Kim Mcbreen is Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā, and lives with her partner and two children in a small coastal town. She has been involved with Kōnae as an adopted person with whakapapa Māori.
She is a writer researcher who is passionate about supporting whānau and dismantling structures of oppression. In her former life she was also a geneticist. So, she knows a little bit about DNA.
Many people turn to a DNA testing company to find answers about their whakapapa. Most of us know someone who found a close relative through DNA testing.
If we do not have enough information from our records or talking with whānau, searching for information through DNA testing may seem like the only path open to us. Or, we may have doubts about the information we have been able to find, and want the ‘truth’ of ‘real science’.
Here are some things to think about before taking a DNA test.
Privacy and information security might be the last thing on your mind. But you are sending someone your personal information—including all the information in your DNA, which you also share with your whanaunga.
DNA testing companies are businesses, and there are many ways they could potentially use your information. Some questions you might want to ask include:
Consumer NZopen_in_new has answers to some of these questions about three common DNA testing companies.
Every company charges for DNA testing. The chance of finding someone with closely matching DNA depends on the number of people in the company’s database, and each DNA testing company has different databases.
The cheapest option might not give you the information you want or find a match. You may want to use more than one company to increase your chances of finding a match.
There are two types of results a DNA test might give about your ancestry, and one result is more reliable than the other:
If you are fortunate, the result of the DNA testing might include a close match.
Based on the similarity between your DNA profile and that of others, your result will include an estimate of the relationship - for example, parent-child, sibling, or cousin.
DNA is good for answering these questions - but only if those relatives are in the DNA database that your DNA is being compared with.
Most DNA test results will include a statement on your ethnic make-up or where you are from, but DNA testing is not good for answering these questions.
These are statistical best-guesses (the testing companies often call them estimates). If you are hoping to discover, for example, whether or not you are Māori, you should not rely on the result.
Using DNA markers to estimate ethnicity is less offensive than using physical measurements, but it uses a similar logic. Ethnicity is not based on physical, genetic or cultural authenticity, it is based on relationships. A DNA test cannot give us that.