DNA testing

mick121212

Hello

I'm thinking of buying one of those DNA kits to trace back family history for a Christmas present. Has anyone ever bought one and if so, are they worth the money and do they differ quite a lot between different companies?

I've been looking at 23 & me DNA test, has anyone used that one?

Thanks

Voyager2002

Many people find them quite a lot of fun, and so it is a subective decision whether it is worth the money. The information that they give about family history, links to ancient royalty and so forth is mostly fiction (with a little bit of common-sense).

See also links from
https://livingdata.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/23andme-in-oxford/

elsien

I found this article helpful in explaining the limitations.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2017/nov/04/home-dna-kit-for-130-is-it-worth-it

DCFC79

Just keep an open that it might not deliver anything.

50Twuncle

I was thinking of getting it done as well
https://goo.gl/id1ZWR is the cheapest going at the moment - £39...
I am assuming that there are only an extremely limited number of labs to process the DNA and as such the results will be the same from all of them ?
or at least will not depend on the company that you buy the kit from or the price you pay ??

TonyMMM

The ethnicity % figures are pretty useless and tell you nothing of any great value about your history.

The value is in finding connections to others who have been tested - which means choosing a company who have a large database of other samples to compare with - and you really need to have already done a good deal of research and have the evidence, so that you can see where the possible matches might fit with your tree and if they are likely to be actually related (many won't be - or be very very distant).

candjsmum

I have done the Ancestry one with very interesting results. Since doing this I have made contact with 2 relatives via the ancestry website where your match results can be uploaded. I also downloaded my raw dna to a file which could then be uploaded to 3 other sites where you again can find relative matches. In my opinion, although the ancestry one is more expensive, it probably has the larger database so chances of finding matches are greater. Hope this helps.

amateur_house

I've done Ancestry and 23 and Me. It depends what you are looking for. 23 and Me is good for health information, and you get a quite detailed report with your risk of a range of health conditions (such as diabetes and Alzeheimers, and you can choose whether or not to see your risk of the more 'scary' conditions). They also tell you the probability of things you already know, such as blood group and eye colour.

With Ancestry you don't get any health info, but you get access to the family trees. You do need to subscribe for that, but as long as one person pays you can allow access to your results so one subscription can cover several people's access. You can download your raw data and upload it to various other sites to get health info, Promethease is one (it was around £4) and are others you can upload to.

You get an ethnicity estimate for both. Ancestry puts you in genetic communities based on your DNA being similar to the population of that area.

For me personally, I am trying to trace my roots, so it was worth the cost.

50Twuncle

amateur_house wrote: »

I've done Ancestry and 23 and Me. It depends what you are looking for. 23 and Me is good for health information, and you get a quite detailed report with your risk of a range of health conditions (such as diabetes and Alzeheimers, and you can choose whether or not to see your risk of the more 'scary' conditions). They also tell you the probability of things you already know, such as blood group and eye colour.

With Ancestry you don't get any health info, but you get access to the family trees. You do need to subscribe for that, but as long as one person pays you can allow access to your results so one subscription can cover several people's access. You can download your raw data and upload it to various other sites to get health info, Promethease is one (it was around £4) and are others you can upload to.

You get an ethnicity estimate for both. Ancestry puts you in genetic communities based on your DNA being similar to the population of that area.

For me personally, I am trying to trace my roots, so it was worth the cost.

Thanks - I pay for ancestry membership in any case !!

Voyager2002

50Twuncle wrote: »

I was thinking of getting it done as well
https://goo.gl/id1ZWR is the cheapest going at the moment - £39...
I am assuming that there are only an extremely limited number of labs to process the DNA and as such the results will be the same from all of them ?
or at least will not depend on the company that you buy the kit from or the price you pay ??

That assumption does not hold: see post below yours about the size of the company's database. Another point is that there is a vast number of tests that could be performend on a DNA sample: each laboratory will choose which of these to perform as part of its service, and there is no reason to expect them all to carry out the same tests, or even the same number of tests.

rochja

Family Tree is the testing partner of National Geographic's Genographic project. It asking me for £45, not £39 though.