# If you've had DNA testing (23andme, Ancestry.com, etc) done, please share your experience. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2019, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586 "2019-03-05T18:37:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fedman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/278dde/32.png) [@fedman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/21 "2019-03-08T14:10:36Z")
used ancestry testing and very disappointed–first, they just gave pie chart with few exact country origins. Second, I read responses, and ancestry did NOT give me any genealogical data ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/22 "2019-03-08T15:19:15Z")
I did 23andme a while ago. From the ancestry side, it didn’t reveal anything that I couldn’t have known by looking in a mirror. But as time has gone by and more people have signed up for the tests, information has started to get uncovered that has had some big repercussions - (secret families, adoptees, etc.). It can change your family. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/23 "2019-03-08T15:48:53Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > I did 23andme a while ago. > From the ancestry side, it didn’t reveal anything that I couldn’t have known by looking in a mirror. But as time has gone by and more people have signed up for the tests, information has started to get uncovered that has had some big repercussions - (secret families, adoptees, etc.). > It can change your family. Underlining mine. I can never see the bolded parts. Does this apply to anyone that just takes the test or to the group of people that upload their data to various gene matching websites. There’s at least one secret in our family that needs to be kept that way. ---
**Author:** ![Dobbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Dobbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dobbs)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/24 "2019-03-08T18:46:05Z")
I’ve done both 23 and Ancestry. There was one question I wanted answered - Both sides of the family say there is Native American ancestry, but with no documentation, I wasn’t surprised to learn that there in none in my DNA. Otherwise, I’ve found it interesting. Several in the family have been tested, and seeing how the DNA shakes out has been educational, mostly for the younger ones. We’ve made connections with several distant relatives, including some that we had no idea that they existed. There were a few adoption stories that were answered, including one that was an unhappy answer. From the available documentation, I could spin a reasonable tale of deceit, immoral behavior and manipulation that matched the personalities of those involved, and wrong according to the DNA, so that was nice. For the science, I’d recommend 23. They include Y and mitochondria DNA haplogroups, and Neanderthal variant testing. Ancestry doesn’t classify haplogroups, and, being owned by LDS church, doesn’t accept human/Neanderthal interbreeding. For making contact with relatives, I come down in favor of 23 also. I think their interface is cleaner, but it probably also influenced by the fact I’ve made more connections there. Ancestry has a ‘migration’ page that shows how your DNA moved across the world, but it only goes back a few hundred years, but based on what I know it’s fairly accurate. > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Underlining mine. I can never see the bolded parts. > > Does this apply to anyone that just takes the test or to the group of people that upload their data to various gene matching websites. There’s at least one secret in our family that needs to be kept that way. Sharing your results is opt-in for both, but if you want to see mine, you need to show yours. You can keep your secret, but you won’t be able to see if you have any ‘DNA relatives’. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/25 "2019-03-08T19:38:44Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Underlining mine. I can never see the bolded parts. > > Does this apply to anyone that just takes the test or to the group of people that upload their data to various gene matching websites. There’s at least one secret in our family that needs to be kept that way. What happens is that you start to put 2 & 2 & 2 & 2 & 2 together. If you opt in to finding DNA relatives on 23andme, they tell you how much of your DNA is shared with the people you match. It will also tell you how each of you connect with a third person. So, for example, if you and your cousin both sign up, it will tell you “you have a 10.3% DNA match with Pat.” If later, your cousin’s sibling signs up, you’ll be able to see “you have an 9.2% DNA match with Chris.” But you might also notice that the Chris and Pat do not seem to share any DNA. And surprise, your family tree is not what you thought it was. (Chris and Pat will, of course, also know that they don’t share any DNA.) If enough of the “right” people sign up (and if your family is large enough, this will probably eventually happen), then that secret isn’t staying secret. And there’s really not much you can do about it. But, by not signing up, you can at least delay more adding puzzle pieces. I should also add, the repercussions have not been bad; some have been good. But they are there. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/26 "2019-03-08T20:06:23Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I had the ancestry bug for a while. I wish I had gone straight to FTDNA and sprung for the FamilyFinder and Big Y (since I’m male) test, rather than hitting up multiple services and paying for progressively more expensive tests. But I had no way of knowing I’d be going that deep into the rabbit hole. > > One thing I definitely didn’t need is having several illegitimate 2nd cousins fall out of the tree and try to use me as a vector to get established in the family. I am sympathetic to adoptees in general, but the ones I met are just fucking nuts. Yes, I’m sorry your mother gave you away in 1961, I’m sorry she has been rebuffing your attempts to reconnect for 20 years, but I never even met her and I’m not going to upset my own loved ones by attempting to mediate that shitshow. I have posted about this before. This kind of shit is my nightmare. I was a sperm donor in 1983 to two couples. I have no idea if either pregnancy took but I could have a couple of bio kids out there. I was promised anonymity for life. My dad died a couple of years ago and my sister got to thinking about things so she and my mom did 23 or Ancestry. Big surprise; we are 100% Ashkenazi. Now they are in a fucking database and I can be found out. The two of them are such goddamn snoops that they will be unable to resist contacting them over my strong protests. Of course if the kids take after me, they would never do something so reckless as putting their DNA in a database so maybe I’m safe. Or maybe they don’t even exist. > [@nightshadea](#): > > there was a story a few weeks ago where a woman used a fertility donation clinic to get pregnant apparently she had more than one egg fertilized so the first child could have siblings and part f the agreement was the male donors would never be contacted > > Well the family used 23andme for the family tree and on a whim she added her daughter and found a relative on the donors side …she called them and tried to explain she was just looking for family info but it was an elderly person who didn’t understand so she just said goodbye and didn’t think anymore about it > > Well she received a letter from the clinic saying she violated the agreement and they had confiscated the fertilized eggs in storage and destroyed them and terminated the contract wih no appeal but she would get a refund ……Last time I hard about it she was trying to figure out if she could sue Good. Exactly what she deserved. I am sure that it was all in the contract. > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Does this apply to anyone that just takes the test or to the group of people that upload their data to various gene matching websites. There’s at least one secret in our family that needs to be kept that way. Good luck with that. It’s a new world. My bio kids would see that they have a grandmother and an aunt at which point it would be trivial to find me. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/27 "2019-03-08T20:12:00Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Good luck with that. It’s a new world. My bio kids would see that they have a grandmother and an aunt at which point it would be trivial to find me. In our case, it’s not our secret and IOHO, shouldn’t be a secret. So if someone finds out, I won’t feel any guilt about it. Basically, it’s complicated but it’s also not my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/28 "2019-03-09T05:01:32Z")
I had been procrastinating submitting my DNA to ancestry. If I had done it when I first thought about it I would have gotten a big surprise. As it was my cousin had uncovered the secret of the old-fashioned way and told me about it. The grandfather that I inherited my German last name from was actually Polish with an incredibly Polish last name that he changed for some unknown reason. It looks like he did it around WWI which seems counterintuitive. So no surprise that ancestry came back with mostly Eastern European and very little German. > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > In our case, it’s not our secret and IOHO, shouldn’t be a secret. So if someone finds out, I won’t feel any guilt about it. Basically, it’s complicated but it’s also not my problem. I don’t know about every single company but ancestry gives you the option to either share your information publicly to make genetic connections or they just send your make up to you only. They have several layers of privacy that you can choose from. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/29 "2019-03-09T05:16:50Z")
To me the more traditional part of ancestry has been a lot more interesting. Being able to look at various documents and also being able to look at some family trees that are already loaded up led me to discover a lot about my family history. My mother side dead ends pretty quickly in the 20th century in Italy. The German/ Polish part is also hard to trace back. But one branch is very easy to follow. I always figured most of not all of my family came from a poor backgrounds in Europe and came over during the great migration of the late 19th and early 20th century’s. It turns out that I actually have some very prominent people in my past. Some of the earliest settlers of the Northeast. If it had been able to stay in the family we would own Bayonne, Middletown, a big chunk of Coney Island, a decent part of the Bronx and Rhode Island. A great x grandfather was one of the 12 original settlers of Rhode Island. Throgs neck was named after a grandfather. The original Nathan’s hotdogs is on Stillwell Avenue named after another grandfather. In fact I can trace the branch up directly to Edward Longshanks. That is definitely not something I was expecting. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/30 "2019-03-09T08:58:51Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > For those that have had voluntary DNA testing done through one (or more) of the options that currently inundate TV commercials, who did you use and what did you think of the results? Was it worth the cost to you? If you’ve got some money to throw around and view your DNA breakdown as a novelty, sure. Looking for any deep insights? Nah. I did both 2andme and Ancestry, and found their breakdowns to be different enough to be basically useless. They agreed I was 100% European and that’s about it. My 23andme report: United Kingdom, Ireland - 45.1% Germany - 35.0% Eastern European - 5.2% Scandinavian - 3.1% Spanish & Portuguese - 1.5% Broadly Northwestern European - 5.8% Broadly Southern European - 0.9% Broadly European - 3.3% > **[Ancestry® | Family Tree, Genealogy & Family History Records](https://www.ancestry.com/)** > > Ancestry® helps you understand your genealogy. A family tree takes you back generations—the world's largest collection of online family history records makes it easy to trace your lineage. England, Wales & Northwestern Europe - 57% France - 23% Ireland & Scotland - 13% Eastern Europe & Russia - 2% Germanic Europe - 2% Sweden - 2% Baltic States - 1% Based on what I know about my family history, I believe 23andme to be more accurate, although they get a bit more wiggle room with this “broadly” crap. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/31 "2019-03-09T17:47:43Z")
My brother did Living DNA which instead of just giving a broad percentage they break it down much more scientifically. It’s shows your haplogroup and the migration patterns of those haplogroups. It dumps a lot of data on you. I haven’t had a chance to really digest it maybe someone with more scientific background can comment on its accuracy or usefulness. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/32 "2019-03-09T18:30:24Z")
the end of the article I spoke of basically says so many people are using these services these days its going impossible to keep anything confidential unless the courts get involved at some point because most of the non disclosure agreements from years ago aren’t worth the tp they wrote them on these days… ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586/33 "2019-03-09T19:28:11Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Based on what I know about my family history, I believe 23andme to be more accurate, although they get a bit more wiggle room with this “broadly” crap. I got the “Broadly European” thing on 23andMe too. Again - try GEDMatch. Actually, you can try it with both the 23 and the Ancestry raw data. Download them both and upload them to GEDMatch, see what it says for the “Eurogenes K36” calculator. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-had-dna-testing-23andme-ancestry-com-etc-done-please-share-your-experience/830586.md?page=1)