Forum home› The potting shed
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Ancestry.com, Ancestry.co.uk

JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
in The potting shed
Hi all,

Has anyone here used this company and their DNA test?

Im considering it to confirm (or not) whether someone who has contacted me is a half brother Ive never met. 
«13

Posts

  • JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
    SlipperyElm said:
     A relative here in the UK used it and is now inundated with more cousins four times removed than he knows what to do with 😉
    Yes, I am not interested in that happening.  Only confirming whether this person who has used Ancestry and contacted me is related.

    Unfortunately the company is taking its time coming back to me, and only has basic information on its website.
  • JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
    pansyface said:
    My OH did it and he found a distant relative living abroad.

    Ancestry is American. He suggests that you try looking for a more “local” website, such as Find My Past.
    Yes it is American, and is the service my half brother has used to find me - not the other way around :) They also have a service hosted in Ireland for the UK.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Hi  @JoeX, I use Ancestry a lot as genealogy is a hobby of mine. Their DNA test will not prove the other chap is your half-brother or not, it will merely confirm a close match to your DNA. Actually, if you haven't done a DNA Ancestry test yourself, they can't match it so how come he contacted you? He would only be able to do that if he's done his research and got evidence of Birth, Marriage etc. Then, he would also have to be able to track you down and find an email address for you - are you also on Facebook? 
    I would be careful.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
    Oh really, that’s interesting.  He discovered me after finding our father’s death certificate.  I did all the paperwork when that happened.  He then wrote a letter
    to my old address from way back then and the letter was forwarded to me.  I’ve contacted him through Facebook and it seems to check out...but I was asking about Ancestry itself because he has sent a sample to them to verify we are who we think we are (if you get my meaning).
  • NorthernJoeNorthernJoe Posts: 660
    I did 23 and me DNA test, a pressure. It's a bit of fun. You pay your £70-80 and get the pack. Follow the v instructions and 2 months later you get sent a link. Membership to the app or website comes with the payment for the DNA test.

    My mum did ancestry DNA test and it's basically the same as the one I got. It links to my any close DNA matches indicating likely level of the v relation. In my case a couple that could be third cousins and loads say fourth or more cousin status. None of interest. My mum had the same. It didn't show up any actual relatives despite a few having interest in tracing the family tree and who are likely to have done a DNA test. It did show our ancestry reinforcing what we know. Mine matched my mum's which implies my dad's is boring England and Wales ancestry.

    DNA tests only group in wide groupings. England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, etc. You can't distinguish between North and South England for example. I have no Scottish ancestry that anyone has found but I've got a degree of Scottish and Irish ancestry. From family rumour it's an Irish ancestor. English and Welsh however comes from mostly English but definite Welsh ancestry 3 generations back that we knew about. Scandinavian ancestry from 3 or 4 generations back we also know about. Sardinian and Italian ancestry is so low as to be slightly above background noise I reckon. However the family rumour on my dad's side was for Spanish ancestry ask perhaps Sardinia is right. Certainly that never came from my mum's side because she didn't have anything from that far south. Our German ancestry was already known too.

    Basically DNA ancestry tests are fun and don't really tell anything you can't find out for yourself through family tree research.

    Ancestry, whether dotcom or dotcodotuk makes no difference, they both access similar databases across the world. My American family had found UK family details from the American site my mum had found American family tree data from UK website. It's international or certainly with access to UK, USA and many other country's records.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Hi Joe, seems your chap is pukka after all.  Ancestry lately have been refining their results down to likely counties or smaller areas of say, England in my case which checks out correctly.  I got very excited when I first had my results, thinking I had Viking, Roman and Scottish ancestors!
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    For general research into my family I took up an offer of a month's free trial from Ancestry.  Having opened it up, it asked for a few basic details that I'd always known but I then could find no path to taking things further.  I cancelled later the same day and received all manner of 'are you sure' emails, but no way of asking someone for advice.  As with Facebook, I didn't get the impression it was totally bogus, but very much the proverbial 'sprat to catch a mackerel'. 
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    Thanks for that.  I find that 'Tutorials', to an old wrinkly like me, are totally confusing and one would have thought that any organisation offering a free trial would anticipate that a respondent would be stepping into the dark, and would need guidance.  As I said, I abandoned that ship, as I did with Facebook, and never went back to either.  It's one of those factors of getting old, as my mobile phone is a stone age variety, I couldn't 'text' if you paid me, and I wouldn't know an 'app' if I fell over it.
  • amancalledgeorgeamancalledgeorge Posts: 2,736
    I would be worried who they will eventually sell that DNA data to...it's all fun and games until your most fundamental human identifier is sold for profit by the company. A bit more here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/dna-hugely-valuable-health-tech-privacy

    Mind you I find genealogy largely pointless, what true knowledge do we gain by tracing a family tree to beyond living memory? But some people enjoy looking into it...but careful who has your data. Once you offer it to them, it's theirs. 
    To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I would also be careful to check (and get written confirmation) of who is going to hold your dna, who they will have the right to sell it to and which databases it will end up on. You won't hold the rights to your own results. That's the reason I have never done one, though I am interested in the area.
Sign In or Register to comment.