How we’re building the world’s largest family tree | Yaniv Erlich

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Computational geneticist Yaniv Erlich helped build the world's largest family tree — comprising 13 million people and going back more than 500 years. He shares fascinating patterns that emerged from the work — about our love lives, our health, even decades-old criminal cases — and shows how crowdsourced genealogy databases can shed light not only on the past but also on the future.

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20 Comments on How we’re building the world’s largest family tree | Yaniv Erlich

  1. Not possible. I can’t even view my whole family tree on Ancestory.com because my distant billionaire family members have it locked up.

  2. Why would you want to spit in the tube and give all your genetic information to any company that can use it against you for hereditary reasons free pre-existing reasons people are so freaking stupid! Why do you think all these companies are collecting this information you think that they are just doing it to help you find your long lost ancestor? One day they are going to say oh Mr. we have a history of you having two beers a day or you are living a risky lifestyle and we’re not going to ensure you because your genetic background. Now you may say I’m nuts but you freaking nuts are letting them have your Geno type your blood type everything in these companies are not protected by law. These people are testing for genetic problems all Pre-existing kidney disease you name it and you’re on their list you’re freaking stupid stupid is as stupid does.

  3. This is creepy because it is the one area of digital privacy that we have absolutely no control over if just one family member shared theirbdata.

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