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

Thanks for sharing that fascinating read shins, so satisfying when they figured it out in the end!

I've decided to test the waters and get DH one of these kits, and he's shown some interest. He's a carbon copy of his dad, so I'm not worried he'll find out he's not his son. Apart from that, he knows very little about his roots. He had always assumed everyone he descends from was Irish, but recently there's been some confusion over where FIL (now deceased) was born. MIL has fallen out with all her family and doesn't talk about it, so DH doesn't know any of his cousins or anything like that. I hope this might help him know more...

Would I get more info about myself if I got my brother to test himself as well as me.

I'm interested in getting one as, while I know quite a bit on my Dad's side, my Mum's side is a bit of a mystery. Mum never knew the identity of her father (born out of wedlock and his name wasn't on her birth certificate), and, beyond her grandparents, knew little of her family history besides her grandfather being from Scotland and her grandmother from Wales. When we tried using Ancestry a number of years ago, we did struggle to find anything beyond it being possible that her grandfathers family had moved to Scotland from Ireland and the trail going dead with her grandmother as we had no definite birth year. I'd love to fill in the gaps on the family tree, confirm what we pieced together about Dad's side (traced to 1600's before losing the trail) and see what I can find, if anything (aware that it's possible I won't find anything on that side), about Mum's side of the family/

Cattus - Possibly. Your brother could have DNA segments that you don't, that tell you more about your ancestry/origins than can be determined from your sample alone. Your brother may also be matched with people you're not, and vice versa, even though you're both related to them. This is more likely for distant relatives though. It's unlikely that you wouldn't both show as matches with a close cousin, for example.

Or, hopefully unlikely, but it's not unheard of for siblings to do tests and find out that they only share their mother and actually have different fathers.

Jaysus... ok, I have found something unexpected in (DD's) ancestry.com test. In past I tested me, my grandmother, my cousin, with nothing so interesting found.

2 people are flagged as likely 1st-2nd cousin (for DD!). For sure, one of them is DD's 1st cousin 2xR. So I know all about her.
I do NOT know the other 1st-2nd cousin (a bloke, person2).

He matches with 2 other distant cousins, who do not match with each other. They are both related to my grandmother & therefore her children, however. Also my grandmother's sister... come to think of it.

My belligerant drunk mother once said that my dad's mom gave up a child in WW2 due to illicit pregnancy. My dad denied all knowledge (I think he would have confessed any truth he knew). So I dismissed as drunken rant, and anyway, my dad's step-mother did have an love-child from affair in the war. I thought my mother confused her 2 MILs.

Now... I'm.not.so.sure. I message Person2, to see if he wants to explore mutual connections. The worst part of this story is I bet he never replies, argggh.

ps: before anyone freaks out, if this means a long lost sibling or set of cousins, my dad & family will be thrilled. But still... freaky!

Pinkginxx

Go back a few hundred years. Jewish people originated in and around what is now Israel.

Say 1000 people left, they all have Jewish/Israeli DNA, they go to live in 4 different places so 250 in each area. The 250 who go to Eastern Europe live amongst people with European DNA but marry within the 250 people. Judaism doesn't actively go out to convert people so grand children and great grandchildren share their DNA with their own community and with the descendents of the other 750 in different places.

Then there are two things that can happen, one is a mutation in the genes, so if this is the group of Jews living in eastern Europe they now share most of their DNA with the other 750 but there is a mutation that means there is a small difference.

The second thing is that although conversion to Judaism isn't common it does happen and the most common reason will be a marriage between one of the 250 and their descendents and a local.

This introduces a new gene in to the gene pool of the group in Europe.

Now the same things will be happening in the other groups,so they are developing small changes too.

Now if someone leaves one of the groups and travels to, say Scotland, they take their 'Jewish eastern European DNA' with them.

They may not practice their faith, or even totally leave it. If they then marry a local Scottish girl then their child will have a mix of Scottish and Jewish (E European) ancestry.

That person's children, grandchildren etc will have that DNA which will be mixed with the DNA of the other parent.

YeOldTrout - how many cm shared re: these matches?

What's the difference between Jewish and Semitic DNA from other people living in the area?

I had a 23andme kit for Christmas which I'm very excited about. I've sent it off and now have to wait.

I was told my G3Grandfather was black. I'm not. Hopefully we shall see.

@Kingforrun I'm pretty sure it's not my Dad's side as I'm matched on there on someone I know is from my Dad's Dad's side and they are a mutual match with my 1st cousin match....

I wish they would reply and put me out of my misery. I can't beg you all enough to do these tests. They really do change the lives of people who have massive gaps they would like to fill.

not a match with my first cousin!

@Donut - can you get Mum to test? Her share will shed more light. (The cm). When did these good matches last log in?

Do you and these unexpected strong matches shade a genetic community? If so, any clues. Are they listed by name or username? Any clues there?

NB: share a genetic community with you I mean.

Genetic communities are really helpful, ancestry renamed them ‘migrations’ now - there’ a drop down menu on your dna matches page

Eg

Anyone into true crime will be aware how useful theses sites are for tracing jane and John does. A brilliant podcast called Bear Brook goes into great detail about how the testing is used to identified unknown deceased and a child kidnapping victim. Amazing stuff.

Someone put a link to the bbc podcast episode which covered some heart wrenching stories but I absolutely loved how one woman who found out her dad wasnt her biological father said in the future it will never be an issue that children will be lied to about their paternity, how true is that.

It only allows me to search for one region which is odd?

But I am 98% from the UK and Northern Europe and. 2% Norwegian so maybe that's why.... I was sort of expecting 'Northern Europe' to be broken down a bit more.

My match hasn't logged on since June :(

Do you have regions with dotted lines around them? They’re in blue, orange, red - with a timeline?

💐 patience and perseverance are definitely key here

I only have one orange region, the East Midlands. Literally all my matches are from there, or just outside the orange patch. Even my DNA is boring :(

Unless I'm looking at the wrong thing?

Sashh I’m trying to understand your explanation to PinkGinxx but I find it so hard to get my head around this sort of thing. If Jewish people originated in the Middle East can’t be DNA test not go back far enough to pick up DNA from those regions? Has their DNA mutated so that only the countries they’ve migrate to is present? I expected my test to show up some Middle Eastern areas not just the central and Eastern European ones my family presumably migrated to at some stage? I’m so confused as to whether I’m as the test says 100% European Jewish or whether there might be Middle Eastern DNA that isn’t detectable due to the test not going back that far?

Sorry about all the typos.