Has anyone had his/her Ancestral DNA done?

[ailsagirl]

Ancestry.com is offering it for $99

I want to know about my ancestry and that's ALL

I DON'T want any sort of medical info, such as my odds of developing cancer, Parkinsons, etc.

Anyone?

[JenniferJuniper]

1. Amazon often has it for $79

They won't give you any medical info. Just the breakdown of areas/countries that your DNA appears to have originated from.

[sharp_stick]

2. I like the geno 2.0 from National Geographic

It's a bit more expensive $150 but I really like the more scientific aspect. Ancestry is supposed to be pretty good as well.

https://tinyurl.com/us9zbam (geno 2.0 page)

23 and me offers an ancestry as well as an ancestry/health option. I'm not a big fan of the medical options, I don't think they tell you much.

https://www.23andme.com/

[Squinch]

8. I did 23 and me and my sibling did Ancestry. The Ancestry was much

cheaper and we got essentially the same information. You're right about the medical option not telling you much.

Tell me what about National Geographic is more scientific? I had not realized they were in this business.

[sharp_stick]

13. I got the Nat Geo test as a Christmas present

and really liked the way it presented the results.

I also like the Nat Geo because they use a technique called Next Gen Sequencing which should allow them to better link up matches with older DNA sequences. I'm not into genealogy so the big benefits of Ancestry.com didn't mean that much.

National Geographic uses the results it gets from it's subscribers and by putting them all together is trying to find ways to better match older ancient ties.

http://www.toptenreviews.com/services/home/best-dna-testing-kits/

[Squinch]

16. Ooh. That's cool. I do find it fascinating. I might look into that.

We got some surprises. My mother's family always insisted they were French. Turns out there is no French at all, but a decent amount of Spanish. I don't know why I should so prefer Spanish to French but I do so that made me happy. But a whole family legend went down the drain.

[MadCrow]

31. I got some surprises too.

My family on my father's side came from Barbados and were from England and Scotland. After receiving my results from Ancestry I found numerous cousins with AFRICAN ancestry. Turns out my 4th great grandfather had a very large sugar plantation with many slaves. I had no idea.

[Squinch]

33. Oh, boy. There are stories in that, aren't there!

[sarge43]

30. Nat Geo did both hubby's and mine.

We were amused and fascinated. Glad to hear the price has come down. If you're interested in what the family had going on 100,000 years ago, it's worth the price.

A note to interested women, a DNA scan for us can only trace your maternal line. For the paternal line, a DNA scan of a close male relative is required, father or brother is best.

[mitch96]

40. "23 and me offers an ancestry as well as an ancestry/health option"

I had it done by 23nMe a few years ago.. Told me what I suspected. Eastern/Southern European going back to the discovery of dirt. Interesting bunch of info to say the least. Satisfied my curiosity.
m

[jehop61]

3. I didn't

but a long lost niece found me and my family through it. Remember, though, Ancestry claims ownership of your dna. Courts have tried to get it from them. Don't know if successful though

[JenniferJuniper]

14. I saw a 48 Hours episode in which LE was able

to get info from Ancestry to identify a family in which a member may have been involved in a murder. The guy they traced the DNA to had an alibi, but it brought a lot of negative attention to his family.

I think they've since changed their privacy policy, but if you are handing over your DNA voluntarily you really never know when or what it might be used for.

[Louis1895]

4. I did but be prepared for surprises!

Check the privacy policies. When you use these services, the idea is that you will also connect to other relatives. There should be ways to keep your information private if all you want is the ethnicity information.

I did it for family history research so I was hoping to find new cousins, which I did! Recently came across my uncle's daughter that had been adopted as a baby.

I also learned I am about 1% Native American.

Biggest surprise: The dad who raised me was not my biological father! So buyer beware. you might find some interesting facts that are totally unexpected!

[lunasun]

7. Is that in regards to Ancestry?I do not think this is true of the national geographic one we did.

You are given a code only.

[Skittles]

25. whenever people claim to trace their ancestry back forever

they do so on the assumption the fathers are the actual fathers - which is a BIG assumption

[left-of-center2012]

32. I know a married couple ...

Their two sons are due to donors from a sperm bank,
and the (now adult) sons don't know.

I wonder sometimes how they would react if they did DNA testing, and found out their 'dad' wasn't their 'father',
and each came from a different donor.

Would that make them in reality 'half brothers', or what?

[Skittles]

37. they are brothers, no matter what

the other stuff is all technicalities

[left-of-center2012]

44. Legally

Half brothers

[Fla Dem]

5. Here's a link to a recent similar discussion in the Ancestry/Genealogy group

https://www.democraticunderground.com/11561537

[ailsagirl]

6. Wow, everyone!

Many thanks for your responses!!

[yallerdawg]

9. My mother, uncle, sister, brother and cousins had the DNA test.

It identified percentages of ancestral regions, like 25% Irish, 58% Great Britain, Scandinavia and a few others.

The results can still be surprising!

Half our family tree (mother's and uncle's side) was from Oklahoma, and we all thought we had a substantial Native American heritage from just a couple generations ago.

Everyone was shocked to discover in test after repeated test - which is why everyone took it! - that we were basically the whitest damn people we know!

Not one lick of Native American ancestry!

[GeorgeGist]

12. Interesting, my family lore also claimed late 1800s Native American ancestry ...

but not a hint was found by AncestryDNA in my brother or me.

[TuxedoKat]

20. FYI

It may be you do have Native American ancestry in your family tree but the percentage was so small it didn't show up on the DNA test or you didn't inherit that particular strain in your DNA. If a cousin, aunt, uncle, parent, etc., tested they may show it. Also, I just tested with Ancestry and my sister tested with 23andMe and her test seemed to be more detailed than mine as in showing 2-3 more ethnicities than mine did (these ethnic groups had very low percentages). So I either didn't inherit the same DNA as her, or the test wasn't as detailed. One of the ethnic groups in particular that showed up in hers but not mine was Asian/Native American, so I want to retest with 23andMe just to know for sure.

https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/whos-more-irish-you-or-your-sibling/

https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2013/07/22/already-taken-the-ancestrydna-test-here-are-4-reasons-to-test-other-family-members/

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/same-parents-different-ancestry

http://www.dna-testing-adviser.com/EthnicAncestry.html

[pansypoo53219]

23. yeah. we got that news, and my grandma, who was adopted had native-american teeth.

i guess assumed. HMM. so gotta get tested. and males and females DO get diff results.

[Leghorn21]

29. Yeah, I'm white as hell too, yaller. YAWN. My sister took the ancestry test, and we are

dull dull snore boring who cares whatever...until FINALLY - we are 1% Slavic!! Or is that "Slav?"

I always figured I come from hyper-wasp origins, and sadly, it's true, wannhhh!

[Thomas Hurt]

10. Ancestry does not provide medical information.

They provide a ethnicity background by percentage. As an example mine is:

52 Western Europe
27 Great Britain
10 Ireland
5 Scandinavia

and a touch of Iberian Peninsula and European Jewish.

They also show you where your people were centered in the US.

Mine were early settlers of the deep South, but that was something I already knew.

[hlthe2b]

11. yup... it was very useful, particularly since my Mom is adopted and I have no knowledge on her side

at all.

In the future, I'm going to pay for one month of unlimited (international) search access and try to track down one relative (my Great Grandmother) that I am particularly interested in, since she died when my Grandmother was very young and is a direct link to one immigration pathway.

A lot of things can be researched for free, but really in-depth may require a subscription.

BTW, I won't do the health related dna analyses either... I don't think they are yet well validated, may not prove adequately secure from those who might abuse the information and generally speaking will cause more worry than usefulness.

[CanonRay]

15. I'd recommend Ancestry or FtDNA

neither do the medical stuff.

[TuxedoKat]

17. Yes

I just did it with Ancestry and my sister used 23andMe. I think I will retest with 23andMe because it seemed like they gave more detailed info, either that, or my DNA didn't show about 2-3 ethnic groups that hers did, everything else was the same. I'm not sure if this is because I just didn't inherit that particular DNA, or if the 23andMe test is just a more detailed test. Anyway, the tests will probably go on sale again on Black Friday and you can buy them on amazon too and save on shipping if you have Prime.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. I did Ancestry.com and 23andme.

Got different results, which was interesting. I am planning to do the Nat Geo project one as well. I just find it interesting. I did find out I have West African DNA and Middle Eastern DNA, but most of it is Northern European, and a smidge from the Iberian region.

[TuxedoKat]

57. Yes

My sister did 23andMe and I did Ancestry and we got different results. Hers were more detailed so I'm going to retest with 23andMe to see what comes up.

[ailsagirl]

19. Thanks for sharing your stories

[Docreed2003]

21. I haven't done the testing yet but...

A good friend of mine and his wife used a service called LivingDNA ancestry. They provide a breakdown based on paternal and maternal DNA strands. He shared his results and it was pretty fascinating. Now, as an aside but it kind of explains the results, this guy is the whitest Muslim I know. His family believed that they came from Morocco, which the test actually showed, but with an interesting wrinkle...he had significant French traits as well. The best he could come up with, and it makes sense, is that during a time of French occupation, there was some intermingling of the DNA, so to speak.

I haven't decided on which company to use but I'm currently researching the best option for our family.

[mnhtnbb]

45. paternal results only available IF you are male from LivingDNA ancestry.

I'd really like to see results from both sides and I'm female.

[Docreed2003]

47. Didn't know that...thanks for the info!

[bikebloke]

22. FTDNA

I did mine through Family Tree DNA. There was a family myth I wanted to dispel - and I was right! They keep sending me offers for more, but I have all I wanted to know. And you can transfer your results to your Ancestry.com file.

Recently, in Ancestry, someone posted an old photo claiming it was an ancestor of mine. I found it years ago, but researched deeper. Same name, but different person. Be careful there.

[applegrove]

24. Did it with 23 and me. I am 2% Neanderthal.

[left-of-center2012]

34. Just 2% ?

[applegrove]

38. LOL!

[Squinch]

35. I'm 4%. Which is really high.

[applegrove]

39. Are you red haired by any chance?

[ailsagirl]

41. LOL!!!

[Squinch]

43. YES!

[3catwoman3]

52. What is the Neaderthal-redhead...

..connection?

[applegrove]

53. They say Neanderthal brought the red head strain into homo sapiens sapiens. Can't

recall who wrote it. So cool.

[3catwoman3]

54. Count me in, apparently. I am auburn-haired, as is my...

...older son. His beard, especially, has lots of dark copper tones in it. I love red beards.

[applegrove]

55. To think we are part Neanderthal and they had no idea until 3 years ago.

I wonder what we will find out 3 years from now.

[Still Blue in PDX]

26. I did, and I found my birth father when I wasn't even looking!

My cousins are all really into genealogy and discovered me as a DNA match, and a little sleuthing revealed from whence I came.

Pretty cool.

[cyclonefence]

27. I haven't, but a lady who gave a lecture about genealogy

said she had had her DNA tested by Ancestry.com and that other one, and the results were totally different from each other. I'd advise you to save your money.

[appleannie1943]

28. I did it. I can now trace my family back to Charlemagne on my mother's paternal side and

back to the Revolutionary War on my mom's maternal side. On my dad's side I went back 5 generations into Prussia. I also found and have spoken to 4 cousins I never knew I had and have gotten access to the family trees of over 200 possible 3rd and 4th cousins. I found it well worth the money.
I always thought it was a myth that my mom's father's family were descended from the Stuarts that ruled in Scotland and it was just a tale that we were somehow related to Mary, Queen of Scots. I have found out that I was wrong and we really are. It is amazing what you can find out if you take the time to dig through their records.

They don't tell you anything. They give you access to records and you have to dig through them. The give you hints but it is up to you to check them to see what is the right person and which ones actually fit your tree.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

36. I used 23 and me. $99.00

I believe you can get medical stuff from them but ONLY if you pay more money.

[HockeyMom]

42. Two Siblings each did it

While they both got the same countries, each got difference percentages which genetically makes sense. Unless they were identical twins, each sibling would get difference genes from both parents.

I did my own paternal (paper) records trace long before Ancestry, or DNA, existed. British records go way back. I got back to the Norman Conquest and a Lesser Norman Knight.

I had a cousin who went to Sicily for years and traced my maternal side back to the 17th Century. That was "interesting" to say the least, if you can read between the lines of that. Before that time? Who knows? It would not surprise me to have African or Middle Eastern blood from Sicilian ancestors.

Does it REALLY matter? You see when you do paper traces, you learn more about who your ancestors were and what their lives were like, rather than 64% this, 20% that, etc. Personally, that means nothing to me.

[nolabear]

46. I did with 23&me. It was fabulous.

DAMN I'm white. Mostly British Isles and a scoche of a few other Northern Europeans, and a little Scandinavian and a proud 3.1% Neanderthal, way above average.

My son did his as well and got interested in genealogy. He traced us back til God was a pup and now I know who all those people were. I figured the Scandinavian was the Viking hoard but I have a Dutch ancestor who became a bookbinder at Oxford back in the early 1600s.

I got the medical stuff and traits too. The medical is right on in the family history. The traits, not so much. I blush when I drink, I love cilantro, etc.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

48. A friend of mine did and found out she and her sister have different fathers.

I guess it wasn't TOTALLY a surprise. But still.

Their supposed father has always been estranged. But they never got the full scoop. They're debating whether to ask mom.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, found out he is 13% Italian. Now he won't stop doing his imitation of Peter Griffin's imitation of an Italian.

Babada boopee. Que cosa. Excusay...

[csziggy]

49. If you have a tree on Ancestry it is more interesting

My husband and I had our DNA done by Ancestry. We gets lots of messages about possible relatives. Most have their trees already on Ancestry and I can glance and find out where we are connected.

Most of the ones related to my husband have so far been so distantly connected it was not worthwhile contacting them. One nice woman knew nothing about her ancestors and expected the DNA results to give her all that information. She is probably a fourth or fifth cousin of my husband but she had no surnames in common with him on her very short tree.

The most intriguing is the person who contacted me since his uncle shows a link to me. The only common ancestor we could find is a woman who had one set of kids with her first husband - his lineage - and a single son by her second - theoretically my ancestor. The problem is I have never been convinced of that parentage and there is absolutely no documentation for it. So while this is a cool clue, for me it is not proven.

My sister got her and our Mom's DNA tested through the National Geographic project. They give slightly more detailed reports than Ancestry. What is interesting is that my sister shows some American Indian DNA while neither Mom's or mine do.

If all you want to do is to get a general idea of your ancestry, Ancestry DNA is the cheapest testing. They do regularly offer it for $79 - around holiday time, Mother"s Day, and Father's Day are fairly standard times for those offers.

[frogmarch]

50. No, and I never will, now that

I know about the results of the DNA tests given to three identical triplets. They each got a different result.

snip:

The results of the genetic breakdown were a bit strange, considering the Dahm triplets are identical. While the test did show that 99 percent of their DNA showed European decent, a more detailed break up of their DNA showed very different results, which proved to be confusing to the triplets and the world. For instance, the DNA test claimed that Nicole, the oldest Dahm sister, was 18 percent Irish and British while Erica was only 16 percent Irish and British.

As the doctors on the show looked further into the results of the 23andme genetic test, there seemed to be even bigger discrepancies. When they looked at the Dahm triplet’s French and German ancestry, something did not add up. While the oldest Dahm sister Nicole seemed to have an 11 percent German and French heritage, her sister’s numbers came up totally different. Jaclyn’s results showed she was 18 percent German and French, while Erica’s said she was 22.3 percent German and French.

The results were shocking even more than confusing! The last part of the DNA results took a deeper look into the Dahm triplet’s Scandinavian ancestry. Again, the results did not match up at all! For some reason, Erica and Jaclyn, the youngest sisters, both came back with the exact same results. It seemed that Erica and Jaclyn’s Scandinavian ancestry was exactly 7.4 percent. Surprisingly, Nicole’s results said that she was made up of 11.4 percent Scandinavian ancestry. Something was not right!

More: http://www.ninjajournalist.com/entertainment/identical-triplets-dna-test/

[shenmue]

51. I learned stuff

When my Mom had her test, she turned out to be a smidgen Greek (because she's Sicilian, and if you go back far enough, they have some Greek heritage). Wow. Now I can tell folks at church. I go to a Greek Orthodox church. Coincidence.

[Rhiannon12866]

56. I'm planning to do 23andme at some point

The impression I have is that they offer more information than Ancestry, but I'll need to read more on both. I'm also hoping to persuade my brother to join me since, as a female, I only have X chromosomes, so I read that you can get more information from a male relative. Thanks for bringing this up, I'll have to read all the replies since I always learn a lot from my fellow DUers...