DNA Test. Is it worth it?

[Janet]

I have just received my DNA test results and as I would have expected I am 62% Scottish and Irish, just 13% UK but was also pleasantly surprised to find 11% from Western Europe and 10% Scandinavian. I should not really be surprised by this because one of my main line UK names could be Scottish/French/German or from the Low Countries and I had already read and I had already read about this previously. The Scandinavian part I am suspecting is from the Scottish lines somewhere.

For me the most interesting part has been the pinpointing of my Irish ancestors into Cork and Munster, which tallies with all the research I have done so far, as well as tallying with a cousin from Cork who always said that the family was a Munster family. As my mainline Irish name is a very common worldwide name with most people linkimg into to the Sept in Tyrone I often found myself out on a limb researching a different sept in Carrick on Suir . Idid much speculative work on this and now I am beginning to think I could be correct so I am now considering taking a DNA test for this Sept to prove me right or wrong.

The other icing on the cake was all my American cousins in Albany came top of the list for close cousins, proving all my research was correct.

I am now trying to work through other "matches" to see see where any might fit in but most of those are rather obscure at present.

I had already done my ethnicity homework and for me Ancestry have been spot on so I am very thrilled with the results. They have just clinced the area for me. Was it worth the money For me yes as I can now go ahead with the other DNA I have been toying with. However, I would say that you really need to have done a lot of homework first to get the most out of the test. Strangely enough I can see where Ancestry is coming from when they have written United Kingdom and not England as I might have expected, but of course many of my ancestors came from Scotland/Ireland to England so that makes them UK people in Ancestry eyes, not English!! Yes they have forgotten that UK was only in existence from 1700+!!. I think very few people will be actually English back to the Ancient Brits!

Janet

[Janet]

Perhaps I should have added that I would have preferred Scottish and Irish would have been broken down but I suspect that is where you would need another DNA test. Like FH itself I think this DNA testing could prove quite expensive but fascinating!

Janet

[toby blight]

Thanks Caroline, I will just have to wait for the results and see what crops up, I hope that MH delivers!

[toby blight]

Will do, will be in about 6 weeks I guess and if I can work it out!
Thanks to you and all the other members who have given me their thoughts on the matter, I am hoping for a positive result.:D
Cheers everyone.
Toby.

[jeanj]

i have been thinking along your lines for the DNA test. Am i right in thinking the relatives can only be found if they
also have done a DNA test with Ancestry? So far i have gone back in ireland to my gt.gt.grandfather with the help for free from Family Search. Really good.But there is still so much I would like to know. jeanj

[Caroline]

Perhaps I should have added that I would have preferred Scottish and Irish would have been broken down but I suspect that is where you would need another DNA test. Like FH itself I think this DNA testing could prove quite expensive but fascinating!

Janet

Living DNA breaks it down even further (and they say this is more recent DNA than Ancestry): https://www.livingdna.com/en-gb - at the moment they don't offer matches, but they are going in that direction and you can upload the DNA from other sites already. I don't know if that will give the same detail of breakdown or just matching. Selfishly the latter since I've done both. However, I do want to test my brother with them too as he has different ethnicity amounts than me on ancestry and many more matches, so I hope to get more detail about our background that way.

UPDATE: I had forgotten that it is possible to share one's results so here are mine so you can see what you can get (as a female).

https://my.livingdna.com/share/00754def-5a55-11e7-b124-5254002fd1a4

[Caroline]

i have been thinking along your lines for the DNA test. Am i right in thinking the relatives can only be found if they
also have done a DNA test with Ancestry? So far i have gone back in ireland to my gt.gt.grandfather with the help for free from Family Search. Really good.But there is still so much I would like to know. jeanj

Yes - you will only get matches if relatives have also taken the test on the same site you choose or you upload to other sites where you can also compare and they have also tested/uploaded there too. You will only see an estimation of the possible relationship and if they have an extensive tree or you recognise any surnames you might be able to work out "the join".

[GallowayLass]

Living DNA breaks it down even further (and they say this is more recent DNA than Ancestry): https://www.livingdna.com/en-gb - at the moment they don't offer matches, but they are going in that direction and you can upload the DNA from other sites already. I don't know if that will give the same detail of breakdown or just matching. Selfishly the latter since I've done both. However, I do want to test my brother with them too as he has different ethnicity amounts than me on ancestry and many more matches, so I hope to get more detail about our background that way.

Not so sure about that more detail bit. At the moment it is better for English areas, their databases for Scotland and Ireland can't split it down much at all, especially Ireland. Hence their various projects asking for raw DNA uploads so that they can improve things in the future.
I can't take part in the latest one which is for people with all four grandparents born within 50 miles of each other. My 3 were not and the 4th we don't know who he was.
I will still get round to finding a project a to upload to though as it is currently free and then I can sit and wait till the databases improve and they start doing matching and get a chromosome browser.

[GallowayLass]

I have just received a 23andme kit. My first test was with ancestry to take advantage of the biggest databases. They do not allow uploads and neither do 23andme.
I have already uploaded to FTDNA, My Heritage and GEDMatch.
That way I have covered all the sites for the least outlay.

[Caroline]

Not so sure about that more detail bit. At the moment it is better for English areas, their databases for Scotland and Ireland can't split it down much at all, especially Ireland. Hence their various projects asking for raw DNA uploads so that they can improve things in the future.
I can't take part in the latest one which is for people with all four grandparents born within 50 miles of each other. My 3 were not and the 4th we don't know who he was.
I will still get round to finding a project a to upload to though as it is currently free and then I can sit and wait till the databases improve and they start doing matching and get a chromosome browser.

Without testing it's difficult to tell what their breakdown is for Ireland and Scotland and as can be seen, I've not got enough of either to tell but at least interested people can have a look at some of the possibilities.

[Janet]

Not so sure about that more detail bit. At the moment it is better for English areas, their databases for Scotland and Ireland can't split it down much at all, especially Ireland. Hence their various projects asking for raw DNA uploads so that they can improve things in the future.
I can't take part in the latest one which is for people with all four grandparents born within 50 miles of each other. My 3 were not and the 4th we don't know who he was.
I will still get round to finding a project a to upload to though as it is currently free and then I can sit and wait till the databases improve and they start doing matching and get a chromosome browser.

Well I do have 15 of my 16 Grandparents and they all live far more than 50 miles apart from each other, Cork Ireland, Perthshire Scotland and Northamptonshire. but the Ancestry DNA still managed to sort it and based on my own research Ancetry DNA test has been spot on. Going through some of the more obscure matches I am finding tucked away in the folds are other lines I am researching. Sadly those without trees on Ancestry but with same DNA will remain out of reach though these may be on other sites. At present I have enough to do sorting out the matches. I have not even got around to downloading the raw data.

Now here is my grumble about Ancestry!! You find a match of possible interest, about the 50th match you find interesting but when you want to go back to where you left off you end up going back to the beginning. Why can't I go back to where I left off??

Janet
,

[GallowayLass]

That annoys me too Janet. Are you by any chance using a phone or tablet? I think it works ok if you are on a pc, but I could be wrong.

[Caroline]

Now here is my grumble about Ancestry!! You find a match of possible interest, about the 50th match you find interesting but when you want to go back to where you left off you end up going back to the beginning. Why can't I go back to where I left off??

Janet
,

I use Chrome and I know that different browsers act differently on Ancestry, but if I am on a match's page, I use the browser back button and it should take you back to the previous page no matter how far through the pages of matches - don't use the Member Matches link on the page you're looking at or you will end up back at the main DNA page.

[Janet]

Thanks Caroline, I will try that next time on Ancestry. Am on a break from searches at presen!.


Galloway I am using Edge Browser on PC but will try out Caroline's idea and see if that works.

Janet

[GallowayLass]

Thanks Caroline, I will try that next time on Ancestry. Am on a break from searches at presen!.


Galloway I am using Edge Browser on PC but will try out Caroline's idea and see if that works.

Janet

I use IE11 so we are all different LOL. Caroline's tip works for me.

[GallowayLass]

I have just uploaded my raw DNA to LivingDNA as part of the One Family, One World project. None of the others were suitable for me because of not meeting the criteria of 4 grandparents born within 50 miles of each other.
I had to fill in names, birth dates and places for my parents and grandparents. As I don't know one of them, there is a box to tick to say that I don't know this information. I also uploaded a GEDcom but I can't see a link to it anywhere in my new LivingDNA account.
My status is now that I am "awaiting testing" but the results are not due till 6 August. That's an awful long time to wait for an upload to processed!
Has anybody else done this and had the same huge timescale?

Also something to bear in mind if you are only doing an upload from another company's test you will not get an ethnicity estimate. From their FAQ -
Please note that uploading your autosomal raw data to the One Family project does not provide genetic ancestry breakdown or mtDNA/yDNA results, therefore it is not a substitute for a Living DNA test.

[Vivian]

You can also upload your raw data to GEDmatch Genesis, which includes others who have tested with 23andMe, LivingDNA, Genes for Good, GPS Origins, etc. as well as Ancestry & FTDNA.

After you have logged into GEDmatch go down to the bottom right blue frame "Genesis Beta" & click on Find More about Genesis Beta. This will take you to a new screen where you need to Register & Log-In, then follow the instructions to the right of your User Profile box.

[Caroline]

I have just uploaded my raw DNA to LivingDNA as part of the One Family, One World project. None of the others were suitable for me because of not meeting the criteria of 4 grandparents born within 50 miles of each other.
I had to fill in names, birth dates and places for my parents and grandparents. As I don't know one of them, there is a box to tick to say that I don't know this information. I also uploaded a GEDcom but I can't see a link to it anywhere in my new LivingDNA account.
My status is now that I am "awaiting testing" but the results are not due till 6 August. That's an awful long time to wait for an upload to processed!
Has anybody else done this and had the same huge timescale?

Also something to bear in mind if you are only doing an upload from another company's test you will not get an ethnicity estimate. From their FAQ -
Please note that uploading your autosomal raw data to the One Family project does not provide genetic ancestry breakdown or mtDNA/yDNA results, therefore it is not a substitute for a Living DNA test.

It's taking a long time because they are only just collecting the uploaded DNA (since last October?) so that is the time scale they are working on to go public. You do have to wait a very long time for your results if you do their test but they are up front about that. I actually got mine a wee bit earlier so had a nice surprise.

[Caroline]

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This Mother’s Day, get 20% off so £63 instead of £79

*Offer valid from 26 February 2018 to 11 March 2018. Price excludes postage and packaging costs.

[gloryer]

just got my results, finally, not digested it all yet but seems I have 191 distant cousins!!