In May of last year, I wrote about a new third party DNA analysis tool called Gene Heritage in this post: Review of Gene Heritage – a Third Party DNA and Inherited Traits Analysis Tool. Today, I have an update! The grandchild report has been released, and I love it! Gene Heritage has done a wonderful job creating an accessible, fascinating, and research-based experience for learning more about your DNA results.
As you know, we inherit 50% of our DNA from our mother and 50% from our father. However the amount inherited from each grandparent is not exactly 25%. If at least one grandparent from each side has tested, you can find out how much DNA you inherited from each grandparent. You can do this by analyzing the centimorgans that you share with each grandparent and calculating the percentages, or you can let Gene Heritage do it for you! Their website is easy to use and the reports are entertaining and interesting.
Note: This is a sponsored post with affiliate links. Gene Heritage has asked me to review their product, and I am sharing my honest opinions. If you click the links and make a purchase, we receive a portion of the proceeds. Thank you for your support!
Grandchild Report
So here’s how I got my grandchild report. I uploaded the raw DNA test results for my three grandparents who took DNA tests. Gene Heritage analyzed the DNA I share with each grandparent and created a pie chart for me. You really only need to upload your own results and one grandparent from each side to generate a pie chart like this, which would be a cost of $12×3, $36. Each family member whose results you upload costs $12. I thought it would be fun to add photos to my chart, so using Canva.com, I added pictures of myself and each grandparent:
Read more about the Grandchild Report and view another sample here: Grandchild Report Sample at Gene Heritage.
Inheritance Patterns
I love to think of myself as being made up of pieces of my ancestors. They are part of me and I am carrying their legacy forward. The fun thing about the Gene Heritage reports is that you can actually see the inheritance patterns for specific genes! Here is the report showing where I inherited my eye color:
My grandfather, Charles, was the only one of my grandparents to carry dark alleles in the OCA2 Gene Region, which has a major influence on eye color. I have blue eyes, my mother has green eyes, my dad has blue eyes. Some of my dad’s siblings have brown eyes. But since he and my mom both only carry light alleles, my siblings and I all have green or blue eyes.
The Gene Heritage reports are unique because they give you more information about the science behind genes and inherited traits. For example, the report tells you how much of an influence each gene has on a trait. AncestryDNA’s Traits feature, which is new, does not tell you about the influence the gene has on the trait.
Poly-genetic Traits
A new feature of Gene Heritage is the introduction of skin darkness, a poly-genetic trait which is influenced by multiple genes.
Five genes went into the analysis about what level of skin darkness my DNA shows. This is a fascinating study for how we develop the unique look that we inherit. You should try it! Go to www.GeneHeritage.com for more information.
Gene Heritage vs. AncestryDNA Traits
I tried the AncestryDNA traits feature to compare it with Gene Heritage reports. I like that AncestryDNA shares information about physical traits like earlobe and cleft chin. However I don’t like that there isn’t much scientific information about the gene region or influence of the gene on the trait. Another advantage to using Gene Heritage is that you can upload DNA from any of the major testing companies, instead of just comparing results with other AncestryDNA users. Gene Heritage offers the grandchild report with detailed information and charts showing how individual traits were inherited, which is very neat.
If you want to know more about how the Gene Heritage reports differ from Ancestry.com’s Traits feature, Castedo Ellerman of Gene Heritage has written the following with me to share with you:
A) Gene Heritage supports raw DNA data from all major DNA collectors, so you can mix and match family members that have used different companies to get raw DNA data. You can also upload additional raw DNA files from different companies for the same family member at no extra charge.
B) Family inheritance: Gene Heritage reports on what real gene alleles have been inherited and passed down between children, parents and grandparents; in contrast, AncestryDNA Traits is more about comparing one relative to another, such as comparing cousins, and only in a high level similar/different type of comparison.
C) Clear reporting on degree of genetic influence: Gene Heritage reports a rating of “degree of genetic influence” of major, moderate or minor to help readers quickly see to what degree the reported traits are really influenced by genes. AncestryDNA is not making this clear and frankly they are reporting on some traits like “Cilantro Aversion” that are influenced so little by the detected genes that to date Gene Heritage has passed on reporting them.
D) Genes and traits covered: at the moment there are a number of genes and traits that Gene Heritage covers but AncestryDNA does not and vice-versa. In general Gene Heritage goes into many more genes and scientific discoveries relating to smell and taste than AncestryDNA. AncestryDNA also appears to avoid traits reported by Gene Heritage that relate to digestion of food, perhaps because they want to avoid anything that might be health related. On the flip side, AncestryDNA currently has way more traits relating to physical characteristics like earlobe shape.
E) Gene ancient origins: AncestryDNA reports statistics on customer reported traits with similar “ethnicity”. In contrast, Gene Heritage reports on “ancient origins” of certain specific genes based on scientific research. AncestryDNA has chosen definitions of “ethnicity” based on modern geopolitical boundaries. Those are probably more appealing to customers, but they are not based on scientific research. In contrast, there is scientific evidence on what continents certain gene alleles came from long before present day geopolitical boundaries formed.
Try Gene Heritage! I think you will enjoy it!
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