AncestryDNA: Genetic Ethnicity Test, Ethnicity Estimate, AncestryDNA Test Ki
AncestryDNA Genetic Test Kit: Personalized Genetic Results, DNA Ethnicity Test, Origins & Ethnicities, Complete DNA Tes
Location and Detail Feature
AncestryDNA communities give you more specific breakdowns of places in your past, helping pinpoint where your ancestors might have lived. They also provide a timeline of historical changes that give you context about the events that shaped the lives of your ancestors over time.
DNA Matches & Matches by Parent* Feature
We’ve designed the DNA matches experience to help you make more discoveries, faster. Use color coding, custom labeling, and other innovative tools to see your DNA connections in the clearest light possible. You can now easily see living relatives who share your DNA and even which ethnicities come from which parent.
ThruLines Feature
Linking your family tree to your DNA results can reveal new chapters of your family story. You might find out how your DNA matches fit into your family tree or learn new details about the ancestors who likely connect you.
Ethnicity Inheritance*
Now you can see how each parent contributed to your ethnicity estimates without your parents even taking a DNA test. It’s all made possible by SideView, a specialized technology developed by Ancestry that uses DNA matches to determine which parts of your DNA came from each parent.
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity Estimate | ✓ | ✓ |
| DNA Matches | ✓ | ✓ |
| Historical Timeline | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ancestral Movements | ✓ | ✓ |
| StoryScout | ✓ | ✓ |
| Over 35 Traits | ✓ | |
| Traits Around the World | ✓ | |
| Compare Traits | ✓ |
| Weight: | 91 Grams |
| Brand: | AncestryDNA |
| Origin: | China |
Excellent product, I have purchases previously with no issues. However I was not happy with Amazon sticking the postage label directly to to product ruining its use as a gift.
Some people are only interested in pop-science things like ethnicity, but that barely scratches the surface of what you can do with these tests. When used to their fullest extent by attaching your results to a small family tree Ancestry’s systems can link it to their vast databases of trees, and use that to give good suggestions as to how you are related to your DNA matches. And oh, the matches. It will obviously vary depending on your background, but my parents have about 30,000 matches (each!) Ancestry’s database is vast, and by far the biggest. If you only test once, test at Ancestry first, only then maybe consider other services to mop-up. Once you get into the details these tests can reconnect long-detached branches of your family tree, help identify biological parents of adoptees, or reveal long-forgotten family history. My tests have taught me things about my family it’s quite likely my great grandparents didn’t even know about their parents and grandparents.
It’s really made history come alive for me thinking about all they lived and died through.
It’s not all sunshine and roses with this product, though. Despite the power of the data they have available Ancestry seems to not want to cater for advanced researchers. Their DNA searching and filtering interface cannot do simple things like exclude matches by criteria, and their match tagging support is curiously limited. This can make working with large numbers of matches somewhat of a chore.
They also steadfastly refuse to offer something called a chromosome browser to show you exactly “where” you match you matches, not just by how much. All the other DNA testing services offer this feature. It can be invaluable in revealing (at least on your side of the connection) which of your ancestors the connection (or connections!) pass through. Hopefully one day they will offer this.
What they do let you do, however, is download your DNA results which you can then upload to third party services which do offer these features (i.e. GEDmatch.com). I strongly recommend doing this once you understand a bit more about things and the ramifications of doing so. There are excellent educational resources online to teach you all about what you can do, and case in point I’ve managed to compile artificial profiles for my ancestors almost as if they themselves had spat in those little tubes themselves, despite in some instances having left this world decades before I or even my parents were born. Science is amazing, and these tests have opened up a huge new world to me. They’re so much more than how Scottish/German/English you supposedly are.
It is for entertainment purposes, mostly, although I have found it very accurate in this respect.
The real purpose of the ancestry kit is to find other DNA matches/relatives.
Most people buy the kit to find out their ethnicity, but the incredible thing about the kit is the accuracy of the DNA matches. Take the time to look at the matches, build yourself a family tree, use the hints that Ancestry give you, and you will doubtless find some incredible stuff about your unknown family.
There are several Facebook groups full of people who can help with this. DNA detectives, DD Social, DNA detectives UK etc. you will find relatives you didn’t know you had, and A lot of the time, they will have photographs of family members that you have never seen. Focus on the DNA side of Ancestry, and treat the ethnicity estimates as a bit of fun.
Brought as a present for my mother she has managed to find long lost relatives living in Australia. Worth every penny to see her face.
Worked as supposed to, processing done in Ireland. Speedy turnaround less than 4 weeks. Results as expected.
I did not dislike anything with the procedure of getting the DNA kit or with how to use i
Very simply, Ancestry have the biggest database of UK samples, and due to this you stand much higher chances of finding unknown family links in the UK.
My father was adopted. Using this and the family tree + record tools, I’ve located my biological grandad, a half aunt, a half uncle, made them aware of each others existance, also found up one level that there was another broken family, and my biological granfather had a few siblings he never knew about nor them of him.
All in, 3 generations of family who were unknown to each other are now linked together. If that isn’t worth the price, I don’t know what is.
It gives you a lot of interesting information about you and what your parents gave you in you DNA. I found it quite interesting.
Really easy to use and has given me information about distant relatives I would never have known without this test. Would recommend this DNA test 100%
I brought this when on offer. Very interesting and accurate results. Very easy to use, free post in any post box. It said it was a long wait for results 10 weeks but I got mine in 4 weeks. It gives you updates on timings and reminds you to set up an account to get your results.
Very simple to use, just fill a tube with spit and post it off. Results took around 2 months to come back but proved very interesting. I’ve managed to make contact with some distant family I had no idea existed, including someone I went to school with and had no idea we shared great grandparents!
It has been so good to see my family tree. This is a great prese
Like everything not liked having to pay to quantify the info already received
I was worried as I was told online trying to register the kit was difficult because it was not bought direct
What a load of tosh everything went well and at 49 it was a steal.
was pleased with this purchase and would recommend this selle
What are you buying?
There are three parts to this product, all linked to the Ancestry family tree service/website.
1 – ethnicity estimates:
Your DNA is passed down from generation to generation and can be traced back a couple of hundred years. What Ancestry – and other DNA ethnicity providers – do is to compare your DNA to a database of other people’s, to estimate where in the world your ancestors came from.
If your result says 70% Egyptian it does not mean your direct ancestors were Egyptian, it means people who are in the company’s DNA database and match with your DNA pattern, usually have roots in Egypt. It gives you a guide, or hint of what to look for when building your family tree and to where a paper trail might lead – although you might have to look back hundreds of years to get there.
It also does not mean you are what the results say. Mine tell me almost half of my DNA can be traced back to Scotland, but that does not mean I am Scottish.
DO use this service if you are interested in your roots, want help to trace your family history and can accept that the results are an estimate and not a guarantee.
DO NOT use this service if you’re looking for confirmation that you’re one thing or another and feel the need to prove it, or if seeing a result that you don’t recognise will hit your mental health and lead you to think you’re not the person you always thought you were, because you are you, no matter what.
BE AWARE: These results are estimates. They change over time as the reference database improves. You can expect to get refreshed estimates every couple of years which might change the locations or percentages reported. This does not change who you are!
2 – Finding family
The number one reason for most Ancestry DNA users to get this product is to see which other Ancestry DNA users they are related to. Adopted people often use it to try to trace their biological family, other’s, like me, out of pure curiosity and to help build their family tree backwards in time. This part of the service is optional, you can opt out of it before or after getting your results.
By opting in you should be aware of the risk of surprises – you might find a relative that shocks you and reveals old family secrets – no matter how much you think you know already! Also, you might not, how many DNA linked users/relatives you see depends entirely on how many DNA linked users/relatives have also taken the test.
For me, I discovered that my dad has a sister he never knew about, and a grandad that didn’t know he had a daughter, now living on the other side of the world. Unfortunately it was too late for my dad and grandad to find out, by my mum, sister and I were lucky enough to meet my aunt and cousin, something that wouldn’t have been possible without this product. It also helped my aunt to learn about her biological father after a 10 year search for information and only knowing his name and roughly where he was from.
I’ve got over 40,000 DNA matched users on my list, 400+ classed as ‘close’ relatives. One of which helped piece together a whole branch of my family tree that we had no idea about. I’ve learned so much about my roots from this 6th cousin and it’s been fascinating.
On the other hand, I have a 2nd great grandad who wasn’t British and left no trace behind after (we assume) leaving England in the 1800s, but there’s no DNA linked people that I’ve been able to identify to help piece together this part of the jigsaw. The good news is, if somebody sharing his DNA takes the test in future, they will appear on my list and we can hopefully start to fill in some blanks!
This means, even if your initial results are disappointing, don’t give up. Keep coming back to them each year and see what new matches you have, one day somebody important in the chain might just take the same test and help you answer your unanswerable questions.
DO take this test if you want to build your family tree and find out more about your history, use it to build outwards and add distant cousins whose linked family tree’s can then help you go backwards in time to fill in your blanks.
DO NOT take this test if seeing a surprising result will have an adverse affect on your wellbeing. It happens more often than we might expect.
3 – Thrulines
This is a feature specifically for those who have a family tree with Ancestry. Thrulines analyses your tree and the tree’s of your DNA matches (see 2) to look for common ancestors, then helps you to fill in the blanks. You have 16 great grandparents, you might know who 12 of them were and have four question marks, Thrulines will help you fill in those blanks if it can link the people you know to people in somebody else’s tree.
DO use this feature to help build your family tree backwards.
DO NOT use this feature blindly – just because another user has a relative in their tree that matches your relative, the other users tree is only as good as their research. Use the information as a basis for your own research to make sure the suggestions are correct before adding information to your tree.
What are DNA test results?
Scientists will test your DNA and map out each part to build a genetic picture of you. This is basically all in numbers that computers and scientists will understand. You can download the data from Ancestry’s website after you get the results and take a look for yourself, but it won’t mean much.
Ancestry will look at each strand (chromosone) of your DNA to see what it looks like, they’ll then compare it against their ethnicity database to see if it looks like other samples from certain places around the world. They’ll also compare it to other DNA customers to see if any have the same bits of DNA.
This forms the basis of the results you see on the website.
Will they sell my DNA?
Your DNA is a sample you send off in a tube, it will be destroyed after testing. All that is left are a few lines of information in a text file that I mentioned above. You will not be cloned by Ancestry or any other organisation!
You will be given the option of allowing Ancestry to use the information in this file for research purposes. If you give permission then the information is used, but not your name or other identifying data. You’ll also be given the option of completing surveys about yourself – what colour eyes, hair do you have, illnesses, food preferences etc. Your answers can be linked back to the answers of other people with similar DNA and if everybody who matches one particular part of DNA all have blue eyes, the scientists might predict that the next person with that DNA will also have blue eyes. More usefully, if everybody that repots having a serious illness all have the same strands of DNA, they might be able to investigate that a bit deeper to find underlying causes or cures – not in the next year or two, it takes a long time, but you could end up helping your children or grandchildren.
What about my privacy?
Of the three features of your DNA test results, the most useful one is family matching, where Ancestry lists other Ancestry DNA users who have the same bits of DNA as you. You can use this feature to find family members, message them securely (without giving out your contact details) and research your/their family trees. This is optional and you can opt out of it, but it’s also the main feature so think carefully before buying if this isn’t what you want. You also have the option of signing up using an alias, there are no ID checks, so you don’t have to list your actual name (although again, family names are really useful for family research, so don’t be too worried about it).
Big Bad Tech DO NOT have access to your DNA, DNA results, or family matching lists. The only thing anybody will see is your (user) name, any profile information you type in and choose to make public, and any family trees that you build and choose to make public.
Are there any other charges?
Related to the DNA test – NO.
To get the most out of Ancestry as a service, you will build a family tree, this is also free, however there is a subscription charge to view historic records (census details, BMD registers etc). This is optional but will really help you build your tree. You can subscribe for six months or a year, then cancel; your tree will stay as it is, links to the records you’ve found are retained, but your ability to view images of those records is lost until you resubscribe.
My Ethnicity is wrong!
See above – it is an estimate and one which is regularly updated as the background reference data improves. You can take a DNA test with four different companies and get four different ethnicity estimates. It’s all relative to the amount of information they have to compare against – and Ancestry has arguably the biggest reference database, but it will never be more than an estimate.
I see lots of complaints from people who say their ethnicity is wrong, “it says I’m English but all my family are German”, well, somewhere down the line, way back in time, your ancestors might have moved from England to Germany, maybe as part of a larger community that stayed together and bred together. You just haven’t found the evidence or paper trail yet. Persevere. Remember, the results are telling you that of the matching samples Ancestry have, they mainly originate from the places reported. It might not be true for you, but it is for the majority.
There’s also people who don’t like how right the results are, “It tells me I’m English but I already knew that.” Well, congratulations, you don’t have the problem the others did and your paper trail is spot on! For some areas of the world, such as Asia, the number of Ancestry users is much lower than for North America or Europe. Rather than discouraging other Asians from using Ancestry DNA, the answer is to encourage them! The more users there are, the more accurate and details your results will get. It’s only once there are enough samples to narrow down to smaller areas that your results will get more detailed.
What it is excellent for is in confirming that the research you have done in building a family tree is correct.
Where your research is incorrect, it may help to point out a different ancestor, because other people with whom you share genetic heritage may have better information about their ancestors, and if there are several branches descended from an ancestor, it may help to pinpoint that ancestor.
I did my dna a few years ago, and I have learned so much about the other families descended from common ancestors, and how they moved around the country and abroad.
I did this review because I am just about to buy another test to follow up on my husband’s family tree.
Remember it may take several weeks before results come through, especially in busy times. The Ancestry test is most useful because of the large database it holds, and also because the results of its test can be uploaded to some other sites.
For best results, test your parents or any living grandparents – they have more ancestral dna from their line than you do. But don’t worry if you can’t get them a test, my parents had died before I did my test, and I have found descendants from my 6xgreat grandparents who share dna with me. That’s back to the 1730s!
Reviewing the results was very easy and was nicely presented in a friendly web user interface. How accurate were the results? To my surprise yes it was incredibly accurate. A bit scary in that sense. It did pick up our family origins which did match in to family accounts including the mass emigration to the USA in the 1850’s where my grandfather side settled in Utah and clear references to them establishing a
Mormon community. Lots of other data and results were also established and all of this information could then be added to your family tree via the Ancestry subscription.
Personally if you don’t mind having your DNA results analysed this is simply amazing and yes despite some people stating it does not work then for us the results were incredibly accurate from what we can tell so far.
Highly recommended!!
It seems that Ancestry prefers to hide mixed race information. They accurately told me where my ancestors lived, but this doesn’t give the user their heritage details. I used the DNA profile they gave me to get my race on GEDmatch (I know I’m mixed race, but Ancestry said I was 98% white, GEDMATCH confirmed my 1/4 ethnic background). I was happy to have my DNA profile and run it through multiple sites. My partner found a brother on myheritage that wasn’t in the Ancestry database. The databases don’t talk to each other, so look around to get a full picture. I bought this for my mum because she wants to know more about her family after she saw all we discovered with our kits. It was a painful experience for my partner, but overall it brought some family closure that was definitely needed.
Ancestry DNA is a good reasonably accurate dna service. Dna was pinpointed to certain areas of countries and correct. I discovered my grandfather’s true father by comparing DNA relatives to what I knew of my tree. The family tree service is helped by paying for a subscription. I have also used 23 and me who gave me a similar result. 23 and me has a couple of snazzy extras, but if you want to make a tree AncestryDNA is the way to go as AncestryDNA makes that fairly easy if you know the first 3 generations, which can usually be made easier by looking at your matches trees. Overall I preferred AncestryDNA to 23 and me but if you are trying to find someone I’d definitely recommend using both, for instance I discovered my grandfather’s true father, but 23 and me confirmed it and I found a closer relative who sent me a photo.
Ancestry DNA is a good reasonably accurate dna service. Dna was pinpointed to certain areas of countries and correct. I discovered my grandfather’s true father by comparing DNA relatives to what I knew of my tree. The family tree service is helped by paying for a subscription. I have also used 23 and me who gave me a similar result. 23 and me has a couple of snazzy extras, but if you want to make a tree AncestryDNA is the way to go as AncestryDNA makes that fairly easy if you know the first 3 generations, which can usually be made easier by looking at your matches trees. Overall I preferred AncestryDNA to 23 and me but if you are trying to find someone I’d definitely recommend using both, for instance I discovered my grandfather’s true father, but 23 and me confirmed it and I found a closer relative who sent me a photo.
what a great item … be ready for a shock ..lol bought two the wifes did not work but a replacement is on the way im told .. should have done it years ago
I got this for what seemed like a good price but unless you buy a subscription to Ancestry you will not get the most out of the results and being able to connect with others and find relationships.