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?

I have done 23 and me. It was pretty accurate for me - it reflected what I know about my heritage. It showed my genetic mutations - I had this done on the NHS previously. I was happy with my result.

I had thought ancestry was more for finding relatives and exploring your family tree, whereas 23andme was more about your own health conditions? Might be wrong though. A friend did 23andme and paid extra to know about her potential for getting dementia and other conditions in the future.

DH and I have done Ancestry. If you are UK/Irish/US etc it’s the most popular one. You can also use their results on My heritage and some of the other sites (Not 23 and me). For health you can try Promethease site for a few quid.

My Heritage has more Europeans on. I have very few Dutch DNA links in Ancestry but loads on my heritage. Find my Past is great for records but not DNA testing.

Someone is trying to pester my DH into getting a really expensive DNA test that tests the male line to try and prove his pet theory. Pretty pointless from DH’s point of view.

I don't think so. I did 23andme for the genealogy and you pay extra for the health.

I did the MyHeritage one recently which was an Xmas gift & I love it! Mainly as it showed where I come from which was quite a nice surprise! You can upload your results into all the other DNA sites but I'm yet to do it.

You can’t use other tests on the Ancestry site.

yes that’s right, if you do an ancestry test you can then upload to my heritage or ftdna but you can’t upload to ancestry from other sites.

That'd be a Y-DNA test, they don't offer them through Ancestry, only FT DNA. Y tests are different as they are less about matching you with your close genetic relatives and more about tracing your line very far back. Y tests can only be taken my men as women do not have a Y chromosome. Y chromosomes are handed down from father to son and do not mutate very quickly, which means that you can get quite detailed results about where that line originated from. There are lots of surname projects, and haplogroup projects for people who all have the same version of the Y chromosome.

A Y-DNA test is also a very good way of flagging up when the father is not the one expected. For example, DH did a DNA test through Ancestry and got lots of genetic relatives, we sorted into his maternal/paternal lines and it rapidly became obvious that he wasn't matching with anyone of his surname on the paternal line, but with lots of people with a completely different surname. After a bit of digging, the most likely scenario is that his great grandfather (his grandad's dad) was not the person named on the birth certificate. Because of the Ancestry DNA we know this man's probable surname, where he likely came from and the circumstances which would have put him in the right place to get DH's ggrandmother pregnant. A Y-DNA test would help narrow the possibilities and confirm this theory. But yes, they're expensive! The basic one is $119 plus postage, the most expensive one is $450.

I've done Ancestry and 23&me and the estimates they gave a completely different, on one it says I'm 22% Swedish and Danish the other, it doesn't mention that at all and puts me 93% British and Irish. If I was just doing one, I would do Ancestry for more of a chance to link up with other people doing family history. The 23&me trait stuff is interesting, but fairly useless! And I decided I didn't want any health information that I couldn't do much about, but might worry me.

Thanks everyone. I've bought him the Ancestry one with 3 months subscription but not the health traits as he's a touch neurotic.

Hopefully they will give him a rough idea of where he's from, he's convinced he's part Italian but never seen any proof.

And it might just keep him quite searching his family tree

How exciting! Let us know how it turns out! All this has made me think I'll buy the ancestry one and compare!

You should. Definitely report bank of you do

I just came across this while scanning the daily news online. No idea of the story's veracity?

Anyway it never hurts to change a password.

But I do worry about security and DNA storage and access to data. And I've still got the kit in my sock drawer.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12648149/Warning-Brits-change-23andMe-passwords-genealogy-site-hacked-blackmailer-DNA.html

What can they do with this information?

Even I don't know what to do with the fact that I'm more Neanderthal than 77% of the population.

Is it more that people use the same passwords for lots of sites?

Oh shit. That's the Neanderthal in me.

Even I don't know what to do with the fact that I'm more Neanderthal than 77% of the population.

I'm in the 90s regarding Neanderthalness - I did hear on a podcast that Neanderthals had bigger brains than the average modern human, but that doesn't necessarily translate to greater cognitive ability. Better eyesight is about all that researchers seem able to say. There are also differences in Covid resistance and severity due to Neanderthal genes, but none of this is very useful day to day!

That's impressive @MurielThrockmorton do you know what podcast?

My eyesight is sketchy 😭

I can't remember the podcast @ReturnOfTheRainMac and I think it was a throwaway comment anyway but it made me feel a bit better about my result, I was a bit put out to begin with! But if you Google there's various bits of research. I think I get it from my mum's side, and she is 90 and still has good eyesight, so there could be something in it! It's only a tiny bit of our DNA though even so. DD is at about 62% I think, so we're decreasing!

I haven't done a test but can remember something on R4 saying that people with a large percentage can run fast, I think I still hold one of the school sprinting records, have large calf muscles although that can be true for ADHD too and I'm pretty sure I have that and are hairy and that's definitely me

I did think at the time, well that explains a lot!

I've sent for the ancestry one. I hope to find out something about dad's dad? There's no information whatsoever.

Wonder how much neanderthal I am? 😀

@Stroopwaffels the man who is trying to pressurise my husband is trying to prove a distant ancestor in France in the 900s.

I have done the Ancestry one. My dad swears that we are French descendants but not one ounce of French in me! So either he's not my dad or the old family history is a bit awry 😀

There's rumours of Spanish in dad's side. My kit is on the way!