Which Ancestry Kit?

[SiouxsieSiouxStiletto]

They are on offer at the moment and thought of getting DH one for Christmas as he's always white ring on about his family tree.

I can't really see what the benefit of the most expensive one is though. Can anyone help?

Anyone?

One hopeful last bump.

Ancestry.co.uk seem to be the most popular, so you are more likely to find people related to you and build a decent tree. I found long lost relatives of my mums last year after many years of trying, she was thrilled.

Perhaps listen to ‘The Gift’ on BBC sounds podcast before doing this!!

Is is about DNA data storage issues?

I've got a kit in my sock drawer and I'm unsure about using it for this reason. But it's probably the only way I'll get answers to my parentage.

I will. I've heard a lot of stories where things have gone slightly astray and they do say that one third of all DC don't have the DF they think they have.

It's for DH though and his DM was the most God fearing, well behaved Woman that you're likely to meet not not sure there will be too many surprises there, you never to know though

There was a news item about myheritagedna, something about it being hacked, so maybe avoid that one? I don't have any worries about my dna being stolen, if anyone can do anything nefarious with my dna, good luck to them I say.

I've just downloaded the first episode to listen on my commute tomorrow.

Ancestry have their offer on fir a little while yet so I have time to decide whether to buy one

It’s been fairly hair raising tbh!! I’ve listened to it in shock 😲

A colleague of my DSIS did one and found out she was half Japanese. Confronted her DM who told her about a Japanese Salesman who was her real DF.

I asked how she couldn't have known that she was half Japanese but apparently she doesn't look that different from her DM.

omg!!

Honestly some of the things are 😲😲😲
Some is about fathers not knowing they weren’t but other stories are about horrendous IVF cock ups or awful fraud going back to the 1950’s in fertility clinics. I didn’t even know that was a thing then.

@Noname99 I've listened to three episodes already. If you wrote the Justice episode as a short story everyone would tell you it was too far fetched, right down to the Uncle consenting to giving his DNA just wanting to know his heritage.

I know!! The whole thing is frankly shocking. And the poor lad in ‘mistake’ finding out his dad wasn’t his dad after the family decided to do the test for fun and they found out the fertility clinic messed up. It’s so eye opening how unregulated it all is!!
I won’t spoil it but there is a slightly grim humour moment in the 4th one Race with some white supremists getting interesting news!

I know!! The whole thing is frankly shocking. And the poor lad in ‘mistake’ finding out his dad wasn’t his dad after the family decided to do the test for fun and they found out the fertility clinic messed up. It’s so eye opening how unregulated it all is!

The lack of regulation was quite frankly staggering. I keep saying that the law isn't keeping up with technology at the moment for instance accepting video evidence when we know that people can create deep fakes.

I won’t spoil it but there is a slightly grim humour moment in the 4th one Race with some white supremists getting interesting news!

Good I always like those sort of stories. We live in an Island that has literally had people from other countries cone and live here for thousands of years. Who would he stupid enough to think there is such a thing as being purely British?

I recently did 23andme. It said I am 99.9% British and Irish. However, it then says something like "this is where people with your dna live" so I don't think it's accurate and as I have always been told my great grandparents are other races/countries (though one is Irish) I believe it to be absolute bullshit. I also get recommendations that x person is my third cousin because we share teeny weeny % of dna and they are definitely not related. It also says my haplogroup and how much Neanderthal dna I have.

Some people in my direct family did ancestry and got 10% Spanish and it talked about movements. Seems more accurate but I didn't read the report.

and how much Neanderthal dna I have.

One if the many reasons that I don't want to do one is that I suspect my percentage would be quite high

It's a really interesting series and throws up lots of questions. However I thought that the stuff about being this percentage Chinese and that percent African etc was generally thought to be pretty unreliable. They did refer to that at the end of the episode by saying that different companies can give different results for this, but that was after having built a whole episode on people finding out what percentage race they are.

I've listened, well half listened, to that episode today.

I found the Woman who came to Judaism really interesting, especially the idea that she felt so at home why first going to the synagogue.

The chap who studied the white supremacists chat about what racial purity actually jeans was quite interesting too.

*means not jeans!

I did 23andme as I was interested in the health stuff. Found about 4000 fairly distant relatives (2nd cousins and more distant), mainly Americans oddly.

then a year later did ancestry to see if more English relatives. Found two half cousins and a load of other relatives I knew nothing about and realised my grandad wasn’t my grandad! My grandma was a god fearing religious pillar of the community type as well! 😆

I think mostly I'd like to know who I'm really related to.

Yes, I’m glad I found out. It’s been an interesting journey. My ethnicity isn’t even what I thought it was!

They do say that one third of all DC don't have the DF they think they have.

That's not true, but a commonly heard rumour. It's more like 1%.

In terms of the Ancestry kit for genealogy, I would go for the basic one. That is the kit that will provide matches with close genetic relatives and show you how much DNA you share with each. You will also get the ethnicity estimate which is fun, but not hugely scientific. The "traits" feature which Ancestry is rolling out on the more expensive test will say things like you're more likely to have curly hair, or have freckles or whatever which personally I don't think is that useful. It's not one of the tests giving health information like you're more likely to have the gene for a certain condition.

The BBC series "DNA family secrets" is a good watch if you're interested in this sort of thing.

Thanks for clearing that up stroop

That's true re the traits. One of mine said I'm 50/50 for something and I thought aren't we all?! As someone with freckles, it's clear to me that I'm more likely to have freckles.