Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hi All. I am looking to give a DNA test to my mother for her upcoming birthday and will also take one myself to compare. My father is deceased so the thought it to look at mine and hers and deduce where my father fits into the equation. Both of my parents come from Slavic families (so we are told) with my father's side being Polish and my mother's side being Lemko Ukrainian and Croatian. In any case, I am not sure which service to use and whether or not 23andMe is worth the double price of the test vs. Ancestry. Can anyone share their experiences with either or both? On the one hand, I don't want to waste my money and pay double but I also don't want to be cheap if the information received from 23andMe is worth the extra hundred bucks a person.
It would help if you specify your reasons for taking the DNA test. People take them for many different reasons: to find out about ethnicity, to locate unknown family members, to get health results, or they misunderstand what it is the tests can tell them to begin with.
It would help if you specify your reasons for taking the DNA test. People take them for many different reasons: to find out about ethnicity, to locate unknown family members, to get health results, or they misunderstand what it is the tests can tell them to begin with.
We are looking for confirmation on ethnic origin and genetic make-up. We aren't looking for long lost relatives or seeking health information. Given the migratory patterns of Slavs and constant battle over lands throughout time, we are very curious. Personally, being of the three main tribes of Slavs (Western, Eastern and Southern), would be interesting to either confirm or debunk. I'm also interested in our possible link to gypsies and the Persian people.
What you get from 23andMe that Ancestry doesn't offer is the health reports - as well as a basic haplogroup for your mtDNA (and yDNA if you're male). The haplogroups are interesting, but don't really tell you all that much - they certainly don't tell you anything about your recent ancestry, they mostly just show you the prehistorical migration paths your ancestors took. If this does not interest you, it is certainly not worth the extra $100. If you really want info on your mt or y-DNA, I would recommend the mtDNA or yDNA tests at FamilyTreeDNA.com.
At the moment, I personally don't feel the health reports are worth the extra money since most of them are either about rare conditions that don't apply to most people, or things we already know, like eye and hair color. I'm sure they will continue to add more reports but for the time being, I don't think it's worth $199.
That said, in my experience, 23andMe does have more accurate ethnicity reports but some people don't like the fact that some of their categories are vague like "Broadly Northwest European". Ancestry's ethnicity reports aren't exactly wrong though, it's normal for them to vary by company.
Anecestry is better than 23andMe if you have a subscription to Ancestry, otherwise, it is limited on what you can view. You can figure out a lot from viewing the trees of DNA relatives and doing searches on DNA relatives (locations and names) if you do have an Ancestry subscription. You can then do other searches on surnames in the general search area.
23andMe changed their site not long ago and it is now more difficult to use. They also eliminated some features. It is more driven towards attempts to collect data from you. Many of the matches in 23andMe are anonymous, so they provide little information of value. The health reports are interesting, but you are not looking for that type of info.
I'm guessing that the level of precision that you are seeking is beyond the capability of these services. A good part of my family came from Pomerania along the current north coast of Poland west of Gdansk. My 23andme result shows Eastern Europe. I also have ancestors from Hesse Darmstadt, Hanover and some French Walloons. These are labelled as French-German. I know more from my paper trail in this respect than what I got from 23andme. You might learn more if you take your test results and load them into Gedmatch for free and then run them through the admixture tests.
We are looking for confirmation on ethnic origin and genetic make-up. We aren't looking for long lost relatives or seeking health information. Given the migratory patterns of Slavs and constant battle over lands throughout time, we are very curious. Personally, being of the three main tribes of Slavs (Western, Eastern and Southern), would be interesting to either confirm or debunk. I'm also interested in our possible link to gypsies and the Persian people.
Be aware that the ethnicity results are only an estimate. They work by comparing your DNA to the DNA from sample groups (people who say all four of their grandparents were born in the same region). Trouble is, there is no DNA which is totally unique to one region, let alone a specific country. Ancestry.com actually runs 40-some different analyses and then averages out the results. This is also why 23andMe have those "Broadly" categories I mentioned, because sometimes people have DNA which they simply can't narrow down any further because it's commonly found in too many different areas of Europe.
If the uncertainty and vagueness of the ethnicity results would bother you, don't take the test.
If I'm not mistaken, any Slavic groups in a DNA ethnicity report would simply come up as "Eastern European", with maybe some Balkan or Caucasus overlap in the south, and perhaps Finnish in the far north. Sometimes a small % of East Asian can appear. But the tests will not be able to differentiate specific Slavic "tribes".
If I'm not mistaken, any Slavic groups in a DNA ethnicity report would simply come up as "Eastern European", with maybe some Balkan or Caucasus overlap in the south, and perhaps Finnish in the far north. Sometimes a small % of East Asian can appear. But the tests will not be able to differentiate specific Slavic "tribes".
That's what I got. Eastern European. A little Caucasus, European Jew, and Scandinavian.
Hi All. I am looking to give a DNA test to my mother for her upcoming birthday and will also take one myself to compare. My father is deceased so the thought it to look at mine and hers and deduce where my father fits into the equation. Both of my parents come from Slavic families (so we are told) with my father's side being Polish and my mother's side being Lemko Ukrainian and Croatian. In any case, I am not sure which service to use and whether or not 23andMe is worth the double price of the test vs. Ancestry. Can anyone share their experiences with either or both? On the one hand, I don't want to waste my money and pay double but I also don't want to be cheap if the information received from 23andMe is worth the extra hundred bucks a person.
Just remember that you really don't need to spend the money to have everyone tested. If you have a son tested, it will show both paternal and maternal sides of the families. A daughter or yourself will only show the maternal side of the family. ie. you, your mother, your mothers mother and so on.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
