hi has anyone made use of the ancestry DNA was thinking of having a go but wondered what other peoples experience of it was

thanks irene

Hi Irene,

I guess it depends on what you want to get out of it. I had it done about one year ago because I was mainly interested in what it would come back with regarding my ethnicity (I know of my Polish ancestry but wanted to see what else it brought). I am not 100% convinced on my results so I am currently waiting on another DNA test result to come through via Living DNA. That was because Ancestry seem to claim all Celtic DNA as 'Ireland' when my Celtic DNA from my research is Scottish. My results claim I have zero Scandinavian in me which I found interesting so I am curious to see if the Living DNA test brings the same result there.

However, I have had a few great DNA matches with distant cousins who have had it done. My husband had a test done too and he had a great match with a long lost cousin who descended from his Ancestor who disappeared to America.

Claire

Hi Irene, Both my wife & I had ancestry DNA done. It depends what you want from it. The ethnicity data is interesting & is probably about what we expected. I hoped I might find new relatives but didn't find any closer than 4th cousins - these are very difficult to trace as they almost always are links via maternal lines. I have done family history for 25 years so having done all that I should have perhaps realised that I was unlikely to find closer relatives.
If you can afford it its worthwhile having a go !
John

I did it to find distant cousins, I didn't expect the ethnicity to be interesting and it wasn't.

The closest relative I've matched has been a 3rd cousin once removed. I did break down a brick wall involving the Smith surname. A 4th cousin match actually pointed to the right line. There are a lot of Smiths and I didn't have much hope of sorting them out until DNA came along.

I've also had an interesting match to a family where I had been looking at an ancestor named Ann and trying to decide if she had been christened as Nancy. The match is to a descendant of Nancy's sister, so I've added that to the other circumstantial evidence and concluded that Nancy and Ann are almost certainly the same person.

The best tips are to try and match locations rather than names and put some time into tracking your ancestors siblings.

And from a purely selfish point of view we need more Sheffield people in the database so go ahead and do it.

Caroline

Hi Irene,
I had an Ancestry DNA test done earlier this year and found it very worthwhile.
It confirmed things i knew or suspected with a few surprises, but as the DNA can be picked up from as far back as 1 or 2 thousand years ago i could see how it could be possible.

I was hoping it would show some Scottish but had heard it wouldn't specify.
My 50% British also covers Scotland and my 6% Irish covers Scotland.

My sister and daughter have since been tested and my sister showed 2% of DNA which didn't show up in mine, and my daughter showed 6% which didn't show in mine so would have come from her father's side.

I did also find a second cousin i hadn't known about which was interesting!

Hope this helps
Jill in Auckland New Zealand

Thanks to everyone who answered my query on DNA

I will be having it done

so thanks to everyone for helping me to make my mind up


Irene

Interesting blog on this from legalgenealogist.com. They sent DNA samples from the same person to different companies and got 7 totally different results. They say there were 2 reasons for this. 1) the different ways that the geographical areas are defined. 2) the fact that the persons DNA is being compared to samples from a small group of people who are living in those areas now, rather than comparing it to DNA from bones of people who lived there in the past.

In their promotion the DNA testing companies have heavily promoted the ethnicity aspect of the test. As the article you linked to shows it's not accurate for distinguishing between supposedly different groups of Western Europeans. Most Brits will learn nothing from it that they didn't already know and may even be led up the garden path.

The strength of the Ancestry test for genealogists is the tree links to 4th/5th/6th cousins which can and do help break down brickwalls. But it depends on the people testing making and sharing accurate trees. You will see many matches to people without trees who just took the test for the ethnicity, never followed up the family tree side of it and haven't logged in since. Which is somewhat frustrating.

Caroline