Has anyone had one of the Ancestry DNA kits? What did you think?

[LucyTrainsDragons]

I’m toying with the idea of getting one.

If anyone has had one of these what did you think?

Any recommendations?

I did DNA Ancestory.
fascinating but I'm adopted and hadn't realised it linked you automatically to relatives.... can of worms

I've been considering this too! When you pay for the kit do you have to then pay the monthly fee also?

I'm adopted and hadn't realised it linked you automatically to relatives.... can of worms

I'm adopted too and that's one of the reasons I've been put off doing one. I'm lucky in that I do know my ethnic background. I was a private adoption (in the '50s) so my parents met my bio-mother who gave them a lot of information re my heritage so for me it would just be for confirmation. Although I thought you could 'opt out' of genetic matches.

My cousin (also adopted) did one and unbeknownst to her, her DD posted her results for family matches. They aren't 'bad people' but her bio-mother seems to want a mother/daughter relationship with her that she (my cousin) doesn't want, she'd rather they just be 'friends'. She also keeps referring to my cousin by her 'birth name'. It's a bit uncomfortable for her.

I am on both Ancestry and 23andMe - both very good in their different ways.

Think about what you want to learn. Are you interested in breaking down brick walls in your family tree? Finding living relatives? Discovering health-related genetic traits? Obtaining an ethnicity estimate? (NB this last is perhaps the most heavily-marketed and least scientifically meaningful aspect).

Different sites/providers of genealogical DNA testing have different strengths. If you want to discuss pros and cons you may want to head over to Rootschat at www.rootschat.com where there are many threads on this topic (in fact a whole board dedicated to the subject).

NB for those worried about unwanted contact with birth families or unknown blood relatives etc - none of the genealogical DNA providers expects you to place identifying information about yourself online. Choose your privacy settings and usernames carefully and it will not be an issue. Your DNA matches will not know who & where you are IRL any more than fellow Rootschatters do - unless you choose to tell them. In fact there has been a recent thread on Rootschat started by someone who has a tantalisingly large (first cousin-type) DNA overlap with a mystery match on Ancestry, but unless the match chooses to respond to a direct message they have no way of identifying anything about them.

I did a research project on it for my international diploma and found it really fascinating, my preferred site was 23 and me but if you want accurate results apply to a few. Also please keep in mind they can only guarantee at maximum around 50% accuracy for locations.

I Have 23 and me, and all i get is third to sixth cousin matches. It did confirm the Irish element in our family, but not much else really

There was a program on these recently and found 3 different kits gave 3 different results.

During my search I found a cousin that was adopted out that I didn't know about, he's hilarious

@Pixxie7 it's because they only guarantee 50% accuracy so they can vary by a degree of upto 0.5, 50%

Really interesting, thanks for your replies.

I didn’t even realise that you could find long lost relatives through this? I just thought you could find out your DNA history.

Is there an ‘opt in’ option when you send your details off?

You’ll be able to access online lists of people who are DNA matches with you if they have used the same provider. Specific privacy arrangements on different sites vary but, as I mentioned before, you do not have to reveal your identity publicly on any of them. Some people use their full name as a username on these sites, but many don’t. On Ancestry and other sites you can link a test to a family tree and find deep documented ancestry if you are matched to someone with a detailed tree (but never take someone else’s tree as accurate without careful checking).

Don’t get too invested in the much-advertised ethnicity/geographical ancestry thing though. Matching you with individuals is accurate; matching with a geographical area is not. These providers are comparing your DNA to its pools of others who have tested with them. This comparison involves quite a lot of interpretation, and obviously depends on how large and representative their pool of test subjects is. This is why results on this aspect will vary quite a lot between sites.

E.g. my detailed family tree shows my ancestry to be overwhelmingly English, with a good sprinkling of Scots and a little sprinkle of Irish. One of the genealogy sites gets this bang on, but another thinks I am 40% Scandinavian and quite a bit German. The reality is that populations with deep ancestry in all these regions have a lot of overlap (lots of old Scandinavian ancestry in Scotland and Yorkshire, for example) so the labelling of it is more of an art than a science.

I did 23andme, two attempts. Both times they couldn’t find any DNA!

So I’m dead, which is disappointing.

They did refund me though.

Chatons - think kindly of us when the Mothership lands.

I’ve done it and it has been fascinating. I thought I was 50/50 Irish/Scottish but it turns out I have a bit of French Creole with lots of distant relatives turning up in New Orleans and Quebec. One of my aunts tried to do a family tree years ago and kept finding stuff linking us to parts of Africa and the Deep South of USA and we thought she’d made a mistake, turns out she was on the right lines.

I’m definitely an ersatz version of a human being.

I asked my mum if I’m a robot, and she just laughed. Evasion tactics.

If you want to do the test to find others researching branches of your family tree, distant cousins. Or to find clues to your family before adoption then it can be useful But you will only find this if other people you're related to have taken a test as well

If you want to find the ethnic mix of your ancestors then it's a waste of money. The ethnicity side of these tests are flawed and especially any small percent in those results should be ignored

You have to be prepared that some very damaging information can come to light. There was a thread from yesterday that I posted on...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3933752-Supporting-DH-through-DNA-to-find-out-who-his-father-is

I did the Ancestry one was disappointed to find I'm not half as exotic as I was hoping. Even more disappointed to find out that my brother and I don't have the same dad, so I'm definitely in the can of worms camp.

Exotic, like fruit?

The need to know about your biological family can be so much stronger than any of the emotional risks, I’m very glad I did it multiple times (ancestry.com, 23andme, myheritage and others). I’ve shared screenshots elsewhere on MN that show how similar the results were between companies. My dad had already tested so he came up as my closest match and it was surprisingly easy to find my maternal grandfather- maybe not easy, it was time consuming but straightforward by grouping matches with other shared matches.

Seriously, you're taking issue with my use of exotic?
My dh was convinced I am related to Pocahontas, he thinks I look exotic and beautiful. If it offends you..

I did ancestry dna and then a while later signed up for a month of ancestry so I could build a family tree.
DNA wise it shown up a few 3rd and 4th cousins for me. One of my mums Aunts has recently sent me a message as she’s in charge of her sons account (he’s one of several cousins apparently) and she wants to know more about us. There’s sad family history surrounding why my mum wasn’t in contact with her own mother from a very young age and they know almost zero about us and my mum’s not keen on makbig contact with any of them so I’m cancelling my subscription soon .

I did Ancestry .com to get my ethnicity - seemed very accurate - I'm Scottish/Irish with a touch of German and Norwegian. I also did my family tree on there.

I did 23andMe to find out what I have genetic risk factors for and to link up to some long-lost cousins.

I enjoyed doing both, found it gave me hours of interesting research and reading actually.

I did mine recently but didn’t want to have family matches so I opted out of that. Think it was fairly accurate in terms of where I’m from originally but I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more to it. I did the ancestry one. I may do another to compare.

I did Ancestry DNA and found it really interesting. It gave me the results I expected based on family history though. I would love to do 23andme for the heath side but I also sort of don't want to know!

I uploaded my results to My Heritage DNA too and it gave slightly different categories. When my parents took My Heritage DNA test the system immediately flagged them as my parents though which was fascinating.

@kenzobaby as I stated before they are fairly accurate for a broad pinpoint but on your account you will see at the bottom it is only set to roughly 50% accuracy