ancestryDNA

[timmae]

My wife brought up the idea of completing an ancestry kit to find out her background. My mother in law was adopted and has not wanted to research her past, which my wife and I both accept. We completed the dna portion of the kit this morning and will be mailing it in tomorrow. It is inconceivable to me that 1/4 teaspoon of spit could tell me where my ancestors came from. Super cool. Can't wait to see the results..

[sabotai]

I've thought about doing this, but it is kinda expensive. Plus I'm not entirely sure what I'd get from it, so I'd be very interested to see what kind of results you get from it.

It just happens that my paternal line is one of the shortest I've been able to trace. My 3x great-grandfather was born on a boat from England, and the first time he shows up on the census, he's 16 and not living with his parents. We have no idea why or what happened to his parents (or most importantly, his parent's names). But I'm not paying $99 if all it's going to tell me is "He came from England".

[nol]

Originally Posted by sabotai

I've thought about doing this, but it is kinda expensive. Plus I'm not entirely sure what I'd get from it, so I'd be very interested to see what kind of results you get from it.

It just happens that my paternal line is one of the shortest I've been able to trace. My 3x great-grandfather was born on a boat from England, and the first time he shows up on the census, he's 16 and not living with his parents. We have no idea why or what happened to his parents (or most importantly, his parent's names). But I'm not paying $99 if all it's going to tell me is "He came from England".

Yeah, it seems like anything you'd find out beyond that would be social network related e.g. some other user in England shares a lot of DNA and turns out to be some distant cousin who can possibly fill in some of the blanks.

[lungs]

My sister and I have done the 23andMe DNA test. While they don't have health related results anymore, the ancestry results have been interesting. I'm straight up pasty white Scandinavian/German, which the test confirmed. But I also carry a sliver of Ashkenazi Jew and even more bewildering was the Yakut DNA that I carry. The Yakuts are a Turkic group from Siberia.

[lungs]

dola

I also found out that I'm much more of a neanderthal than my sister, but anybody that knows us would have figured so.

[timmae]

That is what has me most intrigued... the connections that no one would ever know about. Or maybe have hidden in some cases.

As far as my wife's side... we literally have no clue. My MIL is not directly tied to any specific profile or look so we don't know what to expect.

[Edward64]

Bought my wife the Nat Geo test kit years ago. The info that came back was underwhelming. I was thinking about doing it again in hopes that I would really know more info about my ancestry vs. broad generalizations.

[Autumn]

My dads was really interesting. His dad's family was one hundred percent German, having immigrated in the 1700s and lived in a German community since. But the test showed not German ancestry but Southern European, so it seems way back they must have moved to Germany from somewhere else. That is something we never would have known.

[Thomkal]

Take a look at YouTube-lots of people have done a video about their results-should give you a good idea of what to expect. Ancestry themselves have a series of videos there

[Lathum]

I think you are likely still awaiting the results, but would love you to update.

Being adopted I have considered this and may do it. The cost is pretty cheap and the results may be interesting.

[Desnudo]

I'd like to read on a review on this as well.

[stevew]

I'd be in for like $20 but It's far more than that.

[Groundhog]

I found my results to be mildly interesting, but there wasn't a lot of actual info I got back - part of my DNA was linked to an Africa -> Pacific Islands migration long ago which was interesting given that it conflicts with the family tree I've pieced together, which is entirely convict-era Scottish/English on my father's side, and slightly later-period English/Flemish/French on my mother's side. I'd say it's worth the price depending on how interesting you find things like that - certainly the site is well designed and gives a good graphical representation of the results.

[MacroGuru]

Well, my GF and I are going to be doing this

I look forward to getting the DNA done and see how it compares to the family tree.

[timmae]

Sorry I didn't post earlier but the results were received last week right before we left for vacation. Basically we received results in about 4 weeks. Overall I was impressed with the website and the information provided. It is a little basic as it is categorized into Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Great Britian, Scandinavia and Middle East as opposed to exact country. Don't quote me on the exact regions as I don't have the site up right now and I am just going off of memory. It was very cool to see the percentage breakdown though.

On my side I was able to find out that I am not as German as I was led to believe and that there was an almost even breakdown between Eastern, Western and Scandinavian (28-26-24% respectively). The remainder was british and misc Europe. What was very interesting is I was 100% European which I didn't expect necessarily.

Even more surprising was my wife's side. Her mom was adopted and has zero knowledge of her background. We were very surprised to find out that she is predominantly british (46%) and has some middle eastern (4%). This is almost certainly from her adopted Mom's parents as her dad's side is predominantly eastern/western European.

We both thought it was well worth the money and time spent for what we received, although if you are looking for very specific locations you could be disappointed. I have heard some say that if you combine your findings between multiple sites that you can obtain much more specific information.

[Dodgerchick]

After watching those ancestry shows (Finding your roots, Who do you think you are, etc) I've been curious about mine. Antmeister had his done and the results were interesting. What makes it pretty cool is that you find out about family members who share your DNA. He has cousins he didn't know he had up in California. I know there are Spanish roots and pretty sure some Indigenous roots from Mexican Indians in my DNA, though not sure if something like that will show up. There's a running joke that I'm white. As far as I know, there's absolutely 0 white in the family, going back generations. But you never know. My pasty white legs say otherwise.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by timmae

On my side I was able to find out that I am not as German as I was led to believe and that there was an almost even breakdown between Eastern, Western and Scandinavian (28-26-24% respectively). The remainder was british and misc Europe. What was very interesting is I was 100% European which I didn't expect necessarily.

Keep in mind, you only get 50% of your father's and 50% of your mother's genes. You are quite literally only getting half the picture with these results. So, it's possible you are as German as you thought, just that by pure chance you didn't inherit many of your father and/or mother's "German genes". Having other family members do the test, including brothers and sisters (unless they are identical twins), would help give a more clear picture overall.

DT, I've seen "Native American" on some of the sample results I've seen, but I don't know if it goes any deeper than that.

[miami_fan]

Something that I did not know was possible with these kits. A former co-worker (no really it was a former co-worker) did one of the ancestry kit and found out that he shared DNA with someone else who did a kit. They shared a parent-child relationship. That's right, he found out that he has a adult daughter 20+ years after she was born. That is just wild to me. I mean we have all heard about people finding out about children that may be theirs but then they go though the DNA testing process. This is the first time I have heard of people going through the DNA process and then finding children they were unaware of. This one turned out to have a happy ending.

[JPhillips]

I knew my father was adopted, but didn't know anything else as he told his birth mother not to tell him anything. My DNA results connected me with a woman that is the daughter or niece of one of the three men that is almost certainly my grandfather. We've talked a bit and she was surprised, but accepting once she saw the data.

What I haven't told her, though, is that my grandmother apparently always insisted that she had been raped.

[miami_fan]

Fascinating. I am pretty ignorant to this phenomenon.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Something that I did not know was possible with these kits. A former co-worker (no really it was a former co-worker) did one of the ancestry kit and found out that he shared DNA with someone else who did a kit. They shared a parent-child relationship. That's right, he found out that he has a adult daughter 20+ years after she was born. That is just wild to me. I mean we have all heard about people finding out about children that may be theirs but then they go though the DNA testing process. This is the first time I have heard of people going through the DNA process and then finding children they were unaware of. This one turned out to have a happy ending.

That's pretty incredible.

Although not DNA related, I found out last week that I girl I grew up with - 35 years old, couple of kids, 1 older brother - had her parents pull her aside recently and tell her that she had a full-blooded sister 10 years older than her that she did not know existed. Her parents had fallen pregnant in their teens and been forced to put the child up for adoption by the mother's parents, and they had resisted the urge to try and track her down and interfere with her life. Her parents ended up marrying a few years later before having my friend and her brother. The adopted daughter managed to find out who her biological parents were and now they are in the process of organising a get together, which would be an interesting experience I'm sure.