[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] DNA at 23andMe

[fenenga at connpoint.net]

I'm at 23andme and have been for about 2 years. I am also with FTdna, Decodeme, and Ancestrydna. my husband, who has German ancestry but, as far as we can tell, not Volhynian, is also 
with 23andme. I am also with Gedmatch.com, which allows people from different dna sites to compare with one another. Gedmatch can give false positives, but if you keep in mind that the 
match must have 7cM and 700 or greater SNP's, then you can ignore the false positives because they will always be below those settings. 

satisfaction wise, yes, 23 has some drawbacks. it's a new science with the usual set of quirks to be worked out. in the meantime, it is helping some of us discover relatives and 
understand our health risks. I have found the drawbacks to be that a fair number of cousins do not respond to contact, many do not fill out their profile page with surnames and places, 
and that it's quite difficult at this time to find the connecting ancestor. however, I have had a few successes. I have found a sibling of a great, great grandfather of mine, and have 
connected to a few people with shared Colonial ancestry. and I've connected with some Hugonaut ancestors of my husband's. so matches can be made, it depends on your ancestry. along the 
way, I've seen adoptees find their families on several occasions, and others have found matches as well. 

there is a good broad band spectrum of people on 23andme, though some nations remain thin or non-extant due to laws or financial issues. 

there are several tools at 23andme to give one a better idea of one's ancestry. one of these is called Ancestry Finder. in it, all of your cousins who filled in a survey called "where 
are you from" are listed on the chromosome they match one (sometimes more than one match for more than one ancestor), giving their cM amount and the nationality or nativity of their 4 
grandparents that they listed in the survey, and if they've agreed to have their profile made public, also name and a picture, if they added one. 

people can elect for total anonimity, partial anonimity, or go completely public. 

one misunderstanding with dna testing is that people believe that everyone can see personal, private data about you. not so. when you share dna with a relative, you see their name, what 
chromosome is shared on, what section of the chromosome is shared on, how many centimorgans (cM) are shared, and how many SNP's are shared. that's it. no personal or private data is 
shared unless you chose to, and then you have to authorize that for each person you share with. privacy is paramount with 23andme.

I don't know whether or not my Germans from Congress Poland were in Volhynia, just one place to check among many, but one way or another, it does appear I may have connections in or near 
Volhynia. 23andme is helping me sort that out.