Ancestry

It seems Taylor Swift’s knack for writing runs blood deep — all the way back to poet Emily Dickinson. The “Karma” singer and the “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” author are distant relatives, specifically “6th cousins, three times removed.” Genealogical site Ancestry.com revealed on Monday that the two writers descend from “a 17th century English immigrant” who settled in Windsor, Conn. That distant ancestor was Dickinson’s sixth great-grandfather and Swift’s ninth, Ancestry.com added. Swift’s side of the family…

Looks like Taylor Swift‘s lyricism might be hereditary! On Monday, the genealogy company Ancestry revealed that it found historical documents that connect Swift’s family tree to American poet Emily Dickinson. Swift and Dickinson are sixth cousins, three times removed. According to Ancestry, both Swift and Dickinson descend from a 17th-century English immigrant — Swift’s ninth great-grandfather, Dickinson’s sixth great-grandfather — who settled in Windsor, Connecticut. Swift’s ancestors stayed in…

MyHeritage announced today that it’s launching OldNews.com, a new website that offers access to thousands of historical newspapers, mainly from the 1800s and 1900s. The website includes articles from major international newspapers to small-town journals and gazettes. Its search engine lets you quickly find information on a person, topic or event. OldNews is a subscription-based service that costs $99 per year and offers a 7-day free trial. The website allows genealogists, educators, researchers,…

You had an exclusive partnership with GlaxoSmithKline for five years, from 2018 to 2023. How successful was that?It was overwhelmingly productive. Fifty drug targets came out of it, far more than we expected. They upped it again for one more year, the sixth year, though it’s non-exclusive now. We now have the ability to mine the dataset for ourselves, as well as to partner with other groups. Both the 23andMe and the GSK team felt like there was so much in there, any one group can’t possibly mine everything. It’s a real…

There have been many mind-blowing revelations on Finding Your Roots, the Henry Louis Gates Jr.-hosted PBS television series that employs a team of professional genealogists to trace celebrities’ ancestral histories. We’ve learned that Bernie Sanders is related to his SNL doppelgänger Larry David, that actor Joe Manganiello is part-Black and descended from slaves, and that LeVar Burton is part-white, which caused the Roots star to jokingly scream, “Nooooooo!” The Jan. 30 episode of Finding Your Roots, now in its…

On Tuesday night’s episode of Finding Your Roots, LeVar Burton was shocked to discover that he’s part-white. Burton, the renowned host of PBS educational series Reading Rainbow and star of Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation, came into the show with questions about his family tree, since him and his two sisters were raised by a single mother, Erma Gene, in Sacramento, California. And Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the PBS genealogy series that traces celebrities’ ancestry, and is currently in its tenth…

At least 6.9 million users of 23andMe’s services have had their data accessed by hackers. That number is roughly half of 23andMe’s estimated 14 million user base. The original hack happened in October, but it was not publicly known just how many users were affected until this week.According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by 23andMe, the October hack originally accessed “a very small percentage (0.1%) of user accounts” by using compromised usernames and passwords from other sites that were the same as…

On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.” But 23andMe would not say how many “other users” were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October. As it turns out, there were a lot of “other users” who were…

An has revealed more details on that was disclosed earlier this fall. The company says its investigation found hackers were able to access information from 0.1 percent of its userbase, or the accounts of about 14,000 of its 14 million total customers, notes. On top of that, the attackers were able to exploit 23andMe’s opt-in DNA Relatives feature to access “profile information about other users’ ancestry.” 23andMe hasn't said how many of these users were affected. Hackers posted information from both groups online.When…

Genetic testing company 23andMe announced on Friday that hackers accessed around 14,000 customer accounts in the company’s recent data breach. In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Friday, the company said that, based on its investigation into the incident, it had determined that hackers had accessed 0.1% of its customer base. According to the company’s most recent annual earnings report, 23andMe has “more than 14 million customers worldwide,” which means 0.1% is around 14,000.…