Ok, my sister-in-law has been pushing for my husband to get a genetic test. Hubby is resisting as he hates the idea of his personal information available to a commercial company. I fully agree with him on this. That said, I have no experience with these companies. I can understand someone wanting to know their genetic makeup but do the companies disclose actual names of people who closely match the sample?
I don’t know, but I am assuming the relative of the donor she got in contact with voluntarily gave their identity out, with purpose that anyone could contact them after using the same DNA outfit.
“...but Teuscher said the apparent relative she found on 23andMe listed themselves as open to messaging.”
Maybe there are DNA outfits that keep everything confidential or just give a location as to were our ancestors come from. But I still wouldn’t trust them not to give or be forced to give their records to the authorities. I know I have relatives that have already done this dna stuff, but I am skipping it unless something medical comes up.
Freegards
They give the user name that is provided by the tester. Which can be anything you can make up, or your actual name. Most of the companies have a messaging system. You can also opt out of receiving messages.