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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask about ancestry etc DNA tests?

91 replies

ASpookyUsername · 31/10/2019 08:41

I have asked for a DNA test for my birthday as I'm really interested in my family tree and really want to get a few questions answered.

Which company is best? Ancestry, My Heritage etc?

DH is complaining about the cost of the tests, and then seemingly you have to subscribe? It looks like it could cost £150 in total which is a lot of money!

I really want a test but DH Is refusing to pay that much.

So which is cheapest but also gives good results? Not just ethnicity which doesn't really interest me. I want to see family members.

Can you get good results with the kit alone?

Anyone got any advice and tips?

OP posts:
SmallPinkBear · 01/11/2019 17:27

I have done the ancestry test and so have both of my parents. It is so interesting and very accurate as to the area of the country we are from. My parents have both done massive (1000+ people) family trees and have found the info invaluable
Also wait until Black Friday as they will definitely do offers

alwayscauseastir · 01/11/2019 17:36

My grandfather (now 87) found out that his dad wasn't his real dad on his wedding day. Even after his death, my grandads mum refused to shed any light on who his real dad was and therefore he has always been clueless. When his sister emigrated, that left my grandad with no family here (he had children but no siblings/cousins etc) and it's left him with a big hole for many years. Would a test like this potentially help identify his father, and any possible siblings? Even though he is late 80s now, he still thinks about it a lot.

Thedonkeyhouse · 01/11/2019 17:45

@alwayscauseastir It's possible that a DNA test could point to who your Dad's father was but that cannot be guaranteed.

Given your Dad's age, his parents obviously will not have submitted their DNA to the database - but potentially if he has any half siblings he is not aware of they might have done. It all depends on who has submitted samples really.

23 and Me gives you your paternal haplogroup if you are a male, which you inherit from your Dad. That could be interesting for your Dad to find out.

I'm not sure if Ancestry provides that information or not.

IceniSky · 01/11/2019 17:52

I would love to do the 23andMe one but do worry about data security. I believe in the US, the police used Ancestery DNA to capture a criminal? I think the subject hadn't registered but they ran the suspects DNA through it and it identified relatives which led them to him. Unless I dreamt it. Probably should Google.

OneForMeToo · 01/11/2019 17:53

@BuffaloCauliflower I couldn’t help with that anyway. I know the mans name and that is all. I would just be another name to add to the long list of children his given his dna too. He basically carried on with many women at the same time pretending to be single. I know I have siblings within months of my birth but I couldn’t tell you their names or genders, just that my mother found out she was one of many.

LetMeLayAmongTheStars · 01/11/2019 18:10

My DP is looking to do the test to find out his ethnicity, MIL won’t disclose, she is white but he is mixed race
Do you think the test would give a good enough indication?

Thedonkeyhouse · 01/11/2019 18:38

@LetMeLayAmongTheStars

I'm no expert but this is my understanding.

It could give him an indication, but it's not necessarily a guarantee that it can give him 100% accurate result about what he is.

One particularly interesting bit of information he should get is his paternal haplogroup - and that can be a good indication of what region of the world his Dad has his roots in, as that DNA is passed from Father to Son.

I think if I was in his shoes I would go for it, because while the tests are guess work when it comes to exact percentages, I think they are good enough to give him a vague idea what background his father had.

itsnotcycling · 01/11/2019 18:48

There's no way I would do this. These companies are a rip off and they end up owning your DNA (that they can sell or do whatever they want with).

LonginesPrime · 01/11/2019 18:56

I did DNA tests with both MyHeritage and Ancestry.com - each threw up new living relatives (including a family of cousins who grew up round the corner from my DF (unbeknownst to either of them), both families having emigrated from another country.

I wanted to do both as I was using both to build my family tree.

On the ethnicity point, they both came back with different results - broadly the same, of course, but different enough for me see that the algorithm the company uses makes a significant difference to the results.

I think for tracking down family, it's more useful if you've already fleshed out quite a bit if your family tree, because it will say 'this DNA match is likely to be your 3rd-5th cousin' and then you compare it to your own tree and all the lines it could possibly be a part of. You can also compare it to the match's tree, and what's super annoying is when people have paid for the DNA test but are sitting in a family tree on their own!

I personally prefer MyHeritage for ease of use (both in terms of family tree and DNA matches), although I think Ancestry has a much larger database.

Jinxed2 · 01/11/2019 19:07

I would like to do it because I suspect my father has told his other children that I am not his! So it’d be interesting to see if they did it at some point too and would prove him a liar 🤣

CaptainCaveMum · 01/11/2019 19:15

I did Ancestry and got very peculiar results that I haven’t got a clue what to do with. I was 50% one ethnic group/place of origin that correlated with my dad’s family so far so good
But my mum’s background was parents from 2 different European countries - but neither of those countries or any neighbouring ones made it into my long list instead I was given a list of Middle Eastern countries and areas for most of the other 50% Not sure what to make of this and GP are long dead so can’t ask but definitely have evidence of where they and their families lived. I guess I’ve assumed that their long lost ancestors were from the ME but that would be going back to beyond the 19th century and surely that’s incorrect in terms of results?

So OP more questions than answers, not sure I’d recommend

And if anyone can advise me that’d be great

SlightlyWizened · 01/11/2019 19:15

Do you think the ancestry one will go cheaper than £59?

Nanamilly · 01/11/2019 19:18

I would be surprised if you found any family members

Oh how wrong you are.

LetMeLayAmongTheStars · 01/11/2019 20:24

@Thedonkeyhouse thank you Smile

beanaseireann · 02/11/2019 02:51

Thank you BuffaloCauliflower

Myyearmytime · 02/11/2019 06:30

If you cheap tests wait till black Friday. They were 49 pounds last year and year before.
Amazon might go cheaper.
Test at ancestry and up load to my Heritage.
@captaincavemum look at history of where your gp lived .
Lots of middle eastern people in spain.

Indie139 · 03/11/2019 08:11

I personally think Ancestry dna is the best. I believe it has the largest number of testers and is quite popular. And its on sale for £59 right now.

I did the test 3 years ago and a few months later my mum did it. Ive found the whole thing really fascinating. We have also met family members in the past few months. We found something interesting..my mum has 1st-2nd cousins pop up but she has no idea who they are..they are from the same country that she was born in though. So theres obviously wrong info in the family tree, my mums half sister just did the test so we are waiting to get the results as we know it will narrow down if the mistake is on her mums or dads side.

These people are part of a huge family and we have been added to a family group chat of about 70 people. I also matched a girl as 2nd-3rd cousin..who turns out to have a twin sister. We are same age and have become really good friends. We are still trying to figure out the exact connection though. Either way, all 3 of us are going on holiday together next summer to the country their dad and my mum was born. My mum also matches them and we suspect their dad is her 1st or 2nd cousin.

I think its really good and would recommend doing it

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/11/2019 08:24

A member of my family did it, but this was more to find ancestral (ethnic) origins given that those family members we wish to find are not likely to have done the test (given that they live in a poverty-stricken country). We were initially surprised as the test indicated that we were not ethnically who we thought we were (waaaay back) until further research into migration patterns over a thousand years ago revealed that although we carried DNA from region x in a more recent historical era (that we have limited records from), but that ancestors we know the names of were indded from region 'y'. We learned a lot in the process.

lidoshuffle · 03/11/2019 08:25

I thought I'd read that they can get more information from the male line. Is that true?

I was thinking of getting my brother to do it. Shamefully I'm also thinking that the company will have his DNA not mine Blush Grin

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/11/2019 08:28

I thought I'd read that they can get more information from the male line. Is that true

That was true in our case although I don't fully understand the genetics/biology behind it. It has something to do with mitochondrial DNA. However, in our case, this was indicative of 'waaay back' ancestry and not living relatives.

UserThenLotsOfNumbers · 03/11/2019 08:42

Experienced genetic genealogist here. I'll summarise a few things here that I hope will help you decide.

If you are looking for relatives and not interested in ethnicity, the best test to do in my opinion is Ancestry. Ancestry has its limitations, but the majority of people are on Ancestry and most importantly you can upload your Ancestry results to multiple other sites for free, including GED Match. GED match gives you the tools to analyse the data that Ancestry thinks we're all to dim to work out. As PP have mentioned you won't be able to do much without an ancestry subscription, which I don't think everyone realises when they buy a kit.

The ethnicity estimations are a fancy parlour trick and will vary depending on who is in the company's reference database. This is what often leads to people saying DNA is unreliable. Your DNA relationship results e.g. centImorgans and segments numbers are definitely accurate, unless you come from an endogamous community (i,e, marrying within the community only and cousin marriages). That's a whole other post!

DNA will not censor and will reveal the truth. It needs interpretation and you will not get an instant family tree. You might find out unexpected things. If you take a test, you open a door that cannot be closed. I'm sure you realise this, but it's amazing how many people walk into this blindly because they think it's a bit of fun.

I would recommend reading genetic genealogy blogs on line and joining some Facebook groups to get a feel for what it involves. You don't need a masters degree to work it out, but you do need to understand certain things and interpret the data at least a bit. You want to research and understand centimorgans and segments. I use this site all the time: dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcm

You will probably get frustrated at DNA relatives who don't reply to a message or have very limited knowledge about the family (not their fault at all, just saying these things are common).

Whilst waiting for results, build your tree as much as possible and build up your knowledge, so when results come in you'll be ready to go.

You're welcome to PM me about this (I do not ask for money and don't have a business, so not looking for cash or business) if you like.

UserThenLotsOfNumbers · 03/11/2019 08:45

Yetanktherspartacus
Men can take a Y DNA test which reveals their ancestral paternal line.
The Y chromosome is passed mostly unchanged from your fathers, fathers, fathers, father etc. It is useful to confirm paternal linkage in general I,e, that a man comes from the Smith family line, but can not confirm paternity or close relationships.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/11/2019 08:57

Thanks for your posts User!

The ethnicity estimations are a fancy parlour trick and will vary depending on who is in the company's reference database

Does this mean, for example, that if one's ancestry is from a region where few people are in the database (because it is obscure, remote or poor or a combination of these) that ethnicity estimations will be lower for this region?

helacells · 03/11/2019 09:06

Ancestry is crap always upselling you for info that 23 and me gives for free. Also 23 and me has no subscription much better in content too

User12879923378 · 03/11/2019 09:10

I come from a very ethnically mixed family so was interested to see what came up. I did Ancestry and the results (recently updated) were pretty much exactly the ethnic mix I had been expecting, so no surprises there. I wasn't going to do the family tree bit but have changed my mind about that as my husband's family have done a lot of genealogy and I would like our child to have as much detail on my side to go with it.