Has anyone done a Ancestry DNA test??

[loopylass13]

Has anyone done a Ancestry DNA test?? How did it go? Did you get any answers in terms of relatives? Whether close and distant etc. Please tell me your experiences.

I am debating whether to do a test myself. One question - wondering if females can only trace the mother line and if males can only trace the father line, or whether the test links to all family no matter the gender?

Thank you x

I did one recently and it had a warning on the box saying that if you or a family member have ever committed a serious crime then it is not advisable as the police have access to the database. I'm not expecting anything interesting, my siblings and one parent have all had their results and they are pretty much what we thought.

@Printerneedsink - that’ll be at the 4th-6th cousins level so distant connections back in the 1700’s and 1800’s. It is an accurate test.

TaMere that article was written in 2013. The tests and results have changed so much since then as to make it irrelevant.

Printer the companies let you know the people you match particular bits of DNA with. By the time you get to third and fourth cousins there will be hundreds and you probably won't know them. The point is to see where your matches are to confirm the paper trail (or not). Particularly useful where you have gaps in your Tree/ Father Unknown.

Can I ask how you find out about all of the real life connections? My sister did the test and isn't a member of Ancestry, so she got just the percentage of different ethnicities in her DNA. I am an Ancestry member, so would I be able to find connections with other members? I'm not really clear how it works unless you can persuade other members of your family who are also on Ancestry to get tested?

I don't know what which ancestry company it was (it was in the US), but my brother's neighbour found out that her late father was not her biological father. Her mother confessed when asked about the strange results.

Printer only one is listed as a 2nd cousin and most seem to be 4-6th cousins as Banana and Weasel say. The guy who emailed me this morning is a 4-6th cousin. I have to say I am a bit confused as I was bought the test as a present but as I’m not a member of Ancestry.com I’m not sure how much information I can use. I’m not desperately wanting to try make a family tree but find it interesting how many potential (if rather distant) family connections there are.

If you don't mind me asking, how much are you spending on using these tools to do your family tree?

I'd love to do mine but not sure what the expense is

An aunt managed to trace my grandmothers family tree back to the 1700s not venturing far.

So was bit of surprise doing a dna thing to get 80% french/belgium/german as a result. The other 20% was Irish. No English at all. Which was unexspected.

My parents have done it, so I don’t think I need to bother! My father is very interested in tracing family trees and haa been in touch with potential distant cousins all round the world. The ethnic info is mostly as you’d expect but there is one genetic marker that is most usually found in Russia, no idea where that fits in. Could go way way back though.

I did the MyHeritage one and I was more British/Irish than I expected to be. The real mysteries for me are where the bits of North African/Balkan DNA come from as I've researched back to 1659 with one grandparent, and well into the 1840s with the others.

Ok, so no actual cousins, thanks. You won't have a lot in common with a 4th-6th cousin though.
Do they really pass on your DNA to the police?

This article is worth a read:

The Christmas present that could tear your family apart www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-46600325

My parents have both done Ancestry DNA tests done. Didn’t find any relatives and the ‘ethnicity’ results didn’t really tally with what expected. No ‘skeletons in the closet’ as yet.

On a fertility site I used to be a member of there were a significant number of people who didn’t plan to tell their donor conceived child about the use of a donor. I think that is untenable in these days of DNA testing and as it’s increasingly likely that medical treatments will be targeted based on various genes etc.

Personally I think it's outrageous that anyone wouldn't tell their donor child their parentage. I'd rather find out info like that doing a random DNA test than if I suddenly needed a transplant anyway anyway!

blueangel re the Balkan and African DNA, my sister's result included African, Russian and Iberian DNA, which doesn't tally with my research into our family. Many generations of our family lived around the London docks, so I assume there's quite likely to have been a fair bit of contact between locals and foreign sailors, merchants and other visitors, including prostitution & extramarital relationships which are unlikely to be traceable through official records but could be the source of the DNA.

Do they really pass on your DNA to the police?

There have been a number of high-profile cold cases solved in the USA by police accessing these databases and working out the criminal's family tree.

My father’s side are from East London near the Limehouse Docks. I’m apparently 5% African and 2.3% Finnish so there’s bound to be some link to foreign sailors etc.

I did the Ancestry dna test and it came back as boring as I thought it would be. It was hilarious to look at, just one part of the UK with just a few overlapping circles.

I bought one for DH ages ago. He sent it off and it was returned saying they were unable to do the analysis. They sent another one and the same happened again.
The third one is waiting to be done but I think he's lost interest.

DonotCone oh yes I agree. I personally think it’s morally wrong to keep information like that from the child and yes better to find out from a bit of genealogy than at a time of medical crisis.

I would love to.
Haven't done the test, but did trace our family tree. Going back to the 19th century there were lots of 'Rachel', 'Jacob', 'Sarah' etc so strongly suspect Jewish heritage. Which is super interesting as my Granparents+ generation are quite BNP/Racist.
Not sure how a DNA test would confirm anything though, just maybe identifying none-British heritage (which in itself would be enough to raise an ironic smile).

I have a genes reunited family tree and it matches names on your tree to similar names/DOB etc on other people's trees so this has helped me trace my mother's paternal side all the way back to the 1820s in Ireland.

As my maternal grandmother is German then that side of the family is obviously going to be harder to ascertain through either DNA tests or family trees using UK companies. I can go as far back as my great grandparents but no further.

DDad is NC with his family so again there is no chance of finding out anything about them and my dad would never trust a DNA site as he's extremely private and cautious in nature. He does believe however that he has siblings who were adopted and I would personally like to know if this is true but I dont know if that could be determined from my DNA alone?