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Have you done one of those ancestry DNA kits or have any thoughts on them?

78 replies

Whatsmyageagain0 · 29/11/2019 14:07

My DM is the hardest to buy for. She always says ‘don’t buy me anything’ but of course we are going to.

Anyway, she’s always interested in her family tree and ancestry Etc so I thought about getting one of those kits online (and taken in by Black Friday)

Does anyone have any experience of them or thoughts on them?

OP posts:
TartanTexan · 30/11/2019 08:08

The police can’t access your DNA at AncestryDNA & you can delete it any time.

I wouldn’t upload the raw data to a public site like Gedmatch.

The ethnicity estimates are just that estimates, so can’t be completely reliable but the cousin matching part isn’t in dispute.

Drizzzle · 30/11/2019 08:10

They can't be particularly accurate if you keep "getting updates" !

Drizzzle · 30/11/2019 08:12

No I wouldn't do one, wouldn't risk my DNA being potentially misused.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

SashayThatWay · 30/11/2019 08:24

Husband has one, loves it. Can't see the appeal but each to their own. He's spends ages pottering about on it.

Vaguely remember reading a story somewhere recently (can't verify how true it is!) about a woman who forgot her login to one of the Ancestry dashboard, so bought a new one and sent off a new sample. The results came back saying she had an identical twin living nearby! Much excitement until her daughter pointed out it was her.

sashh · 30/11/2019 10:12

They can't be particularly accurate if you keep "getting updates" !

They update with other people's results. So with the 'ethnicity' they may get closer to a population.

So if you take the population of Eyam in Derbyshire you find a number of people who are immune to the plague because they are descended from people who survived the plague, so if you find that gene you might associate it with Eyam, but there are many other people who are also descended from people immune to the plague.

As more people submit DNA the result saying you are linked to Eyam reduces.

Obviously the DNA only gives you a vague general area not a single village.

SamanthaJayne4 · 30/11/2019 15:15

Yes, back to Adam. Descended from the second high king of Ireland. As are thousands of other people!

EoinMcLovesCakeJumper · 30/11/2019 15:51

Oh, that Adam. I thought you were talking about the biblical one! That would have been an extremely dodgy claim...

Ithinkwerealonenowtiffany · 30/11/2019 15:54

No i wouldn’t use one. Already found i have an older half brother after my mum had a relationship with a bloke who turned out had a wife.

I dont want more relatives coming out of the woodwork.

Im happy with what I have

weebarra · 30/11/2019 15:59

I wouldn't do it. I had genetic testing when diagnosed with breast cancer which showed that I carried the brca2 gene, as do my dad and sister. I wouldn't have liked to find that out outwith a medical setting.

Drabarni · 30/11/2019 16:03

I've done mine.
It's taken over my life and I had some earth shattering results.
Just bare in mind that DNA doesn't lie. Records can be wrong, people's memories can fade.
All might be well, and I'm glad on the whole that I did mine, but you do need to be a strong person or have support in case the results aren't what you have in your tree.

Aragog · 30/11/2019 16:03

It all of the dna tests gives medical information out. The ancestry one I did earlier this year didn't.

Aragog · 30/11/2019 16:05

They can't be particularly accurate if you keep "getting updates" !

You should see them as something that can shift a little. The more people who have them done the more people on the databases, so the results can alter a little and become increasingly accurate with time.

ILikTheBred · 30/11/2019 16:08

If you have any suspicion that there may be skeletons in the closet don’t do it. My DH found not one but two unexpected uncles through Ancestry.com. There is a lot to be said for letting sleeping dogs lie.

Drum2018 · 30/11/2019 16:12

Get the Ancestry kit. It doesn't give medical info. Dh and I both did it. He's adopted so it linked him to paternal relatives who didn't know about him - they were thrilled. I was convinced I'd be matched to a secret sibling but was disappointed not to be Grin. I did make contact with people who remembered my mum which was nice. There are always people being matched up so it's the gift that keeps on giving, unless the relatives are nuts Grin If your mum is interested in her family tree, it would be a great gift.

Deadringer · 30/11/2019 16:14

I got one for my mum and we were both very pleased with the results which seemed to be very accurate. I was so happy with it I got one for my dh and he was delighted with it, it matched him up with lots of long lost family. As pp said the results are not shared with other companies or the police and you don't have to connect with anyone you don't to. The police captured the hillside strangler through a relative's dna, but I understand that had been put up on a public search site, gedmatch or similar. I don't know how his relative felt about it but personally I would be thrilled if a vicious murderer was caught because of my dna. I would highly recommend, but keep in mind that if your family history is complicated it might throw up some unexpected results.

Drabarni · 30/11/2019 16:18

I had the ancestry kit with no medical, it's not something I needed on top of everything else.
I'm part of a huge specialist project as no idea before I started how important my DNA was.
I'm quite proud tbh, and have people contacting me all the time. I swear it has completely changed my life, but I'm not indicative of most people who take the test.
Why not drop a hint, tell her about a friend who has done it and see her response.

Dilkhush · 30/11/2019 16:28

I know a consultant oncologist who hates January because of having to manage people who have had one of these kits over Christmas and now want to talk through the implications of finding out their likelihood of getting particular cancers. He says it feeds the fears of the worried well and is largely unhelpful because, unlike NHS genetic screening, there is no pre test interview.
Presumably they don't all cover inherited disease.
If we did them in my family we would uncover unknown numbers of wrong side of the blanket relatives so I'd not touch it with a barge pole personally. Can of worms.

viccat · 30/11/2019 16:36

There was a story about them on Watchdog or similar programme not too long ago where one of the researchers did three different companies' kits and all the results were completely different. They basically came to the conclusion that all of us are a real mix of different backgrounds and most of the time the results are a bit random, I seem to remember she was told she was 1% Swiss in one test for example and 2% Norwegian in another...

Drabarni · 30/11/2019 16:38

There is no medical with the ancestry test. The companies that do offer it, do just that. You can have the DNA without the medical results.
I know lots of people who have taken the DNA test without the medical results.

lalafafa · 30/11/2019 16:56

Can they be done anonymously?

Graphista · 30/11/2019 16:58

Relatives of mine have been tracing my family tree one for each side of family.

You need to know your mum and if she could handle any unexpected discoveries?

They’ve discovered illegitimate children that are half siblings to other relatives and basically are evidence of affairs, we’ve also discovered very sad stories of relatives who were mentally ill or learning disabled and were institutionalised including a sibling to one relative that they never even knew existed (several years older than them, never spoken of or visited)

This information has caused some distress to some relatives.

These companies have been running for a bit longer elsewhere and there are even groups in America for people who’ve discovered as a result of these “fun” kits that their ‘father’ isn’t or that a sibling has different parents or that their parents have children elsewhere which are the products of affairs...

There’s even been stories of people being distressed to discover their heritage isn’t what they thought it was, which challenges their perceived identity and can make them question all sorts

There’s even been cases where a relative has tested dna, law enforcement has accessed records and discovered a familial match to awful crimes

IMO its a real Pandora’s box there’s no telling what will spill out

As for the storage of the dna, dna can be planted at crime scenes, the law at the moment may not allow insurance companies and law enforcement to access the data but laws can be changed and once they have the data it’s incredibly difficult if not impossible to “take it back”

IpanemaGallina · 30/11/2019 17:04

I had mine done 5 years ago. Really fascinating.

OneToughMudderFudder · 30/11/2019 17:49

I did an Ancestry one to try to find out if my bio father was my real father as my mother had told him I wasn't his, which he told me when we met after almost 40 years after he'd walked out on us. He refused to do a paternity test which confuddled me as he was the one who mentioned it and TBH I was desperately hoping the deadbeat wasn't my Dad!

It turned out that I was linked to a 90 year old man in Canada as a 2nd cousin. That man was adopted as a 3 year old and his children were trying to find his mother's family. His mother was my bio father's aunt who had emigrated to Canada but none of her family knew she had had a child adopted. I put his son in touch with my father and the old man was able to get pictures of his mother for the first time which was really heart warming. Unfortunately it also proved beyond doubt who my father is! I was shocked to find I'm half Irish as I always thought my fathers family were Scottish but they had had to leave Ireland. Something I'd probably never have known if I hadn't got the result and asked my father.

DD was very impressed and decreed that we start celebrating Saint Patrick's Day!

So I'm glad I did it. Not bothered about who can access my DNA really. I've got nothing to hide.

I'm getting one for DH for Christmas as his people's heritage is quite mixed and he has a look of a particular neighbouring country he hates (as they invaded his) so that will be very interesting!

Drizzzle · 30/11/2019 19:03

Yes I know sassh that's my point. The "accuracy" keeps changing so you never actually know how accurate the result is.
And just because the police/other authorities/insurance companies can't access the data now (I don't even know if that's true) that doesn't mean they won't in the future.
They can also have huge consequences (positive and negative) for families involved in adoption.

chomalungma · 30/11/2019 20:10

News to you.

We are all related to each other, and share lots of similarities with people from other countries- especially those who invaded us.

If you do a proper family tree, looking at all the relatives you have had in the past, and all the descendants they have had, that's a lot of people.

You can trace all those potential genes.