you can impute full genomes with varying but still-better-than-whole-population-base-rate accuracy for any particular entry in the family tree.
True. But when the OP says "guess the complete sequence" I assume a much higher accuracy than just somewhat better than the base rate.
You can produce an estimate for the full sequence just on the basis of knowing that the subject is human (with some low accuracy), you can produce a better estimate if you know the subject's race, you can produce an even better one if you know the specific ethnic background, etc. It's still a statistical estimate and as such is quite different from actually sequencing the DNA of a specific individual.
I assume a much higher accuracy than just somewhat better than the base rate.
How much higher would that be and how do you know the Icelandic imputations do not meet your standards?
It's still a statistical estimate and as such is quite different from actually sequencing the DNA of a specific individual.
A 'actual' sequence is itself a 'statistical estimate', since even with 30x coverage there will still be a lot of errors... (It's statistics all the way down, is what I'm saying.) For many purposes, the imputation can be good enough. DNA databases have...
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