Anyone tried Anecstry.com DNA testing? Are you pleased with the results?

[Floyd R. Turbo]

[SummerSnow]

1. I was thinking about doing it . I looked up this article too.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2017/03/21/ancestry-com-promises-to-identify-your-lineage-but-its-not-exactly-what-you-get/

[Floyd R. Turbo]

4. Thanks SS!

[Mike Nelson]

8. Yikes!

...$100.00 - not thinking about it anymore.

[tazkcmo]

2. No

The ancestors they provided were poor, untitled, commoners. I didn't pay 25 bucks for commoners.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

6. $25.?

The kit I ordered cost $90.!

[tazkcmo]

18. Then you should be good.

You get what you pay for. You'll have somebody good in there.

[Bucky]

47. Then I'm paying $150

I figure if I pony up that much, I'm bound to get a long-lost British royalty cousin who's about to die and leave me his castle... Just like on The Beverly Hillbillies

[Girard442]

15. You want gentry in the family tree? That costs more. NT

[tazkcmo]

19. Not enough?

Wait...I think I have a coupon...

[Floyd R. Turbo]

20. 😏

[Warpy]

27. They should cost less

I had a few of them in there, rapacious warlords who turned into petty aristocrats who then became outrageously inbred. I'd love it if they weren't in there, they were not nice guys. If the DNA analysis were specific enough to show me that their ladies dallied with stable boys to produce me, I'd be delighted.

Alas, they're tied only to vague geographical area.

[jberryhill]

33. They probably dallied with unstable boys

[Mike Nelson]

3. No, but...

...I was thinking about it, too.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

7. I'm kinda looking forward to it!

[True Dough]

5. I did

Turns out I'm only a few generations removed from this guy:

[Floyd R. Turbo]

9. A fine looking specimen indeed!

[brush]

11. And colorful.

I just google Ancestry.com as well. Also 23andme.com.

Ancestry was $79.00 and 23andme was $90.

[lunatica]

54. Handsome fella!

If I were a baboon I'd swoon!

[jberryhill]

10. "pleased with the results" is an interesting criterion

I have not done so, but there are some things one should know.

Ancestry.com is part and parcel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That is why Ancestry.com was able to leverage the huge amount of archival, census and genealogical records to jump start their business in the first place, due to their interesting doctrines relating to proxy LDS baptism for people since deceased who did not avail themselves of the opportunity when they were alive.

LDS members, incidentally, have free access to Ancestry.com services.

You are giving access to your complete genetic code to a religious organization which will then, in turn, know things about you that even you do not know.

By offering this as a commercial service, this allows them to build on their genealogical data with the genetic data they obtain as an incident to the service.

There are some interesting things that could happen here, particularly since they also have some kind of "family" deal. One of my employees did this for herself and other members of her family. Ancestry.com will, of course, know for certain whether any of her siblings were adopted and/or fathered by someone other than their assumed father.

I also wonder what would happen if, for example, an adoptee uses the service and, by happenstance, one of the adoptee's biological parents uses the service, merely by chance. In that instance, Ancestry.com would know that these two customers are related as biological parent and child, even if the two customers themselves do not know.

The results that I've seen from my employee's use of the service didn't strike me as particularly interesting or valuable. Even if some genetic test said I was 5% Schnauzer, I don't see what it would do for me. It wouldn't make me like dog biscuits any more or less than I do, which I don't.

I did have a genetic test done for my late pet dog, who was a stray which we adopted. Knowing that she was - I kid you not - predominately a German Shepherd / Chihuahua mix did provide valuable insight into her behavior and tendencies. People? Not so much.

You should also know that you are paying for the privilege of being a subject in someone else's proprietary research products:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry.com

Ancestry is partnered with Calico, a company focused on longevity research and therapeutics, in an effort to investigate human heredity of lifespan. Together, they evaluate anonymized data from millions of public family trees and a growing database of over one million genetic samples. AncestryDNA and Calico will work together to analyze and investigate the role of genetics and its influences in families experiencing unusual longevity using Ancestry's proprietary databases, tools and algorithms. Calico will then focus its efforts to develop and commercialize any potential therapeutics that emerge from the analysis.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

12. Interesting!

[sdfernando]

13. Keep in mind also that these DNA records can be subpoenaed..../nt

[jberryhill]

14. Whoa...

Of course. Yes.

And even in one of those massive sweeping - "we are looking for a needle in a haystack" - subpoenas.

[sdfernando]

24. Exactly!!! /nt

[Girard442]

17. The Wiki article doesn't say they're directly affiliated with the LDS.

They sure have been cozy though. In any case, I'm pretty sure I don't want some company groping around in my genes, whether the motivation is profit or religion.

[jberryhill]

22. I did not cite the Wiki article on that point

The Wikipedia article about Marriott International does not say they are directly affiliated with the LDS either.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865585877/LDS-FamilySearch--Ancestrycom--1-billion-new-historical-records-online.html

SALT LAKE CITY — Since it was completed nearly 50 years ago, the LDS Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault in Utah's Little Cottonwood Canyon has protected in its safe, dry and climate-controlled environment billions of pages of genealogical records on 2.4 million rolls of microfilm and 1 million microfiche.

Now a new five-year, $60 million deal between FamilySearch International, the LDS Church's nonprofit genealogical organization, and Ancestry.com will mine 1 billion records from that trove, bringing them out of storage and to the public.

The agreement announced Thursday brings together what are generally considered to be the world's two largest providers of family history and genealogical research resources. Together they will digitize, index and publish these records from the vault. As part of the long-term strategic agreement, the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch will also be looking at other ways to share content.

[Girard442]

23. That's creepy as Hell.

Gee, can we think of someone else in the last century who was really obsessed with finding out about people's ancestry. How'd that turn out?

[Demonaut]

50. you do not need to identify yourself, fake name, PO box or work address etc, pre-paid CC with cash

I did mine, 23% Native American, 22% Scandinavian, 11% Irish, 2.4% Neanderthal, 10% Iberian peninsula, and various small percentages of other areas

[physioex]

16. There is no point.....

It's pure marketing. What quality controls do they have, how accurate are their results? And how is that information useful?

[Floyd R. Turbo]

21. I guess I'll find out!

[physioex]

34. And that's what they are counting on....

Save your money for a rainy day....

[clarkrd]

25. I did and was pleased with the results.

My mom was adopted we were always curious about her geographic lineage.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

26. Cool!

One of the reasons I want to try it. A relative who was adopted is doing it at the same time as I am.

[elleng]

28. My daughter did, and is pleased

but for still nothing useful about her father's family, as he was adopted. We knew his lineage was Irish.

Did get some interesting info about MY family!

[Floyd R. Turbo]

31. Nice!

[HopeAgain]

29. I used the National Geographic Genome project...

Might be more expensive, but you're helping a good cause and they information they obtain is helping genetic science.

By the way, Genomes don't tell you that you are exactly 25% Irish, it tells you a probability based upon mitochondrial DNA characteristics. The ads are a little misleading.

https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/browse/productDetail.jsp?productId=2004339&code=SR90002&gclid=COGQ-6nC6NICFQRkhgodS5MFgQ

[Floyd R. Turbo]

32. Thanks for the info!

[sarge43]

40. Both my husband and myself used the Nat Geo Genome project

Last edited Tue Mar 21, 2017, 07:45 PM - Edit history (1)

We think it was worth the price.

Mitochondrial DNA doesn't tell you the nationality of your recent or even distant ancestors. What it does indicate that your Haplogroup is found in X percent in such and such geographical location. What it does do is track your particular Haplogroup's migration out of or around Africa.

For example, my material Haplogroup is V. Best guess right now is it occurred in the western Middle East o/a 15K years ago. Women with this mutation migrated west along the northern side of Mediterranean to Spain, then into Northern Africa, then north (some made it to the British Isles) and some into northern Scandinavia.

So I have distant cousins among the Berbers, the Basque and the Sami (about 50% of Sami have this mutation). To the best of my knowledge none of them are among my recent ancestors.

I know my mother's material grandmother immigrated from Germany. So apparently, a bunch of centuries ago my great times ? grandmother and maybe her SO said "My feet hurt and it's getting cold. Let's settle here in this pretty forest along side this nice river."

FWIW, a woman's DNA can only track the maternal line. To find out what Dad's people were up to, she needs a near male relative's DNA analyzed. Father or brother is best.

[tenorly]

30. Don't need it.

My ancestry is pretty easy to figure out. Every time Trump or his lackeys show up on television, you'll probably see me doing one or more of these:

[dgibby]

35. I was in the original pilot group.

I was lucky enough to be one of the first 10,000 people who signed up for the program, so my test was free. I'm very pleased with the results, and have found many relatives I didn't know existed. The test also confirmed known ancestors, especially those in my maternal line, which had been well researched long before I became interested in genealogy.

I also uploaded my results to GEDMATCH, My Heritage, and several other sites. That resulted in many more matches, so I'm now swimming in cousins with whom I've been in contact. We shared family stories, photos, facts, etc.

The Ancestry test doesn't give you medical results like 23 and me, but I'm very happy with my experience. I'm probably going to get tested through 23 and me, but haven't made up my mind yet, especially considering the current administration's penchant for interfering with health care and access to insurance.

[WePurrsevere]

36. I'm adopted & a member of a couple of NY adoptee groups on FB...

Although I haven't had the extra funds to be tested yet I plan too this year. My adoptive father is in his mid 90s and when I told him I was thinking about it he said he'd be curious to hear what I learn.

FWIW Ancestry is the most commonly used for the testing as well as DNA matching to help you find relatives.

23andMe is used a lot too and, depending on which test you go with, has the advantage of seeing what kind of health markers you may have. You can transfer your results to Ancestry to search for genetic connections.

I saw that someone mentioned National Geo but I can't get over that they're Murdoch/21st Century Fox owned enough to seriously consider it.

Anyway, there are others but the top two are the mostly commonly used and well thought of by those in the groups I'm in.

[wishstar]

37. I think they are very good in estimating general ethnicity- helped me tremendously

Their accuracy is much better than FamilyTreeDNA. I found the Ancestry .com website to be very helpful in establishing my family trees. (Although you have to do your own research and not just accept other people's tree info, as lots of inaccurate family trees there)

I knew nothing about my great-grandparents or earlier, so decided to take test 3 years ago out of curiosity. After many hours of research, I now have a tree with about 900 documented ancestors-fascinating stuff.

The biggest help to me was their matches with DNA cousins, because I was lucky enough to be contacted by three 2nd cousins I had never met on both sides of my family who knew much more than me and helped me get started.

Ancestry .com provides not just a test giving you an estimate of your ethnicity (mine was quite accurate) but by doing the test with them and not even paying any further fees or membership, you can start building family trees that you can either make private or for public viewing and Ancestry. com provides many leads to check out regarding ancestors. So you can do a lot there just with the initial testing fee.

In addition, I was able to download my DNA to my computer and then download it also to Gedmatch for free to get more in-depth analyses and more cousin matches. I was also able to put my DNA into the Promethease website for $5 to get detailed analysis of my DNA SNP mutations providing lots of interesting results based on research studies of health factors-

[samnsara]

38. yes, but be careful what you ask for.....

..my mother.. 85 was SO proud of her Native American heritage. All her life she bragged to us about the culture....learned the language. ..tried to trace down ancestors.....kept Native American décor in her home. My sister did her own DNA and said 'Mom there's not ONE drop of NA blood in our family'. My mom did hers and sure enough we are all Western European. Altho mom didn't outright say anything you KNOW it was a huge blow to her. Her entire World View changed.

So if you are happy with who you are I wouldn't upset the fruit basket as they say. But if you've always been MEH about those kinds of things it might be fun. Those commercials where the people happily trade in their kilts for lederhosen may not always depict how people really feel about their results.

We did Anstory.com and my sis also did 23andMe. It did show we had a bunch of shirt-tail relatives but...meh.

[KewlKat]

39. My notes on these tests. First, what questions are you trying to answer?

Ancestry test, by itself, won't give you health information--23andme will. If you're doing this for genealogical research, Ancestry is the way to go. If the health info is your main interest, there are 3rd party applications which will interpret your data for a small fee and the overall cost of the Ancestry test is less.

With Ancestry, you also get your "raw data", which is included in the price. You can download the info (which comes in code) and email it to a company that interprets it. Here is one company - https://promethease.com/ondemand Last year the interpretation cost $5.00, and only takes a short time to generate. If you want to know everything about yourself, you'll want to spend the $5. There is a lot of info to review and may take some time to get through it. It will also tell you what diseases you are predisposed for and what your risk is, i.e., heart disease? it'll tell you, Alzheimer's? it'll tell you.

hope this helps someone.

[Mollyann]

41. Surprise

My Mississippi born and raised husband got quite a surprise. He was sure of his Native American ancestry. He even had a grainy picture of a great great grandfather with dark hair and darkish skin. Nope, no NA. He was 4 percent subSaharan African. 😂

[shenmue]

42. My Mom ordered it

Results not here yet.

[Fla Dem]

43. I did, a few surprises.

My Dad's parents immigrated from Italy. On my Mom's side her Dad's parents were Irish immigrants, while her Mom parents we traced back her lineage to the 1600's in Salem Ma where they settled after leaving England. So kind of expected my DNA would be 50% Italian, 25% Irish and 25% British.

Results
Great Britain 36%
Italy 35%
Ireland 11%

So that's 82%. The remaining 18% was European Jewish, Scandinavia, Finland, Caucasus and Mid-East. Small percentages for sure, but someone, way back when did a lot of sowing their seeds in their travels.

It was fun to see and I shared the results with the rest of my siblings. Thinking of doing the "23 and me" test as well to see how well they match.

[LeftInTX]

48. I think the Mid-East and the Caucasus are part of the Italian lineage

I'm Armenian (Caucasus - Mid-East) and Armenians often test part Italian. I think there is some intermingling. Armenian, Greeks and Turks have similar DNA.

You wanna hear something really weird? Mexicans often show more Italian DNA than Spanish DNA.

[milestogo]

44. The redneck Trump voter who sat next to me at work did it

and somehow came up with ancestors who came over on the Mayflower. He couldn't stop telling everyone in the office about them.

[bikebloke]

45. I did FTDNA

I had a suspicion about the Native American claims in my family. Turns out I was right. Zero. I think it was a fad to claim Native American genetics way back.

You can by-pass Ancestry.com by using the LDS's own search for free: https://familysearch.org/search

[csziggy]

46. I did it for my husband and myself

We've been contacted with some cousins but they were from family lines that we already knew the details or from people who have no tree at all and want to simply be handed the decades of research we have.

On the other hand, I uploaded my Ancestry results to FamilyTreeDNA.com (for free) and was contacted by someone with information that might get me past one of my brick walls.

I have that line back to George Haney, born in Lower Canada in 1818 but had not been able to find his parents. The common ancestor according to the DNA results seems to be Mary Dutch, who was married to Elijah Haney as a second husband. The other person is descended from Mary Dutch and her first husband. There is also the possibility that the DNA results would connect me to Elijah Haney from a descendant of him and his first wife. This has only happened in the last week so I have a lot of work to see if the information pans out.

If those DNA results are right, that takes that line back one more generation!

My other success with DNA results is kind of a sideways one. I was looking at the Cook DNA Project page to see if they had any information that would take my Cook family back farther than John Cook (1720-1777). I found a William Cook who married an ancestor of my husband and had a brother named John Cook but he was not the right one.

The breakthrough came when I followed William Cook's line back - his grandmother was Martha Newman who had a brother named Samuel. I had a Samuel Newman that I had not been able to find his origin - after some research, I had Samuel's whole life, not just after he showed up in South Carolina in 1770. I even had Samuel and Martha's father, Walter Newman with his original indenture agreement, land ownership and all fourteen of his children. I was also able to find documentation of Samuel's wife, Martha, with her surname, Ledyard, and her parents' names.

If you don't already have a tree, the DNA results will not provide it for you. The best results are when you pair documented information on a researched tree with the connections that the comparison of DNA results can provide.

I was contacted by a woman who is trying to find her birth father. Her DNA tells her that she is 4th to 6th cousin of my husband - but since she has no tree for her birth parents there is no way that checking my husband's tree can give her an answer. I'm going to encourage her to work on her birth mother's information and hope that she can find something about her birth father there.

[Still Blue in PDX]

49. I found my birth parents.

I have paternal cousins who are very much into genealogy, and we connected through Ancestry.com. I was also able to find my birth mother's correct birthday and locate her. I have to say that it was a very positive experience since it filled the gaping hole in my psyche that was left when I found out as an adult that the people who raised me weren't my parents.

I guess the disclaimer "results are not typical" is applicable in my case.

[ymetca]

51. For absolutely free I discovered

that you are all my brothers and sisters.

How? Because Jesus (aka asymmetric carbon) told me so!

[greatauntoftriplets]

52. I did the Ancestry test last summer.

Some surprises in the results. Best part is that a cousin I never knew found me.

[littlemissmartypants]

53. Link to free family search and more...

https://familysearch.org/

I just want to know my hapla groups.

National Geographic DNA project info here

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/

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More at the link.