Ancestry DNA?

[Box Brownie]

Heritage and origins are/can be a fascinating subject.....do seeing the adverts for this analysis service has caught my eye yet again.

Has anyone used the service and had their curiosity satisfied......or not as the case may be??.

Tia

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

My daughter is quite keen on this sort of thing and has turned up some unexpected claims, including an aunt, of whose existence no-one previously seems to have known.

In that particular case, existing evidence suggests it may well be true but some claims about my own ancestry don't actually fit with what we already know.

 

[lindsay]

Myself and a distant cousin who share a great grandfather, and are both into genealogy (she is a professional), have been exploring some of the claimed DNA-based connections. Some have been completely true, but others seem not to be genuine connections. Now it may be that those connections are genuine but the product of past naughtiness, but the provable history doesn't bear them out necessarily. So I would say that the DNA is ok as a curiosity, but is not terribly useful genealogically unless used as additional proof on top of other certificates and similar evidence. Of course an awful lot of people don't do genealogy properly, they just look for easy answers - same name and convenient place, must be a relative, kind of approach, instead of getting BMD certificates and census returns etc.

 

[Ricardodaforce]

I find it fascinating.

 

[Box Brownie]

Thanks both for your insights

I know a certain amount about my history including in a geographical sense. More latterly we found out about cousins a couple of times removed as a result of what @lindsay says.

Yes, my interest is more curiosity than needing affirmation.

I will give it some further thought as 'that company' is offering a discount now.

PS they also offer an extra service that it seems looks at traits & health risks!!!!! That sounds like a mix of fortune telling and a 'self diagnosis rabbithole'.

 

[Ricardodaforce]

Thanks both for your insights

I know a certain amount about my history including in a geographical sense. More latterly we found out about cousins a couple of times removed as a result of what @lindsay says.

Yes, my interest is more curiosity than needing affirmation.

I will give it some further thought as 'that company' is offering a discount now.

PS they also offer an extra service that it seems looks at traits & health risks!!!!! That sounds like a mix of fortune telling and a 'self diagnosis rabbithole'.

That last bit is fascinating. They hide some of the results, just in case you aren’t 100% sure you want to know.

 

[Box Brownie]

That last bit is fascinating. They hide some of the results, just in case you aren’t 100% sure you want to know.

Well they charge for the extra info with a note that it is no substitute for medical advice! I surmise that represents a legal(?) disclaimer

 

[boogie man]

My wife’s brother bought his daughter a 23andMe test as a joke. It turned up a long lost cousin that my wife and her family had lost track of over 40 years ago. She’d been living in the US for a long time and had been told by her parents (long since dead) that her bit of the family had been ostracised by all their relatives (totally untrue). She’s since been over to the U.K. and met up with lots of family members that she thought she’d lost contact with forever.