More DNA Commerce!

AncestryDNA sent me an email today urging me to get the DNA of "my entire biological family" tested. Following the link I got a bold-face question: "How Many DNA Tests Does One Family Need?" along with a question to answer that question: "How many people are in your family?"

A couple of years ago my brother gave me a DNA test kit as a gift. This is a commercial transaction, not a scientific one; AncestryDNA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ancestry LLC, a for-profit entity based in Lehi, Utah. So what was exchanged in this transaction?

AncestryDNA got whatever money my brother gave them along with my entire genome to add to their database of 15 million people.

I got the earth-shattering news that I am an Ashkenazic Jew. (Irony alert: I may have always known that.)

Presumably there are some limits to people's curiosity about their ethnic origins and molecular genealogy companies are concerned about what those limits mean to their bottom lines. Presumably whatever schemes these companies have for monetizing our genomes can be better served with more data from more people. So it makes good sense to me that they would urge us to get tests done on every single member of our families: more short-term payments and more data in their proprietary data bases.

But what exactly are they selling me? Will I learn with scientific certainty that I have my uncle's eyes? (Irony alert: I may have always known that.) Will my brother be a member of a different ethnic group? Will I need to join a synagogue?

I do not want to belittle the benefits of DNA tests for curious adoptees. I don't share their experience and - for them - the more data out there the better. I do want to question the motives of for-profit molecular DNA companies. I do want to question their outsized scientific claims.