My review of Promethease

After poking around a couple of NC genealogy groups on Facebook, I came across  Promethease, a site that promises to give you results of potential inherited health conditions, based on the raw DNA you upload to the site. For five dollars, they will analyze your DNA against their data. Not a bad deal if you are a curious person like myself. I uploaded my raw DNA from AncestryDNA onto the servers and in a few minutes, got results.

I got some surprising results!

The Good:

• Dry earwax. No body odour. Likely Asian ancestry. Reduced colostrum. [not so sure about the colostrum since I successfully breastfed two babies with no problems. I am also not of Asian ancestry, according to AncestryDNA...but who knows. I DO have dry ear wax...it's like rocks in my ears.]
• reduced risk of acute coronary events
• 90% reduction in HIV viral load
• 0.71x decreased risk for dry age related macular degeneration
• probably able to digest milk
• reduced risk (0.59x) of pancreatic cancer
• 0.75x risk of narcolepsy compared to (A;G) genotype
• 0.78x decreased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 0.75x lower risk of Male Pattern Baldness. [phew! lol]
• Lower 0.87x risk of Type 1 Diabetes.
• Smokes normal (lower) number of cigarettes if a smoker. [I have never smoked cigarettes.]
• better odds of living to 100
• Lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Higher good cholesterol.
• Able to taste bitterness.
• 0.8x lower risk for migraines

The Bad:

• 2.6x risk of rheumatoid arthritis; 3.10x risk of SLE; 2.28x risk of Sjögren's syndrome; increased risk of type-1 diabetes; and increased risk of primary biliary cirrhosis.
• 1.7x increased risk of melanoma; increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma [apparently I carry one allele associated with an increased risk for melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma.]
• 1.2x risk Rheumatoid Arthritis
• 2.6 times higher odds of developing early stent thrombosis
• 1.5x - 2x increased risk for cervical cancer, HNSCC, and breast cancer [my half sister had breast cancer and a double mastectomy.]
• you are part of the 88% of the population who will not lose weight unless you perform high energy exercise [gah]
• 2.8x increased risk for psoriasis
• higher risk of ischemic stroke
• 3x higher risk for age-related macular degeneration
• higher risk for chordoma
• 2x higher risk of lupus
• 1.2x increased risk for type-2 diabetes [that's a given being that 2/3 of my family has the disease.]
• 1.28x increased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 2.1x increased risk of Crohn's disease
• increased risk of gastric and bladder cancer
• 2.67x increased risk for systemic sclerosis

The indifferent:

• I am female. [Well, yes.]
• probably light-skinned, European ancestry 
• Blue eyes [nope, green]
• ~0.8cm taller [yup]
• Lower HDL cholesterol in women and late-onset Type-2 diabetes
• possible risk for allergic asthma
• least likely to be able to smell asparagus metabolites in urine
• Associated with (slightly) increased coffee consumption

No, I won't take this as verified medical conditions I may or may not have, only a doctor can perform those tests. I think it's just something I should know in case there ever was something to come up, then I would have had a head's up.

All in all, I give it a thumb and a half up for information and two thumbs up for being entertaining. 

Places Where My Ancestors Lived: Skyland, NC

My great-grandparents Floyd and Maggie Searcy lived and raised their brood in a little place they called "Booger Bottom", which is in the unincorporated town of Skyland.

When I think of Skyland, I think of hills of trees and grass; of hairpin curves and convex mirrors at the end of every road. Traffic is usually light, but can be harrowing on ice-covered roads.

My Grandpa Searcy bought the home place for fifty dollars and a mule, or so I have been told. There was a log cabin on site and this is where the Searcy family lived, until each child grew up and married off. Grandpa Searcy lived there after Grandma Searcy passed away, in 1977, and continued to live there until he couldn't take care of himself [and the home started falling down.]

As a child, I remember my grandparents driving up and down the beaten path that led to the home place when we came to visit. I vaguely remember my Grandpa's milking cow, Bessie and trying to get out there to pet her. I will always remember the sight and smells of this little slice of heaven.

Thomas Herbert Cook, Sr.

Well, well. It looks like I have broke through a brick wall concerning Grandpa Tom. I have never really had much luck tracking information down on him, just scant census reports and names on his children's death certificates.

A few days ago, I reopened his file and was doing what I always do, and that is scrolling through the Family Search and Ancestry sites, plus Googling. Low and behold, his name appeared in some things from Jamestown, NC. I clicked on a couple of links and found out that he was one of the proprietors of Logan Manufacturing/Oakdale Cotton Mills! How exciting is that? The icing on the cake is that there is a book out there written by Mary A. Browning called, "Oakdale Cotton Mill" which goes through the history of the business from its earliest beginnings to when it officially shut its doors in the 2000s. Even better was that the author enclosed a copy of a tintype with Thomas. I was nearly in tears when I saw his face for the very first time. I could definitely tell parts of me came from this man.

If you are interested in purchasing this book, you may click here to find book sellers who carry it.

Now, on to Mary Jane Preddy Cook, his wife....

Ancestry DNA

My apologies for not updating this blog.


So, I finally sprung for the Ancestry DNA test kit. I have been going back and forth deciding whether or not it was worth splurging the $99 for, and I finally said, "Hey, ya know...this might be a wise investment. You always wondered the who's, what's, when's and where's."


The test came in and it was pretty simple. You just spit in the vial and put it in the enclosed box and ship it to the Ancestry lab, postage paid. About six to eight weeks later, you get a notice from the website that the DNA has been processed and you can see your results.


These are my results [Your results will most likely differ:]


Europe: 99%


Great Britain: 26% [pretty much had a clue about that since most of my family are from the British Isles]

Scandinavia: 23% [I had NO IDEA. Awesome!]

Ireland: 21% [much higher than I expected]

Europe West: 14% [This covers Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein; also found in England, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic]

Iberian Peninsula: 11% [This covers Spain, Portugal; also found in France, Morocco, Algeria, Italy]

Finland/Northwest Russia: 3% [That three percent makes me AWESOME. I love Finland!]

Europe East: <1% [ This covers Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia; also found in Germany, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Estonia, Bulgaria]



West Asia: Caucasus <1% [This covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey; also found in Bulgaria, Jordan, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Palestine, Romania, Turkmenistan]



It also linked me to distant cousins I never knew of and to those of whom are related to my biological father.


I also uploaded it to gedmatch.com and even though I don't know much about the technicalities of DNA testing, it did correctly predict my eye color. So there's that.



If you are curious to know where you came from, I would suggest buying a DNA kit. Ancestry DNA, 23andme, and a few more offer some great stuff.