From: Man@the.keyboard   
      
   On Sat, 14 Mar 2020 16:02:32 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 3/14/20 2:46 PM, Jenny M Benson wrote:   
   >   
   >> Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a   
   >> Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know exactly   
   >> how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the   
   >> person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the   
   >> people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.   
   >>   
   >> I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some   
   >> degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it   
   >> say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A   
   >> N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?   
   >>   
   >> I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know of   
   >> the connection.   
   >   
   >Couldn't someone get the Ancestry DNA kit and have their DNA analyzed   
   >without having a tree on Ancestry.com? Someone could be have an Ancestry   
   >account for research purposes but only read information and never post any.   
      
    Or, to put it into a slightly more tinhatty and paranoid context: the   
   Great *THEY* know far, *far* more about all of us than we think they   
   do or could.   
      
    Through things like Farceboke, Twatter, Gaggle and your electricity   
   supply company's billing department, not to forget the N.H.S.   
   databases so generously supplied to Amazon and Gaggle by our caring,   
   sharing government, corporations can buy immense databases containing   
   vast amounts of linkies to just about everyone from just about   
   everyone else and their pet iguanas. Merging and sorting these is   
   easy, though weeding out the crud, cruft, corruptions and deliberate   
   false data inserted by arseholes like me who have seventy-seven   
   thousand "mother's maiden names" [I rarely answer "security" questions   
   with anything like a truth] [because once a database is compromised a   
   lie can be easily changed, a truth less so] can be a little difficult.   
      
    It is possible that Ancestry.com might be able to supply the linkages   
   to Ms. Benson's phantom relatives even if the relatives themselves can   
   not. Whether the company should or would are good questions. How much   
   it would cost is another.   
      
    It may be that privacy policies prevent this, or that sheer   
   commercial interest does or even that it would entail a vast amount of   
   scut-work by database monkeys who, though poorly paid, *are* paid to   
   do that sort of scouring. Are or could be.   
      
    It is the sort of thing "The Machine" [bless her heart] from the TV   
   serial "Person Of Interest" does. Whether a human search engine could   
   do it efficiently is a really good question.   
      
    And whether we would like anyone to have the ability to do it is   
   another.   
      
    Though that is yet another of those little tin-hatty issues.   
      
                                                                    J.   
      
      
      
   >   
   >Perce   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)