I took the test. I received the kit, used it, and mailed it. A few weeks later, I got the results. My DNA is 85% Italian, 10% Greek, and 5% … kazakhstan! WTF? LOL
Rezzing this thread, one of several, as Ancestry has an el cheapo sale, 2/3rds off everything, thru 3-18.
So, without further ado, what would be the most optimal deal? The base test is $34, while the “World Explorer Membership” is $35, and the combo is an even better deal, @ $44. A reddit thread said that the traits thing was pretty much a nothingburger.
My motivation is that I am adopted-while I found my birth mother 30 years ago, I know next to nothing about my birth father and his side (my bio. parents have both died by now note). They met in a state on the other coast from where she lives now, and she has consistently been very tight-lipped about him, and even has given conflicting information to me at several points when I did manage to get any info out of her.
One of my birth sisters has an account and I should be able to hook up with her there. Just asking for advice, input, and info.
If you know absolutely nothing about your bio-dad, you have a very good chance of identifying his family, and being able to narrow it down from there based on how closely you’re related to any others on that side of the family.
I’ll just add some data points concerning meeting bio-relatives from adoptees that I have know..
My wife identified her bio-parents via Ancestry. On her father’s side, she has no first cousins, but several half-siblings. She reached out to a niece and a nephew (Ancestry DNA match) on that side of the family and never got a response. On her mother’s side she had no siblings, but several cousins. She reached out to one, who responded that she didn’t buy the story, that she was very close to her Aunt Margaret, and if she had ever had a child, she would have told her. (Well, apparently her Aunt Margaret was good at keeping secrets.) The second cousins on that side of the family were much more welcoming.
One of my classmates found several half-siblings from both sides of her family. They were all pretty much on board with welcoming her to the family.
Another classmate started out the first 50 years of her life as an only child, and thru Ancestry suddenly gained seven new half-siblings. Some were welcoming, and some just weren’t interested.
A friend from my hometown identified his bio-dad and connected with his half-siblings. They were all happy to meet him.
A long-time friend found out her bio-mom’s name many years ago due to a clerical error. She made contact, but told her that she was happy that she was adopted by a loving family, but she did not want a relationship, that she had moved on with her new family, and she thought it would be disruptive. She identified her father thru Ancestry, and those siblings welcomed her with open arms.
My 3½¢, FWIW.
I’m not sure that it’s a very good chance. What percent of people are in the database?
Interesting and fits what I’d imagine to be true.
A cousin of mine and I were contacted by a young woman who was adopted to see if we could identify her parents since DNA results showed were either her first or second cousins. With her age, we couldn’t figure out where she came from. She was o.k. with that and didn’t contact us again, but we both would have been happy to have a relationship with her.
My adopted daughter was able to find a birth brother via Ancestry. So far, she hasn’t found any info re her birth father’s side, but sooner or later a 2nd or 3rd cousin may sign up and appear in her referrals.
A person can easily have more than 1,000 4th cousins.
And? A person can also have very few, none of whom signed up for the service. Google says that only 20% of people have sent in a DNA test and not all of them opt to make their results available for matching.
Call it confirmation bias, but I’ve assisted about a dozen people with family history stuff–who have allowed me access to their DNA results. In every single one, the most distant closest relative was a second cousin, meaning your grandparents were siblings, but usually there was a 1C1R some other relative. And other than the exception of my wife and my half-sister (about whom we knew nothing about the parents and maternal grandmother, respectively), if I had known absolutely nothing about their family histories or relatives, I could have identified what families they belonged to. Not saying I could pinpoint the actual person in a short amount of time, but once you have the families and start matching DNA results, and how their results match with others, thru triangulation you can usually narrow down which branch.
Ancestry was in the family tree/genealogy business for a long time before public DNA tests were available, so they already had a large pool of interested people, and to date, they have the largest pool of DNA submissions.
And having said all that, this is mostly true for people of European descent. Blacks and Hispanics have a fairly significantly lower participation in DNA submissions.
I have very little personal data. My mom and sister signed up maybe seven years ago and they didn’t find anyone other than each other. I mentioned upthread that I was horrified and convinced them to lock things up or remove it entirely.
Wouldn’t exactly be a surprise as all of my grandparents were born in Poland.
My sister (only living sibling) and her daughter did it a number years ago. No surprises with my sister but my niece had a few via her dads side, nothing scandalous, just some “long distance” relatives that were much closer than her grandma let on due to a family feud years ago.
They tried to pressured me into getting one as supposedly having a close male relative do the test would give them more information, and it needed to be a male. Not sure why and I told them I wasn’t interested so they quit asking.
Note that that is just the cost to spit in a tube and get basic results. To have access to all info on the site there is a hefty monthly subscription cost. (Someone who is a member correct me if I’m wrong, but this is why I bailed on Ancestry–too expensive.)
Yeah I read the fine print on that, thanks. I’ll DL as much info as I can and cancel before they charge me when the free month ends. If someone PMs you on the site can you reup?
I don’t know. I’m guessing you can sign up again but it won’t be for the original cheapo price.
Well, you’ll get a list of all your dna matches with the basic price. If you see some first cousin or closer matches that you don’t recognize, you might possible message them to get more info if you’re curious about it. But many people could care less about that aspect, and are just curious to see how their ancestry shakes out.
Many people probably place too much emphasis on defining countries of origin, especially in Europe.
Before the 20th century, many contemporary European nations did not even exist. Even those that existed are likely to have relocated their borders multiple times or fallen under the control of a neighbour.
North Africans (Moors) occupied the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 15th centuries. It’s reasonable to expect significant interbreeding.
England was invaded by Vikings and Normans, and their influence is still visible.
So today is the last day for this Ancestry deal, and even though it’s the cheapest I’ve ever seen, I’m still on the fence. I doubt very much that I’d come up with long lost relatives and I have a paper family tree that goes back at least 8 generations in some lines, 3 generations for the shortest, and I know all my ancestors’ ethnicities (1/2 Southeast Asian, 3/8 East Asian, 1/8 British Isles) but on the other hand I’d be curious to see what it brings up.
And does anyone know if it’s good as a gift for someone who lives in Canada? Looking at the website, I couldn’t tell.
It would be good if the person is interested in that sort of thing. And if they’re not, they can always regift it. And unless they do specialized mailers, there will probably be extra postage in mailing the sample to the US, as they’re pre-packaged return box is postage-paid.
And as I’ve said numerous times, one of the things that you never know is going to shake out is who might show up in your relatives list unexpectedly (check my post from Dec 2020 in this thread).
Another personal note:
One of the relatives that showed up in my list was close enough that I should have been able to place her as probably a second cousin, but I couldn’t. I sent her a message, and she responded saying that she had been adopted, and that she didn’t know anything about her biological parents. I responded that if she were ever interested in narrowing down her family I’d be willing to help. She said “Thanks,” and that was the last I ever heard from her.
However just in case she did say ‘Yes,’ I went ahead and tried to find where she lived to try to see which branch of the family might have been closer. That turned up blank, but what did turn up was some news reports about her. She and several friends had been involved in a million-dollar plus mortgage scam, and they had all done a little time for it. Somehow they had gotten mortgage loans for some expensive properties, but just pocketed the money–with no plans to pay any of it back. Needless to say, the lenders were not happy.
And don’t forget they’re only comparing your DNA with whatever their database contains on the current distribution of DNA in quite broad areas. That doesn’t necessarily mean your ancestors were definitely from wherever.