DNA ancestry test

[Resembleflower]

I want to do one, I’m aware of the potential of finding hidden secrets. I’m pretty sure there are some… Husband and kids think I’m selling my soul to some company who will harvest my DNA. Are they dodgy? Love to hear from others who have done one.

Once that door’s open, you can’t shut it. It’s not just about you and your idle curiosity. Finding out a secret ( illegitimacy, criminality etc) will have real life consequences for people besides you. Ask yourself if your curiosity trumps their right to have their privacy and feelings respected? If someone close to you hasnt told you something- their ‘secret’ or someone else’s- they’ll have their reasons. Perhaps to protect someone else they love and respect or even you.

Used 23 and me and it was great. Really interesting to find out about your countries of heritage and the most that came up for the people I know are distant cousins all over the world.

It’s not a secret I’m digging for is truth about my parents. As one of my parents has said they aren’t my biological parent. It was said in anger by them and kind of retracted. So not Idle curiosity, and I don’t think my wants trumps theirs. But I do feel I have a right to explore this if I want to.

It will only link to people who have already submitted their DNA so if both or neither of your parents haven't used the site, it won't tell you anything. I sent mine in and the closest person who had submitted theirs was my mums cousin so it was all a bit dull to be honest.

Actually, I suppose it could throw up people that you had no knowledge of which may give you some clues...

Yes definitely worth it. We have used it to trace biological family.

You don’t need the actual person you are looking for to have tested, it will link you to others related to them. You can then use those matches to work out your biological line.

They’re not dodgy but are widely misunderstood.

a genealogy dna test is about expressing your dna as a long string of letters. It then looks for other people who have same letter combinations as you in the same places. The site will then tell you how many Centimorgans of DNA you share, the higher the number, the closer the relationship. What the sites can’t do is tell you exactly how two people are related, they can just suggest relationships. You still have to do the hard work of understanding how people fit together.

I would always advise any uk based test taker to test with Ancestry. They have the largest British database for a start, and you can also extract your data from ancestry and upload it to other sites, ancestry doesn’t allow uploads.

Parents may not have submitted a dna test but it could match with unknown half siblings from the suspected non biological parent. Anyone who submits a test is warned that it could throw up surprises/shocks, so people do so at their own risk.

@LakeTiticaca yes, I did think about this after, hence my second post.
My family turned out very boring which is a good thing in this context I suppose!

Can I ask about privacy and using Ancestry DNA? A friend of mine was contacted, after she'd done the test, via email, by distant relatives. You can opt out of that or use smoother display name?

You can only be contacted through the Ancestry website. You can choose whether to share email or phone number if you want to. The whole point of these tests is matching with people though so most people do want to be contacted.

They will own your data, yes. But we sell all our information about us everywhere every day. I'm actually less bothered about some company having my genetic information than I am with Google knowing my every single move at all times through my phone.

You may find something interesting. You may also find nothing much at all. I did one with the hope of possibly uncovering something interesting about my family background (my family is either dead or I am NC with them). Sadly, no juicy secrets to be discovered. It was helpful though to learn more about my family when I don't really have anyone around who I could ask.

Are there DNA testing firms which look more at the patterns of your DNA regarding likely countries your ancestors came from (eg Viking, Celt, Mediterranean etc) rather than linking you with other people who have had DNA tests through that company?

All of them do this to some extent. It’s a bit of fun and not terribly scientific.

This is what I am also interested in. My DH would love to know his ancestry, but not interested in finding related people.

Ancestry tells you your likely DNA heritage but it is not 100% accurate. It originally had me as 82% Scottish, 17% Irish and 1% Welsh but it has now changed me to 89% Scottish and 11% Irish.

I know my great great grandparents came to Scotland from Ireland so the 11% makes sense.

You need relatives also on Ancestry who tested their DNA, to then see if you match them, to see if your parent (who also should match them) told truth or not.

Or has the retracting parent agreed to also test to prove something to you?

I found a big family secret but not regretted AncTest.

its just a spread sheet, and a con

Depends on the site. Both my parents are dead so can't submit DNA but I did get matches to people I knew who were cousins, along with a whole load of other, more distantly related people.

You can just submit your own dna of your parents have died.

You do however need basic genealogy skills to build trees, understand where people might fit in and sort your dna matches into maternal / paternal. Or you can pay a genealogist to help.

I did one of these tests a couple of years ago as I had no contact with my late father’s side of the family and knew that there were many of them out there.

As a consequence, I reconnected with cousins who emigrated when I was a child. I’m currently in Australia visiting them!

It’s not a con at all, it analyses your DNA and shares a database based on those who match you.

Wrong on both counts.

I did the Ancestry DNA test. It was very helpful in compiling my family tree. I am 5% Jewish which I had no idea about. I traced the people and now know exactly who they were and where they came from. My one DC finds it interesting. My other DC is not in the least bit interested and my DH has no interest at all.

I’ve done an ancestry test. I was half expecting to find unknown half siblings but what I actually found was lots of skeletons in the cupboards of extended family members, confirmed by lots of hard work building a family tree so I understood where everyone fitted in. I’ve made contact with a couple of my mum’s cousins and exchanged lots of family photos and history previously unknown. I also discovered that my paternal grandmother was an absolute monster who abandoned children all over the place (I only met her once, so it wasn’t upsetting). It’s been very interesting but I was expecting something awful so I was prepared for it. If I’d been expecting everyone to have behaved themselves, I’d have been quite shocked.

It’s very easy to maintain your privacy on the site. No one can contact you, except through the site and there’s no obligation on you to reply if you don’t want to. Users don’t see your email address and your user name can be anything you want it to be. Lots of people only use initials. The process can’t tell you exactly what relation someone is to you, but it can tell you roughly how closely you’re related. There are thousands of people I share something like 3% dna with who are estimated to be somewhere around 8th cousin to me, so not of much interest, but the people I knew already, or people I’ve discovered through the test have been correctly identified as the right relatives (first cousin, second cousin etc). Also, it helps you work out whether matches are paternal or maternal.

My ethnicity estimates have changed since doing the test, but it does explain that the more people who take the test, the more people they have to match you with. I’m pretty much English and Irish, with a smidge of Welsh and it has identified parts of the UK and Ireland where people with my dna can be found. This tallies with the research I’ve done on my tree, so I’m happy it’s not wildly inaccurate.

I do have some privacy concerns for the future, but it sets out very clearly what they can and can’t do with your information and they ask for your consent for various things, which you don’t have to give. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that none of my relatives murder anyone.