Special Guest Post by Wendy Kramer
[In response to Sperm donor anonymity and compensation: an experiment with American sperm donors, published in the Journal of the Law and Biosciences.]
My son Ryan and I were contacted by Family Tree DNA in 2004, as they thought that their new commercial DNA testing capabilities might be useful to Ryan, and to the others in our community of donor conceived people at the Donor Sibling Registry. At that time we thought it might be possible to find out more about one’s ancestry and countries of origin. Ryan was excited to learn more about his “invisible” paternal ancestry, so quickly agreed to swab his cheek, send in his sample and see what he might learn. He may have been the first donor-conceived person to throw his DNA into a public DNA database, making himself available to connect with previously unknown genetic relatives.
At first, he did learn a bit more about his paternal ancestry, specifically about countries of origin. He learned that he was mostly English, with some Irish and even a bit of Icelandic (which he thought was pretty cool). He also matched with people on his 12 and 25 Y Chromosome DNA markers, which meant that common ancestors related them from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. And for 9 months he was content with that little bit of information. Read More