I'm assuming that many of us still have that need to know our ancestry that was so firmly implanted by our former cult. So I thought it was appropriate to ask here.

Has anyone had their ethnic DNA done? Was it different from what your genealogy said? (I ask this because I had a relative who did extraction for quite a while and was appalled at the number of records she couldn't read. She was told to ask the spirit for guidance and go with her best guess.)

If you or someone you know has had it done, can you recommend a reliable company that is not cult-affiliated to do it?

I used Family Tree. I don't think they are Mormon related.

I am 96% Irish/English (they don't separate Irish from English) and 4% Afghani. The Irish makes sense. My family is Irish on both sides going back generations and the family is relatively recent to the US. The Afghani was a hilarious little wild card thrown it which I thoroughly enjoyed.

And see where it all lines up. I have a very strong suspicion that we have Sephardic Jewish heritage on my dad's side after I learned some very interesting family history from my Tio.
at my dad's funeral last year.
IDK if a DNA test would show that, though.

Didn't we all begin in Africa?

If you can trace your DNA all the way back to your ancestors in Africa, maybe you will be a contender for a Nobel Prize? Or has this already been done with the mitochondrial Eve, I think?

Knowing your ethnic heritage can be important, especially in the case of the issue cropping up with women and breast cancer in the San Luis Valley. It's a specific DNA marker related to the heritage there.

Family Tree says they can trace back to Africa.

https://www.familytreedna.com/products/y-dna

Itzpapalotl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And see where it all lines up. I have a very
> strong suspicion that we have Sephardic Jewish
> heritage on my dad's side after I learned some
> very interesting family history from my Tio.
> at my dad's funeral last year.
> IDK if a DNA test would show that, though.

Itz...

You are probably already aware of it, but if not, there is some very serious breast cancer being passed down among those who are descended from Iberian Sephardim (many of the conquistadores...and, later, Spanish-descended colonials).

There is (from what I remember of the You Tube videos I saw) a specific gene that, if a given person has it, indicates not only a propensity to this kind of breast cancer, but much higher odds of dying from breast cancer (when compared to other kinds of cancer or breast cancer).

My "New Mexico family" (true blue Catholics for generations, except for one Protestant offshoot---but with some tell-tale cultural indicators I recognized as Jewish), who I realized were probably of partial Sephardic Jewish descent (they didn't believe me!!! ;) ), now rank among the official medical statistics being developed around this particular kind of breast cancer among conquistador-and-later-descended Hispanics (and the subsequent high death rates). In other words: there have been deaths from this in "my" northern New Mexico family.

There are public health announcement (etc.) videos on You Tube about this (there is a move to get as many as is possible Hispanics in New Mexico tested), and many entries which come up after a Google search.

"breast cancer in New Mexico Hispanics of Sephardic descent" will bring up some of the most important Google results.

You may well already know about this, but I thought I would post it anyway, so that anyone who is descended from Spanish conquistadores (or those who became their later descendants in what is now the USA), should get tested for this particular gene. It is leading to breast cancer that is actually killing people, and unfortunately, some of those people were (before their deaths) in my own extended family.

Yes, I am aware of it, but I appreciate any information others tell me. It is something I am concerned with especially since breast cancer also runs on my mother's side. It is a very scary and real prospect for the future.

The DNA studies don't seem to cross match with the 12 tribes revealed in Patriarchal Blessings.

Mormons are so goofy. They support genealogy and DNA studies, except it doesn't apply when talking about Lamanites or 12 tribes.

Well, I'm sure DNA science will progress to the point it can identify the 12 tribes at some time in the future. Science still has to catch up to God!