DNA TESTING OPINION WHICH ONE GIVES ACCURACY

Question

I am confused as to which DNA test kit to get as there are so many out there.

Just checking to see which one you used and what results you received and were they accurate in finding close relatives to prove your relationship to your ancestors. I'm trying to find relatives from my 3rd ggfather line and wonder if it's possible.

Hope you can help me make an decision.

Thk you

Comments

All of the DNA companies are equally reliably able to identify close relatives (up to 2nd cousins or so). The trick is, though, that companies only look at their own customers, so if your close relatives haven't tested with that same company, then they will not show up. So the more useful question is, which company are more of your relatives likely to have patronized?

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Basically you want a service that will be most likely to provide the most matches with your 3rd ggf line where those matches also are likely to have created trees including your 3rd ggf and/or his ancestors. That's most likely going to be Ancestry, simply because of the number of customers. I eventually found my biological 3rd ggf on Ancestry which would have been impossible using any other service available.

I"m using 23andMe, Ancestry, FTDNA, and My Heritage.

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You should add the "dna" tag if you want to attract more answers.

Answer 1

Hi Barbara,

For ethnicity results, 23andMe is generally considered to have the most accurate results.

Any test will be able to identify how many cM you share with someone. So if you want to know if your father is your father, if both of you test you can rest assured it'll be accurate.

Comments

For values of "accurate" that would ordinarily be laughed at, sure...

(All DNA testing company ethnicity results are For Entertainment Value Only, and there's no way for them to be really be any different, because geography is not coded in DNA.)

Answer 2

The following is anecdotal only - just my own experience.

But if you are looking for "international" relatives - those who do not live in the USA - then I would suggest that you buy from either My Heritage or FT DNA (Family tree DNA). Their databases may be smaller (than Ancestry and 23/me),. but they are much more international.

As for my own experience, I am not an American and yet I found new relatives and also my mothers biological family,  on both FT DNA and My Heritage.

I purchased my DNA test from FT DNA but later uploaded it to My Heritage and also to Gedmatch.

I feel that I made the right choice and got some great results!!

Of course if you are American, you can choose any of the major 4 companies.

Comments

Keep in mind that MyHeritage and FTDNA allow uploads of DNA data from other companies, while Ancestry and 23andMe do not. Of the latter two, Ancestry has the larger customer base, but they don't do Y or mitochondrial. Choose your poison.

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This is true, but Ancestry’s genotyping array has low SNP overlap with those used by the other companies right now, so uploading Ancestry data to FTDNA and MH will give a lot of false matches compared to testing directly with those companies.

Answer 3

It's hard to know how to advise you because you don't have all your lines connected to your profile.  However, in general I agree with those who say choose Ancestry.  They have a large user base and more helpful tools for identifying matches (in my opinion).

You may be currently only looking for information about one third great grandfather, but once you get your DNA results, they may lead you to explore other lines.