DNA for ethnicity only

[Mousey23]

I'm adopted, and have never had any wish or need to find any biological relatives.

However, I don't look stereotypical British - more Mediterranean - and would be interested to know where my historical ancestors came from.

Are there any companies which offer this service only? I wouldn't either want to receive any information about relatives, nor for my information to be held on any database for others to find me.

You can choose not to see your DNA matches on Ancestry, it will still give you information about your ethnicity estimates and the genetic communities you match with. You can trace their migrations over the past five or six generations.

I don’t know if 23andme do this but it does give you additional information about your maternal haplogroup (and paternal if you’re a man) and the option to find out about your risk of certain hereditable conditions.

I just checked the privacy settings on 23andme and you can choose not to participate in the generic relatives thing.

My friend's mum was adopted and he was convinced he was of Mediterranean descent. His mum finally found out who her parents were through one of those ancestry websites. His grandparents were white and from Suffolk and he most definitely was not Mediterranean despite years of telling people he was due to his "colouring".

Also, the ethnicity estimates are just that- estimates. It’s generally thought that they are fairly accurate on a continental level. Having said that, I had a surprise ethnicity pop up and it turned out that I do have ancestors of that ethnicity.

Any of DNA tests would be fine. You just set you settings to not get DNA matches. Our family used MyHeritage

Having tested three highly diverse generations with most of the main companies I would say MyHeritage are the least accurate. But still interesting.