We did 23andme because my wife was interested in susceptibility to genetic diseases. It has been interesting; confirmed my Jewish ancestry which we were pretty sure about (maternal grandfather was adopted, named Jacob Benjamin).

I would like to caution about a couple of things:
1. I know of several cases of friends/acquaintances/relatives by marriage who have found a sibling previously unknown, due to (mostly wartime) infidelity. Enough time has elapsed, and the principals are long gone, that the siblings are often welcomed into the family with tolerance and understanding.
But that may not be the case. Sometimes the new relative may be a leach or miscreant.

2. China's CCP is engaged in gathering DNA from around the world, one must assume for nefarious reasons--I did find a source for that: Gordon Chang, Fox News

Ancestry.com is a pretty good place to start in building your family tree. Start with family legend and oral history, then go to CENSUS records and obituaries to find your grandparents, great-grand parents, aunts and uncles to rough out the data in your family tree. (Currently, census records run through 1940; 1950 census records will be available in Ancestry.com in 2022).

Privacy issue #1 - If you use Ancestry.com's on-line family tree builder, you can make it public or you can make it private. But Ancestry.com will have the data. If you are very sensitive to the risks of sharing that info, you can just write it down on paper and not put it in their tree maker.

Cool Feature #1 - many obits (which help you trace family members who survived the deceased person) and other neat articles are available on Newspapers.com (which is a separate subscription). You can find articles about your family members in the old days... great stuff. I've found deeds and property sales, accidents and legal cases, and even a death from the Spanish Flu in 1919, all relating to family members...

DNA testing (where you send in a buccal swab from inside your cheek) can give you an idea of ethnic background, but will not give you names of relatives from previous generations for your family tree. But it will provide names of actual people whose submitted DNA that is close to yours, which means you might discover relatives you didn't know you had. You might find a parent, a sibling, or another close relative; and you will almost certainly get hits on people who are cousins, second cousins, etc. The names of people with related DNA can only come from among people who have provided a DNA sample to the testing company.

Privacy Issue #2. If there is criminal DNA evidence in the system that belongs to an unknown person, but it happens to be linked closely to your DNA, the police may come knocking on your door to try to figure out who that brother, cousin, etc. is. Some people don't like the idea of being the link to capture a relative who was, say, a murderer or rapist. I say let the police catch the bastard. (If YOU are the criminal, it would not be wise to take the DNA test at all).

I've confirmed a lot of family stories about old relatives, found relatives I didn't know I had, and discovered a relative who was in the Revolutionary War (although most of my relatives came over between 1880 and 1908). I found one or two real surprises. It was fun and well worth it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RoverSig,

I have it pretty easy here in England, with a photograph of my g'G-mother and well-ordered parish records going back to the late 1500's.

Of my father's family in Ireland I can find no trace past his father, due to the destruction of all prior census's in the burning of the Four Courts in Dublin in beginning of the Irish Civil War in 1922.

What I DID do, however, was to take part in a gene test about 15 years back. The UoD was interested in the large swathe of people sharing the same surname -in my case, Foley - down the Eastern and South Eastern part of Ireland - Waterford, Wexford and Cork. the first two county names are indisputably Viking in origin, but Cork is not, yet still has a huge Foley population. The name is derived from the Old Irish word 'foghláda - raider or plunderer, for obvious reasons - that part of Ireland was heavily raided, and then settled, by Vikings of one kind or another in the 9thC. It would appear that even after all this time, I still have over 70% Scandinavian genetic content, from Southern Norway or Sweden.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tacfoley,

Thanks to all who contributed. I've made a start on Familysearch.org but as most of my side of the family are UK, it's success has so far been limited.

My wife did Ancestry a couple of years ago and found a half sister she never knew. They have connected and it's been really great for both of them!

I use 23&Me and Ancestry. I had the DNA tests from both just to see how they compared. There were slight differences, but nothing really significant. I was somewhat surprised at my results so far.

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
Yeah, I was waiting for all the 'helpful' asses to turn up and answer the question that wasn't asked.


Man. they're predictable.

C'mon man

They're just trying to save you from the communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of your precious bodily fluids...

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
Yeah, I was waiting for all the 'helpful' asses to turn up and answer the question that wasn't asked.


Man. they're predictable.

Anyone got some actual experiences?

wife and I did Ancestry a few years ago

mine showed mostly what I was told my ancestry was,

the wife's was not the same as she had been told ,


I know my paternal ancestor was a very young man when he stepped off the boat in Jamestown in 1610 , and the rest of the family is typical UK, mostly English, with percentages of Scot, Irish, and Scandinavia being the next down the list,

I am less than 1% Congo area of africa

which means either the Cherokee gggrandma was not really Cherokee, or someone played in the wood shed long ago,



this wife was told her folks were mostly Irish, then English

nope, she is mostly Central European,
she was able to connect to the SAR database thru a relative, to become a DAR member (I'm also SAR) so we know her family, or part of it, was here that long ago,



ancestry , even tho I am no longer a paying member, will allow you to access your data, and they update it every so often,

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:
I did the Ancestry dna thing, and found a lot more Brit in me than I ever imagined. Still there is a lot of German/Scandanavian too. Got into the Ancestry tree building thing and found Brit and French royals 1000 years ago. IF you can believe such things. King Edward(s), John (Magna Carta guy), etc. One ancestor was the Lord Lt of Ireland. Another the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Again, IF you can believe such things.
Also tracked down some questions more recently like- where was my Dad born? I found out where that log cabin actually was. Family lore and Ancestry have agreement across the board.
But for every answered question and new revelation, there are more questions come up. It is to me fascinating.

I was able on Ancestry to go back only 2 generations in the UK,
my direct paternal ancestor, the one I mentioned in another post that arrive here in 1610 was from just north of London,
then his father was from Winchester,
there, the trail dies, no records available



on a side note, years ago my Mother and Brother did the ancestry thing the hard way, pre internet, by searching local and state libraries, and older family members records,

they were successful on her side of the family, and one of our maternal ancestors got us (brother and I) into SAR, and my Mother into the DAR,

however they ran into a road block at the time with my fathers side,
we knew enough to go back a few generations, then it stopped, dead ends,

however my brother found out that there is an Association of our Family name, and we joined that group, got a copy of all the folks at that time with our last name in the US, and the family trees,,

which, matched up with what we later found on Ancestry

Doing the Ancestry DNA test has been a boon in my search to fill out my family tree. Unfortunately I waited until all of my parent's generation were dead before I got curious.

DNA matches have found cousins that were able to fill in a huge amount of my family tree. For instance I have found that one of my Father's Grandmothers was a cousin of Black Jack Kehoe of the Molly Maguires and my Mother's Grandmother's family were related to the Brady pioneer and War of Independence family in Pennsylvania!

Go for it!

Foilhats: If any of your relatives have done it, you're as good as had it done anyway.

I've toyed with the idea, but assume at some point my sister will probably do it, so there's no need.


The state tests me weekly for covid, so I'm sure my DNA is already on file somewhere.

I've looked into very specific gene testing, for the purpose of identifying possible familial atrial fib after recent diagnosis. Just to give kids and siblings a heads up if present.

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
I've left genetic material in enough assholes to date that one more wouldn't hurt.

At 75 years old, I found out I had a daughter. She asked me to do 23andMe to confirm it, I did and don't think it's a big deal. What surprised me were the 1500 people related to me. My mother and father were only children, so a very small immediate family.

I used Ancestry to construct a genealogy. I thought it was very useful and user friendly - I was able to trace my family line back to the mid 1400's and found many interesting documents along the way. It was kind of like putting together a puzzle - once I constructed the tree going back 4-5 generations I was able to connect it to trees that others had already created and put a bunch of work into so that made it much easier.

I did not send in any DNA so I can't speak to that feature.

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
This is a serious inquiry. Does either service provide any details regarding any Neanderthal Ancestry? I'm curious about what a blood test would reveal about my ethnic background, of course. But it might be interesting to see if any of my ancestors were not homo sapien humans.

Unless you come from Sub Saharan Africa then yes, you will have Neanderthal dna.

Just for kicks, I did the ancestry thing.

Prior to Ancestry, I didn't even know who my great grandparents were.

I was totally blown away by what I learned and traced my direct line to my earliest known, born 1420 in Benenden, Kent,England.
All of my direct line were British high nobility up until The American Rev.Mounds of history! I worked non-stop, full-time on my family research for 2 1/2 years (I'm retired).

I back checked umpteen times against other sources; Church of England Records of Marriages, Births, Christenings and Burials, Geni.com, familysearch.com, etc.
I found Ancestry will occaisionally mislead unintentionally.

I have put together 3 full ring-binder volumns. If your line is of royalty or nobility, it will be much easier to research as better and more complete historical records are likely to be available.

I was gifted Ancestry and it was nothing special.

Just told me somewhere hundreds of years ago some Italian guy had a kid with a woman who was a child of an Italian man and a Swiss lady.

It was anti climatic.

We did it through one of the companies that do not sell your information....I can't remember the name.

It was rather funny, my wife got the results she expected....a little bit of everything.

On mine they might as well wrote in the results...you are so Caucasian you glow in the dark....96% Northern European....my wife jokes I cleaned our boy's blood up.

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
On mine they might as well wrote in the results...you are so Caucasian you glow in the dark....96% Northern European....my wife jokes I cleaned our boy's blood up.

If it wasn't for Great Britain and Ireland I probably wouldn't be here.

Yep, I one of the whitest ones here too. England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. We were always told there was probably some Native American blood somewhere down the line but Ancestry says nope.