You really would be completely off your chump to use this ‘service.’

Allow me to introduce you to AncestryDNA. Here’s their website

dna.ancestry.co.uk

Do with that web address as you wish, but on your own head be it. I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole.

Here’s the deal. It costs only £99 for this mob to send you a kit with easy to follow instructions. Generously, delivery is free. You easily follow the instructions, and end up sending a saliva sample. Your DNA is analysed at more than 700,000 genetic markers, and in about 8 weeks you get the results.

This ‘one simple test’ will ‘uncover where your ancestors came from,’ ‘discover distant relatives,’ and ‘find new details about your unique family history.’

You can do some of the groundwork without the expense. If you even think of doing this, you clearly come from a long line of complete blithering idiots. You shouldn’t be allowed out unescorted.

Firstly, who on earth wants to send a DNA sample to a bunch of complete strangers? Why would you do that? Look at all the righteous (and quite correct) fuss when it was recently revealed the Old Bill still had many thousand DNA samples they’d retained, illegally, when the samplee was acquitted. Why anybody would volunteer to send DNA to an outfit of dubious trustworthiness defeats me.

Then the thorny problem of them actually testing the sample. You don’t really know, do you? They could trouser your hard-earned shekels, sit about for a few weeks, then just make it up. They could be as reliable as a psychic channelling an Egyptian pharaoh.

Let’s give then the benefit of the doubt, and assume they do the analysis of the 700,000 ‘genetic markers,’ though the terminology sounds a bit iffy to me. According to the graphic on the website, you find out that you’re 28% Scandinavian, 10% Italo-Greek, 10% Other, and 52% Great Britain. How does that help you? In the UK everybody is a mongrel, so the idea of anybody being predominantly from GB is suspicious.

The claim that you’ll find new relatives is a bit misleading too. You’ll only find those relatives who are as dumb as you are for using the service. But again, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Suppose you find out you’re related to Pigshagger or Gorge? Farrago? Bojo? Odious?

You could die of shame.