AncestrybyDNA or Ancestry.com DNA tests and are they useful/worth it

[DisneyWorldMimi]

My DH & I did ours through Ancestry.com. It came back as I expected: 38% Great Britain, 25% Ireland, 20% Eastern Europe with 17% trace origins of other countries. My dad's ancestors originally came from Germany & Prussia. We have it traced to the late 1600's. I am currently working on my mom's side of the family and know that some of her family came from Ireland. She was born in Manchester, England. She has said that when her grandfather came from Ireland he changed his name from Murphy to Murray, but am not completely sure this is correct.

What is kind of funny is that out of 3 kids - 1 born in the UK, 1 in the US and 1 in the Azores - the 1 born in the US is the one the picked up the English accent. My sister was born in the UK, but left as a baby as with my brother who was born in the Azores. My mom said I was a homebody so was around her more. Someone recently asked me about my heritage. They commented that the way I presented myself and that he detected a trace accent, he was curious. As soon as I told him about my family, he said it made sense.

My DH's came back with 59% Great Britain, 18% Ireland, 15% Eastern Europe with 8% trace origins of other countries. He was surprised at his. He had no idea most of his family came from Great Britain.

 

[Rhie]

We've tracked our ancestors back to the 1700's.

But if we hadn't, I would be all over this.

I have tracked them back to the 10th century on one line, and to the 1700s on basically all of them, except one. DNA doesn't give specific relatives, but can give people a place to start looking or solve general ancestral mysteries, like whether or not someone has Native American ancestry. I can't wait to try this, and get a couple answers to some questions I have.

 

[ZachnElli]

I posted earlier that we were waiting on my DH's results and he got them yesterday. 54% Western European (German, he's traced this way back to 1400's) 23% Irish, 2% Native American, 21% trace origins. The 2% Native American is way lower than we expected, it should be the same as the Irish. Ah, family stretching stories!

 

[DisneyPhans]

Looks like people are getting, exactly what I wish for - possible search areas and leads. Obviously there are some inaccuracies, but at least you are getting SOMETHING. The commercials appear to be true & correct in many of your cases, from what you are saying. But as per previous replies -- NO LOVE for Asians, and I should've taken my cue from the commercials.

Have you noticed that there are NO Asians in those DNA test commercials? An Asian ancestry commercial would probably look like, "Wow! I had no idea I was Asian! I had always thought I was Irish.. After all, Did you know SOME Irish are not freckly with red hair?! I always believed that there was a remote possibility for me! Thanks to Ancestry, I've received 4.5 Billion possible leads of people that all kind of look like me... Pretty sure at least one of them is related to me... I'll need some time to look this over, but THANK YOU ANCESTRY.COM!"

The Irish in my family will never let me hear the end of this when I get my results...

 

[Donnainnj]

How do you know that your ancestors weren't Irish Lutherans?

Guess it's possible, but most of my dad's family disowned him when he married my Methodist mom because she wasn't Catholic (ironic). From what I was told back further on my mom's side they were Catholic, of course I also was told there was Native American and that was wrong.

 

[Geoff_M]

It's genetic astrology. Specific tests like for paternity or another person to person comparison are valid on individuals but the tests companies like ancestry do are only valid on populations not individuals.
If you want to spend the money because it makes you happy go for it. But the results arent valid. Especially when you get results like Irish or Scottish or German or French. Those are nationalities-not genetic populations.

I think you're being a tad bit harsh. Without a doubt it's important to understand what the test is and what it isn't. While the results related to ethnicity aren't fool-proof and present a highly educated guess whose accuracy may be limited to the results in the provider's database of known subjects, it's hardly "astrology". Mine matches up pretty good when compared to my known genealogy.

BUT, one of the best benefits of such tests is that usually the provider will allow you to download your genetic data that you can then use to upload into other more powerful tools. The best example is GEDmatch.com Places like Ancestry will give you a list of people that their proprietary algorithm thinks you are related to (along with an estimate of the closeness of the relationship), but they don't show you the specifics of the matches. GEDmatch lets you do that once up upload your data to their site. In the case of my Ancestry.com data, I can see all ~700,000 SNPs mapped by them as they provide a number of tools that allow you to do your own matching and then be able to see specific matches. Another advantage of GEDmatch is that includes data that people have uploaded from a variety of testing companies. Using GEDmatch, I've found some pretty good evidence to support a theory about one of my "dead ends". No smoking gun yet, but I've found some good clues.

 

[cleverclovers]

I used the Ancestry.com DNA test and was surprised by my results. So I bought a kit for my daughter, son-in-law, and both parents for Christmas. We all had a good time reading the results.

 

[NinaBella]

So I did a search and found this thread. I just got my husbands 23&Me reports back last night. On his mother's side, his mother's genetic testing (before a bone marrow transplant) she was told came back 90% Native American. She passed away before I met my DH so I only know bits of details from relatives who are not 100% sure of details. There is a rumor that her dad was not a "blood" relative to the family that he came to live with the family and he was Native American. On Ancestry.com I have traced and found 3 border crossing documents for him with his family from Mexico to Texas as age 3, 7, and 11. It seems the dad traveled across the border many times, once returning with just himself and his sister.

Now on Facebook, some of my husbands relative (cousins) were saying they asked their parents and that the person in question was not adopted, but this is coming from what would have been his younger siblings who truly may not know since they were not born upon the first border crossing. Said person was the 3rd sibling of 12.

According to my husbands 23&Me report he is 54% East Asian & Native American with 42.8% of that Native American. I find it very interesting. The Haplogroup mapping is also very interesting as it shows his father's ancestors may have crossed the land bridge from Siberia and Alaska, then another chuck from South America. He is getting more of his Hispanic background from his father's side and the Native American from his mother's side. Before the testing we just assumed him to be 100% Mexican decent, but facial features in my DH, my DS, and other relatives on his mom's side are more Native American looking.

We have the Ancestry test sitting on the counter we need to send in. I wanted to do both to see what the differences came back as. Had is month but he just hasn't got around to sending it in yet. It's funny with all his travels with the military he can blend in. Even on one of his trips to Egypt, locals were speaking to him in their language thinking he was one of them.

 

[aprilgail]

If you are searching for relatives after you do what ever test you are taking you can upload the results to GEDmatch and results from all different places can be matched together if the others have uploaded their data. there is a great facebook page called DNA Detectives that can help you with searching if it is a adoption search you are trying to do.

 

[mjkacmom]

Guess it's possible, but most of my dad's family disowned him when he married my Methodist mom because she wasn't Catholic (ironic). From what I was told back further on my mom's side they were Catholic, of course I also was told there was Native American and that was wrong.

Both my Methodist grandparents and Catholic grandparents were not initially happy about my parents getting married.

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Thanks, guys for the GEDmatch link. I recently did my dna on ancestry.com, and have been able to get in touch with some 2nd cousins who have info on their trees that have helped me build our tree, and I've got some of my first cousins involved, too. It's interesting. Also got in touch with a 5th cousin on my mom's side, and it looks like we're related through my grandmother... pretty interesting.