Anybody done an Ancestry DNA test? Worth it?

[wheneverwhereverwhatever]

Hi,

I always tell myself that I'll buy an Ancestry DNA test next time I see them on offer. They're on offer now, but I'm unsure. Any one done one? Worth it? Can't help thinking that it would be an expensive way to discover that I'm totally English (as I suspect!) but I am interested in knowing for sure what my back ground is.

Anyone found out anything interesting from one? Or discovered distant family?

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/c/dna

I'm afraid not. You can do it the other way around which is why I always recommend to test with Ancestry first. Ancestry test is currently £49 which is the lowest it ever goes so it might well be worth paying for a second test. Drop me a line if you get stuck x

It may well be that your unknown sibling isn't a member of the database you chose anymore, so they won't get the message from you. Would be worth trying to locate them another way , but make sure your take screenshots of the relationship and your shared matches first. Drop me a line if you need professional help. X

Love this! Amazing!

I would not recommend MyH as a first point of call though as you can't download it and upload to Ancestry, who have by far the largest UK and worldwide DNA database. Spend the extra £16 and go for Ancestry.

I'm no conspiracy theorist but private companies owning DNA is a slippery slope for me.

We did one after we had traced my Father's family back to 1720. Direct line of sons.
Then did DNA found distant cousins we vaguely knew of. Dad was 30% central or northern Europe. Perhaps that is why he likes Polish beer.

I found out my grandad wasn’t my actual grandad. Found my real one (deceased), found a load of half cousins and discovered I’m mixed race not Caucasian. 😁

As it has not been mentioned yet, I would be concerned about data protection, giving some very important genetic info of you (and your wider family) to a commercial party, etc.

I just did my heritage and was informed that I am 99.2% Irish Scots, and 0% English and 0.8% Meso American

A bunch of 3,4 and 5 + cousins the closest matches in Ireland.

I did it to try and unlock my father's family as it is difficult to get beyond grandparents on that side. I am hoping it will help with that.

Wouldn't advise doing MyHeritage.

Ancestry has the biggest database of UK people so you are more likely to get matches there. You can also download your data from Ancestry and upload it to MyHeritage but not the other way around.

I don't think there is a problem because it is quite general, not specific. Just my suggestion.

How is your DNA not specific to you??

It can be used by police investigators to solve crimes; I read a newspaper article about it recently. In this case it hadn't been the killer himself who had uploaded his DNA but some (distant) relatives of his. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/02/how-police-using-dna-ancestry-websites-catch-murderers/

I did it as DD wanted to do her but I wasn't happy for her consenting to it as she was a tween. It didn't show up anything ground breaking lots of family in Ireland unsurprisingly as my maternal GPs were Irish and alot had gone over to America but I already knew that. I quite like the bit where it predicts your characteristics - apparently I should be blonde but could have children with red hair, I'm actually very dark brown but DD does have red hair

I signed up to Ancestry to find out more about my mum's family got her as her mum died when she was young and we've managed to piece together a little bit more story. Apparently the GGF came back from WW1 and married another women which I'm assuming was bigamy as GGM was still using his name until she got married to her second husband and no sign of a divorce.

I think I may do a DNA test when I'm old for genealogy reasons. But not before, because I'm worried that the government or private companies might buy up Ancestry.com and the like and use the DNA data against people in some way (like refusing medical insurance) Once your DNA is out there, you lose control over who can use it

Ancestry tells you through which of your parents a match is related to you.
I was surprised to see a bunch of distant cousins related to me through BOTH parents!
Apparently that can happen if a descendant of one of Parent 1's GGGG(n)Ps has a kid with a descendant of one of Parent 2's GGGG(n)Ps.

Yes, I did it. Mainly because there were some puzzles in my family tree, I wanted to see if DNA would help and it did. It does get complicated but the software is useful once you work it out. A moderate knowledge of how genetics works helps as well.

The big surprise was discovering two second cousins I didn’t know existed ( teenage pregnancies in 1960s when mother and baby homes sorted out the mess) well I knew about the one but was totally gobsmacked when I found out that my mum’s cousin had had not one but two teenage pregnancies.

My mum was a midwife and was pretty open about such things. I have an early memory of visiting the cousin with her and I’m sure she had just had the baby but was putting him up for adoption. I think she was allowed to look after him for a few weeks. The first one is the same age as me and was born in an unmarried mothers home so was kept very secret.

I had a lovely exchange of emails with one of them. They found out that they were half brothers when they both were looking for their parents. Their story actually made the nation newspapers.

I did a DNA test with Oxford Ancestry about 20+ years ago. It was when mitochondrial DNA had a lot of publicity. I did it to find out which of the "seven daughters of Eve" I was descended from, the seven being who the majority of Europeans trace their origins from. Turns out I'm descended from a woman who lived in what's the Afghanistan Iraq area!

More recently I got my parents to do both the Ancestry and 23&Me ones. Waiting for my mum's with 23&Me to come back to see what it says about her distant maternal ancestry, and how research in the intervening years may mean more is known than what was available when I did it.

It's fascinating stuff!

One of the things I'm hoping to find one day is the father of my Dad's grandmother. She was illegitimate and I hope to discover that one of the many people my Dad's linked to doesn't fit anywhere else.

I instigated family testing to try to trace my mother’s (unknown) father. We’ve unearthed an extraordinary story about her origins but the sting in the tail was discovering that I’m not related to my own (supposed) father. I’d now suggest caution for the reasons previous posters have given!

My Mum's parents were 5th cousins. I doubt they knew. I get quite a lot of people related to both of them.

How does Ancestry link you up with relatives? Can you decline a connection? I’ve thought about doing this but have one family member I am purposefully estranged from, so wouldn’t want to open up any avenues of communication from her. I know she used Ancestry a number of years ago.

How do you link ancestry DNA information to My Heritage? Any help please?

On Ancestry you download a file containing the results, then you can upload it to MyHeritage.

The download option is in the DNA settings bit of the test results.

Thank you 🙏