Recommendations on DNA Testing company

fret_wimp2

My other half has more than a passing interest in anthropology.
For her birthday Id like to get her a voucher for a company to analyze her DNA so that she can trace her ancestry and see roughly where she came from.

There are a few companies out there based on some googling, but most are U.S based and dont seem to have much records outside of the U.S.

Has anyone done this, who did you use and how did you find them?
Was it a worthwhile experience?


Thanks!

Ponster

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

and see roughly where she came from.

There are a few companies out there based on some googling, but most are U.S based and don't seem to have much records outside of the U.S.

I guess a lot depends on what you're trying to achieve. DNA testing is big in the US partly due to a lot of people trying to figure out where they came from. If your girlfriends is Irish and her name is Murphy then she may be a little disappointed when she finds out that she's 95% from either Britain or Ireland

Check out this blog post with a review of the 23andme DNA service. Person 4 will most likely be the most interesting to you.

www.familytreedna.com is another useful service which probably has the most amount of records but is perhaps more useful for finding US cousins rather than finding out where she 'comes from'.

Ipso

23andme would be the best, it's a reasonable price and they seem to have a rapidly expanding database.

spuncy

I think it depends on what exactly she wants to find out - is it recent or deep ancestry?

I did the Y-DNA analysis with familytreedna to try to find more about my Murphy line and actually (luckily!) found a match with a common ancestor from around 1750 or so. Initially it was only to see if there were any relatives in recent times to help figure out what part of Ireland we originated from.

I now know that my Murphys are not part of the larger Wexford/Carlow or Munster Murphys and seem to be a smaller sept. In the 1750s-1800s they were in south Kilkenny - I had hit a wall around the 1830s in Westmeath before I got these results.

For recent ancestry, familytreedna and other companies seem to be heavily weighted with results from America of people with ancestry from Ireland and Britain. If your other half is from outside this, she will be more unlikely to get matches from the recent past.

It also provided information on deep ancestry, but only the broad R1b1a2 (M-269) point on the tree. To get more specific, you need to order additional 'deep clade' or specific SNP tests, which cost a bit and it can be hit and miss.

Instead, I went for the National Geographic Geno 2.0 test and am awaiting results. It's not cheap ($199 + P&P), but does provide both Y and Mt DNA results. It also covers a large number of SNPs to get more specific on the Y tree.

I'm still learning a lot about DNA analysis, but I think in general it is better to get a male relative (if possible) to perform the test as you get both Y DNA and Mitochondrial DNA.

I haven't used any other companies, so can't comment on them.

Good luck!

Ipso

Gen 2.0 isn't supposed to be very good for any R1b groups. SNP testing isn't good for ancestry, instead you'd want to get more markers tested.
Yeah but it really depends what she wants to find out.

fret_wimp2

thanks for the help guys, particularly your post Ponster, it was very interesting to see the kind of output we could expect.

I think she is more interested in a large time scale, and the path her family took, if she is whats considered European origin or from further afield, and can be traced further back.

The recent history and finding individuals would be of some interest but not so much as the overall picture. I think a about 70% of the big picture, 30% of the details of individual families etc from more recent history is what she is looking for.

pedroeibar1

Dubhtach's input is badly needed here!