be done quickly I'd like to see more integration of clustering tools at the different websites my heritage has a native one no but what if we have that ancestry what if we had that at 23andme I'd like to see better I found the Treaty facility at 23andme I mean these are things that I think are plausible in the short term but I don't know what diversity think the thing I would like most at the moment is the ability to very quickly build a tree from your DNA matches so all of those that have met have trees attached had their DNA linked to a tree that something will quickly build the tree so you don't have to sit there and build them yourself I don't know they can be quickly you call them a quicker duty tree we were quickly building up a tree throw matches to tie whatever the common ancestor was I'd like some tools to put that quicker but actually genetic affairs just started that I'm not trying to advertise of genetic affairs but they have started doing that who they will try and build that from the DNA matches and so when you get your genetic appears cluster you also get some trees of where they've automatically found a common ancestor so that's really helpful but I'd like to see ancestry throughout clustering what you see and there automatically go Pinterest I'd like to see some sort of version of for Asus of his own DNA surface feature because we know that if you have a third customer support cousin some of those cousins are not going to be genetic matches to you but they act may actually match some of the other people you that you match so be really helpful to know if you've got say a third cousin you tested within your family tree but it doesn't match you but they may match someone else that you do match and also it would be helpful just to know the proportion so they didn't know if you've got you know in particular ancestral couple and you would only expect actually half the people who have formed cousins I'd like to know if I'm getting the right proportions of cousins is matching from that particular line so you know it may be something typical here and it's all of your cousin's matches on that round if you realize the services of problem and that may be to do with dopamine or something but you would accept and 50% of your fourth cousins tomorrow percent so I'd like to see some way of deploying the power of networks and these other matches that we can't really access at the baby to a part of that network because they don't match us I want to see automated ancestry reconstruction we're promised I've made my heritage and Oslo couple years ago they save your quietly forgot about that they say we move into whatever Landsat now they move in the direction of health and I would like to see them focus back on that I don't know I bought some of this but I'm just love to see somebody come up to that was available than that to take place the other thing I would like to see take place is some type of foods you know testing I don't know enough of better they don't know how much more useful it would be just and we'd love to see some of the concrete's Clairvaux weather see what they could achieve and try together market elite ain't going in that direction and don't know that's going to happen in the near future but it's something you and I would like to see I would like to be able to play around with a save it did a photo op well I suppose the closest thing we have to that might be a super kiss jet match yes do you notice if there's a major difference between a super kit and an ordinary kiss a dead match and for those of you don't know super caters when you upload your data from ancestry my heritage Family Tree DNA and you amalgamate the whole thing together and it gives you many much more coverage of the chromosomes than would normally be the case with just a single company imagine it would cut out a lot at the fourth matches you might get with the smaller segments but would it do anything else I would need to be made by the player well we're in the position what's available I don't exactly and when you talk about ancestor reconstruction you're talking about it's sort of like the Lazarus program the thing that Orland genetics is doing where you can reconstruct your grandmother yes and that gives what's the advantage of doing that well I get an annotation four years ago whereas in the show that I have reconstructed a sizeable proportion of my mother whose DNA now I was doing that match and what is the total is not properly were ain't no and what I was able to do at the time was I was able to then go on parity and they figured the database and I was able to see and this was giving me really good results and it was given to me higher centimorgans than what I was getting on any individual care so it was real dark and it's just something that I think could really help people because if you can correct the segment's that people have got any people alive today and you can amount you believe them all together and identify them as belonging to one particular ancestor then you're going to be able to make progress on that particular family no that's why we'd like to see things move mm-hmm now any questions from the audience yeah it just yes guess I just added little things one of the things that I would like to see 23andme do is to upgrade the mitochondrial to the Defiler 317 it's on seven at the moment which is 2 2009 3 and I checked with mine and looked at some of the raw data to see with the branch stick out and it would so the actual mutation is in the raw dare if they upgraded and I think that's a quick fix but one of the things I'd like to see with with cites is if there could be some added incentive in some sort of tools or benefits for people if they put in a little tree or put in some information into their ancestry in order to encouraged people not to leave their sites like I mean say how many are with genealogist find it frustrating you look but DNA tests there with nothing else there they leave it so incentive or something or some extra tools are something that and I I'm very conscious that it can be a bit discriminatory towards people that are adopted and people that haven't got information to put up there but if people dig then it might have doors I got thieves and families and I think they need to do something to give incentive for people on their sites to actually Eileen some information and not just leave them I think that's it so that's a couple of things and the other thing I'd probably like to see is family tree to create an app for iPhones and iPads and stuff like that because for many testers are all they haven't got pcs but they do have that on the character with their data because it's too difficult on safari or a web browser so I think get the Family Tree DNA to provide and easy to view app it doesn't have to be in anything but for people just to be able to look in order matches quite easily on on a foreigner when we were having a chat how easy it is to bring up so I think I'm the other fine of the statements superfamily gen8 the other to add if you've tested your other segments they they are and create kind of suit family treating any I think that be very slow that's a few ideas that I would get good good am jared has a question over here thanks but it's really commenting on Sean Taylor question you know in the last few weeks we had 33 me lay off a bunch of staff but their sales are clapping and safer ancestry so you know their current model is Turkey in the United States is reaching a certain level so they have to change their business model so I think the innovation will be in the business one I got a whole genome test $499 Dan take so and you know that's three thousand times number six of an equivalent price product announced in ancestry we talk about health care taking over well health care industries were trying to two trillion dollars ancestry industries worth maybe two billion or something so they have the resources to invest so not fighting the movement is inevitable in that area I like to model of never leave genetics work they would sequence a whole genome sequence linked to a blockchain and anytime anyone uses it you know who's using your genome you own your genome and if researcher or a pharmacy company once used it they pay you for it so I think that's that's going to be changed well it's interesting the point you raised because there has been a slowdown in sales and we've seen that ancestry I think in 2018 they sold about three million kids over the course of the year since the last update which was January 2019 to January 2020 they've only sold one modem so there has been as slowing down in sales and like you say 23andme I've seen a similar slowdown as well do you think this is going to continue and that we are now reaching a plateau and what do you think is the cause of that particular slowed down all the technology every single technology we've experienced in the 20th century goes through an s-curve we discussed this and this has curved you know in our cases last of the decade so weak plateaus we reach that plateau and we need to change something adapting to next exponential growth will be you know three genomes because they'd be the date is so valuable the Helicarrier companies the thoughts for will sponsor a preteen now the challenge for the ancestry industry now and subject DNA but also then is to use those old genomes and make them useful to be an ERG because I'm sure within two years of probably be going through three I'm just wondering to what extent maybe James you want to comment to what extent is this market saturation to what extent is it the concern about law enforcement privacy that type of thing be interested in if you have an opinion about that and numbers of the panel as well I'd say more about that Amir I haven't noticed a my project my surname for reasons I've never understood can't stop growing but it can't go on forever yeah on the other hand we've only said listen after but I did have a small specific question I'm not finding people coming to my surname project the beans with 23andme and they've had snips identified by 23andme and quite low level snips tiger and my surname specifically Smith are they just taking a random cut off you know they're not uniform I suspect that's probably what it is l55 is a very old statistically it's not some of the useless about very long names so there is rather artificial thing but it should we be encouraging empty so 223f main to reduce more simple sentences can anybody tell me why mine Smith is being identified by 23 means to me it's amazing it's lovely I don't understand why that's a great question for the panel put my shirt oh maybe Debbie doesn't know the answer to this question so on the aluminum chick in fact the companies can choose to add their own customized suits so I think what we have done is they've chosen their own customized six for mitochondrial DNA and why DNA in order to give them a little bit more resolution quite how they choose oh if I don't know but I know so they don't work very well at Michael erase the first place is a prodigious bacon a version of the trees are selected of arranger two snips which I think useful well then it's likely produces a few chips so they moved as probes feeding array and us have some funny treaty you know my heritage same and we are also supposed to be seeing why stick data coming from a be treaty you know they promise that they're conferred last year and everyone who taken the family find two tests directed a Family Tree DNA they would have their results upgraded to include the why snip and my true dat native data so I think that it's actually going to be really really beneficial for our so many projects people start getting the snip dates and then that means they will actually be able to do participate in projects and hope it would encourage them to take other tests to see if they they match with me I see ours because this is a huge potential with my DNA test we've got over 30 feet we've taken or just sewing DNA tests we've got seven hundred thousand people they actually can a database in our observing projects so we really need to try and exploit that to encourage everyone to upgrade to do all the other tests as well what do you think the slowdown in sales I think is so down in America I think there's a huge there's probably any active marketing this huge Park it's India which brilliant rule fact in India that is complete tap targets Russia or another huge vacuum in planning to do I've got Russians in some of my projects now actually quite a few matches and there's a lot of interest no we've got 10 minutes left 10 minutes no yes we do we finish at 5 grand well we'll end it there for today then but you see time passes so quickly when you are doing something you enjoy there's lots more than we could talk about we are going to have another little expert panel discussion meeting tomorrow so all that remains for me to say is to say thank you to the expert panel thank you to you guys for attending today and I look forward to seeing most of you again hopefully tomorrow thanks very much