Understand that if you are someone who worries about state surveillance or police violence, contributing DNA samples and genealogical information to “ancestry” corporations only feeds the system.
The Biden administration’s failure to renew or bolster antitrust protections prior to his end-of-term allowed for the current wave of corporate restructuring and mergers, but most media attention is given to Hollywood production studios. Stories regarding 23&Me’s bankruptcy and proposed liquidation of assets aren’t as eye-catching to the general public, nor are the lawsuits levied against at-home consumer genetics testing companies regarding claims they could predict everything from individual cancer statistics to socioemotional behaviors like emotional eating.
So before you click that sales ad for a kit this holiday season, let’s take a moment to debunk common myths about DNA testing and what the results mean.
Myth 1 : DNA Testing Can Determine Your Race.
Biological race is a white supremacist concept developed to justify capitalist systems of enslavement and colonialism; racial difference was wholly debunked in the 1970s when full-spectrum DNA sequencing became possible. There is absolutely no evidence to support the claims of biological difference between racial groups, and DNA tests cannot determine if you are of African, Asian, European, etc. descent, or a mixture, because race is not real. This is one reason why many customers report discrepancies between their results from different companies.
Ancestry’s early TV ads featured customers elated after “discovering” their culture was different from what they were raised to believe, but experts urge customers to use caution when reading results or questioning their family histories:
“We don’t really know [their accuracy], because the companies selling these services—and there are close to 40 of them—don’t share their data, and their methods are not validated by an independent group of scientists and there are not agreed-upon standards of accuracy. […] So you have to look at the percentages you receive back with skepticism” (Rajewski 2018).
In many cases, ancestry companies might not perform the testing advertised or run tests at all. Many people have sued Ancestry, 23&Me, and others for falsifying results based on demographic and personal information. Someone with the last name Lynch might be “matched” to my family simply based on their name and proximal location to one of us. Census data makes it even easier to appear legitimate because the companies can regurgitate your self-reported or previously-stolen data.
The promise of learning more about yourself, especially if family history was stolen or denied to you, can be alluring, but consider the implications. If your specific “race” can be identified via genetic sequencing, that means you are accepting the argument that human beings who are not from the same “race” are biologically different. This is the same argument used by Europeans to enslave global (Afro)Indigenous populations, their supposed “genetic” or “racial” superiority. Is that what you believe?
Because that’s what these companies need you to believe in order to turn a profit. If you don’t buy their tests and continue paying for services like access to ancestry databases, results, etc. there’s no business. So 23&Me will come out and claim they can help descendants of formerly-enslaved Africans trace their ancestry to specific regions or villages in Africa, implying there is enough biological difference between African cultures to isolate and categorize. You can find familial connections through genetics testing, but a cheek swab or spit tube cannot tell a computer if you are Nigerian, Congolese, Ashanti, Bantu, or “Southern Mississippi Pines African Americans” (note: companies conflate modern nations with historical cultures or territories).
You might have more genetic material in common with a cousin than your sibling; similarly, you might be more genetically similar to a person of a different “race” from thousands of miles away than you do a room full of people you perceive to be of your same race, ethnicity, or even culture.
Please take a few minutes to watch a clip from the documentary series, Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003):
Myth 2: DNA Testing Can Determine Ethnicity or Ancestral Geographic Origin.
Dr. Robert Park conceptualized ethnicity in the 1920s as part of his “race relations cycle,” a replacement classification system for biological racial difference that did not a challenge white cultural supremacy. His research used western German populations as the baseline for assimilation success because they were considered civilized, genetically similar to the US Anglo settler population, and experienced the least amount of “conflict” during the settling process.
Ethnicity thus became a way of grouping cultures according to how similar they were to Anglo US and western German populations which is why DNA sequencing cannot determine ethnicity. It is not biological or “real.” It’s time to leave ethnicity in the past and stop pretending ethnic groups are not a re-branding of biological race.
Additionally, ethnicity has been classified according to inbreeding and the prevalence of genetic abnormalities within a given population. Ashkenazi Jews and Acadians/Cajuns are examples of communities that were turned into “ethnic groups” due to genetic birth defects arising from the Founder or Bottleneck effects (see: TaySachs, Cystic Fibrosis, etc.). So claiming ethnic similarity in this instance only means direct genetic inheritance or descendancy.
Yet Israel used genetics testing to assert their claims of indigeneity to Palestine as early as the late-1990s, which is ironic considering the bioessentialist racism Jewish people were subjected to during WWII:
“The State of Israel defines itself as the homeland of the Jewish people, making it ethno-national in its own self-image and raising perennial concerns over who is a Jew, how this can be determined, by what credible means, and what exactly this says about the ‘legal nature’ of citizenship in Israel. The recent turn to genetics is an attempt to develop an objective, scientific means of defining the boundaries of the Jewish population. In light of the ambiguities around the materiality/immateriality of the basis of Jewish ethnicity, its connection to the State’s founding narrative of exilic return, and its impact on rights to citizenship, it is not yet clear how and why biological definitions of Jewishness are becoming an important part of the way Israelis understand their Jewish ethnicity as something rooted in the body, transmitted by genes, and shared by the national group” (McGonigal & Herman).
During the Holocaust, the term “Jew” was used as a pejorative adjective for Jewish people and all opponents of the Reich; people were not arrested solely for phenotypic or aesthetic characteristics. Those suspected of being queer or communist could be charged with being “of the Jewish race” or “communist Jews,” which is why I was surprised to learn zionists and ethnonationalists focused on Jewish physical difference beginning in the late-1800s:
“[R]ather than abandon the idea of Jewish physical difference, the Jewish nationalists… emphasized the positive value of an identifiable Jewish face as a symbol of ethnic unity and racial purity. Contrary to what the[ir] enemies… suggested, the appearance of ‘Jewish’ features even in the children of mixed marriages signified ‘the superior tenacity’ of the Jewish ‘racial type'” (Glenn 67)
The first genetics labs were opened in Israeli universities in 1997 and by the mid-2000s, the Israeli government implemented mandated testing for people who wanted to participate in government-funded programs or permanently settle in newly-seized neighborhoods:
“Masha Yakerson… attempted to sign up for a Birthright Israel trip in the summer of 2013. Birthright told Yakerson, whose family is from Russia, that to prove that she was Jewish, and eligible for the trip, she would need to take a DNA test. Birthright claimed that the test was required by the Israeli consulate, and further that a DNA test would be required if Yakerson ever wanted to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel)” (McGonigal & Herman 2015).
This coincided with their government’s plan to collect genetic information from all Jewish people for the supposed purposes of reproductive screening. So what are we to make of Israel’s explanation of their DNA testing policies and focus on ethnicity?
“Merely being 100% Jewish based on test results does not guarantee entry into the country. However, DNA tests are helpful if you have a relative with Israeli citizenship and need to prove your familial relationship. In such instances, all procedures must receive government approval, meaning that commercially available at-home DNA tests like those from 23andMe and similar services are not accepted. Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA’s validity is not acknowledged by authorities, despite its significance in tracing genetic ancestry and evolution. Research on mitochondrial DNA in Jewish populations has offered insights into their historical origins and migration paths. For example, a notable study from 2000 revealed a common ancestor shared by many Jews in Europe and the Middle East” (World Repatriation Agency Israel)
Why does the Israeli government disallow direct-to-consumer test results and why is mitochondrial testing considered invalid? If mitochondrial testing is not reliable, then why does WRAI mention the “common ancestor” revealed as if it is a valid finding. What exactly is being tested at their approved facilities if not “historical origins.”
Are they using Ashkenazi populations as their basis for comparison or is the Israeli government claiming all Israelis (read: Jews) are related to varying degrees? If they are all related, why are Russian Jews not recognized by Israeli state authorities or institutions?
And why does it sound like Israel is re-inventing the myth of biological racial difference?
These questions bring us to the next myth.
Myth 3: Genetics Testing is A Proven, Exact Science.
You cannot read DNA like a book or a list of test results, despite what companies want you to believe. Advertisements include helpful pie charts and other visuals that make the whole process seem more like a doctor’s exam than a party game, or as Huml. et al. explain, “[b]y providing detailed numerical results accompanied by color-coded maps showing where descendants came from, testing companies create the impression of rigor and precision” (2021).
But it’s only an impression. Only a handful of global ancestral genetics companies conduct testing in-house or with administrative oversight which adds an extra step to the process for others (i.e. increased probability of error).
Companies also confuse the public by conflating genealogical ancestry, genetic ancestry, and genetic similarity which is why “most statements about ancestry are really statements about genetic similarity, which has a complex relationship with ancestry, and can only be related to it by making assumptions about human demography whose validity is uncertain and difficult to test” (Mathieson & Scally 2020).
Ancestry companies sell the illusion of traceable, knowable personal history which reinforces a myopic view of the interrelatedness of genetics, culture, and sociopolitical influence. They encourage customers to “focus on a small number of lineages for which records exist or which are of particular interest, neglecting the exponential growth in the number of genealogical ancestors back in time” (Mathieson & Scally 2020).
A person who wants to believe their DNA can reveal ethnicity or ancestral geographical information thus operates from the assumption that biological difference is not only real, but is tied to location, which sounds an awful lot like Johann Blumenbach’s degeneration theory.
There are three types of at-home consumer DNA testing kits: autosomal, Y-DNA STR, and mitochondrial (mtDNA). The tests do not sequence a person’s entire genome; rather, they examine a set number of chromosomal markers and compare their company’s results with affiliates. The limited data set, and lack of regulation, is why ancestry company tests are not permitted for federal, state, or medical use (Cleveland Clinic).
Results are highly dependent on the quality and diversity of a company’s reference panels, or individuals chosen because “their DNA comes from a single location” (Ekins 2019). There’s a problem with that claim: very few populations have not migrated or been displaced throughout human history which means the likelihood anyone has DNA from one location is astronomical… unless you’re a Habsburg.
Data analytics research from Ambry Genetics found “40 percent of the variants noted in the raw data were false positives—that is, they indicated that a particular genetic variant was present when it wasn’t (Mullin 2018). Now, consider the fact that forensic DNA testing only looks at a fraction of the chromosomal markers analyzed by ancestry companies, yet courts allow accused persons to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
That’s what makes scientific racism so dangerous; these theories were challenged the moment they came out of eugenicists’ mouths, disproven in the 1800s and again in the 1970s, but the myths persist. The same goes for claims regarding a single “cancer gene” or “autism gene;” there is no such thing. There is no proven marker for blue eyes or hair texture. These are biased interpretations inspired by race scientists like Johann Blumenbach, Samuel Morton, Francis Galton, and James Watson. We can identify genes or markers that we think correlate, but there are two main problems that arise: correlation does not equal causation and no single variant is responsible for any specific or unique expression.
The only information that can be determined with relative certainty regarding consumer genetics testing is family relationship; for example, in one study, 21 sets of identical twins took DNA tests from different companies to compare results. Twins whose samples were analyzed within the same company had “mean percent agreement ranging from 94.5%−99.2%. […] [R]esults when participants were tested by two different companies was lower, with mean percent agreement ranging from 52.7%−84.1%” (Huml et al. 2021). Geneaology hobbyists suggest taking multiple tests to compare individual results, but that can be expensive and doesn’t change the fact that each test can only determine your genetic similarity compared to their reference panels.
Let’s return to Israeli and Jewish ethnonationalist interpretations of genetics testing results as an example:
“For purposes of genetic screening, individual genes are nominally designated ‘Jewish’ if they carry genetic mutations statistically more common among Jews. This correlation, between individual Jews and genetic mutations that are more common among Jews, can lead to an easy conceptual slippage, where genes are mistakenly identified as Jewish” (Kahn 21).
McGonigle & Herman explain the problems with this classification:
“With population genetics or ‘tracing Jewish history through DNA’, these types of studies attempt to trace Jewish history through genetics, and elucidate a common historical origin of the Jewish people in the biblical land of Israel. Here, Jewishness is determined by genomic analysis as ‘statistical probabilities that DNA haplotypes will be more prevalent’ within identified groups. But the presence of a certain haplotype within an individual is not a guarantee that the individual is Jewish or not. Moreover, the historical claims that are entangled with these scientific studies are heavily debated” (“Genetic Citizenship”).
So just because two subjects have shared genetic markers doesn’t mean they are related or belong to the same cultural groups. As Tufts University professor Sheldon Krimsky explains, “[t]he results are in no way definitive; instead each company uses common genetic variations as the basis for saying the probability is that 50 percent of your DNA is, for example, from North Europe and 30 percent is from Asia, based on how it compares to the information in its database” (“Pulling Back the Curtain” 2018).
All humans on the planet will become genetically related once you look back far enough into their ancestry or genome. You most likely have more DNA in common with someone from a completely different “race” than you do someone who identifies the same (German, white, European). You might be more genetically similar to a distant cousin than your own full sibling. This is what makes humanity so diverse and so awesome.
Myth 4: Your Personal Data is Protected and Cannot be Used Without Your Knowledge or Consent.
The United States has next-to-no legal protections for individual rights pertaining to data collection and usage, unlike the U.K. or E.U.’s specified privacy laws. In fact, the U.S. National Institute of Health appears to be going in the opposite direction by funding the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium which is “developing improved technology for [global] genome assembly and a next-generation tool ecosystem that leverages the pangenome for comprehensive analyses” (HPRC).
Police and government organizations across the globe are scrambling to gain access to all genetic ancestry databases for “forensic genealogy,” or investigative genetic genealogy, but let’s not forget that genetic predisposition is still used in U.K. and U.S. courts to determine sentencing for certain parties. Colonial empires have not abolished racist classification systems, laws, or addressed the ways in which bioessentialism is reinforced through all government institutions.
There is no net positive outcome from state applications of forensic genealogy until white supremacy is abolished and scientific racism is eradicated. Yes, a few cold cases might be solved, but at what cost to personal freedom for the living? For every Golden State Killer convicted, a yet-unknown number of innocent people are implicated in horrible acts of violence, all while research is already poking holes in methodology and results.
Most recently, the Trump administration announced new ICE protocols to collect biometric data; however, this is actually the administration resuming practices from their first term. Experts also worry legitimate research will be lost or compromised by global economic and sociopolitical tumult, or that Trump will reverse consumer privacy protections to allow corporate interests to access data or resume unethical practices to increase sales.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, several companies have gone under without warning or explanation regarding data storage or sales. Even the corporate giants felt 23&Me filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after the CEO failed to convince shareholders and the board to accept her take-private proposal. Companies need to be held accountable and their practices need to be available to the public considering the massive amount of data collected from each customer and their inclusion of non-customer data. As of now, companies are protected by a miasma of legalese, loopholes, and lack of regulation:
“We found in our testing that these apps potentially collect more data than could be needed to deliver their core service. We also found through our privacy-policy analysis that when consumers opt into ‘research,’ many are providing third-party access not only to their DNA but also to other types of data the company has about you, which can include information about your relatives and family history. And we learned through both testing and privacy-policy review that all of these companies share non-DNA data that could potentially be used to target ads and develop data profiles on consumers, with few obvious tools to help users protect their privacy” (Consumer Reports).
Another cause for concern is that ancestry companies in North America are largely owned, operated, or funded by the Mormon Church who keeps personal genealogical records, even if the subject is not Mormon. In many instances, incarcerated labor was used to digitize those records before originals were stored in “The Vault” at their headquarters in Utah.
As of December 2025, memberships for Ancestry[dot]com cost $179-479 depending on the access tier purchased; they tend to set industry standards. During holiday seasons, prices will drop anywhere from 30-60% to encourages people who were hesitant because of cost to register.
While it might not make sense that a religious organization would care so much about genetics testing, this business strategy benefits them in two primary ways: customers must work directly with the church to access the full versions of their services and mass data collection allows them to control historical narratives regarding their theology and founding, especially their racist claims of indigeneity to North America. It is unlikely that most consumers know their memberships goes directly to funding Mormon missionaries and “equity investment” companies.
Blackstone Inc. purchased Ancestry for nearly $5-billion during the pandemic from Silver Lake, Spectrum Equity and Permira. Unlike with the TikTok controversy, Trump’s administration has expressed no concern with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund maintaining a minority stake in the world’s largest for-profit genetic ancestry corporation. The public received no briefing regarding the sale, transfer, storage, and usage of customer data.
Conclusion
Before you buy a discounted test kit for the holidays, consider the limits of what these tests can reliably tell you and weigh them against potential privacy concerns—not only for yourself, but for your (un)known relatives whose genomes become part of the database after you swab.
DNA testing can be a useful tool for confirming close familial relationships, but it should never be treated as a definitive map of personal identity or health. Recognizing its constraints protects both individual autonomy and the fight against the resurgence of scientific racism and increasing state surveillance.
Always remember: the true value of at-home consumer DNA testing and “forensic genealogy” lies not in helping people make connections or discovering their roots, but in the commodification and weaponization of individual biology.