What is a good DNA ancestry tracing test?

3 Comments

1. Roger S says:

   September 28, 2009 at 3:59 am

   Get a mitochondrial test done. Don’t do autosomal tests because they are very unreliable and a rip off, especially those done by DNA tribes.
2. tiltonb says:

   September 28, 2009 at 3:59 am

   DNA Tribes looks like a good bet. They give you a samply of what you can expect to receive after they test your DNA, they also give an short explanation of what they test.
   http://www.dnatribes.com/?gclid=CKazsJrRt5kCFRwwawodD0896A
3. Shirley T says:

   September 28, 2009 at 3:59 am

   Okay, it depends on what you want

   Y goes from father to son only. In other words if a man has his Y tested it would go back to his father, his father, his father and so on back down the line.

   Mitochondrial goes from mother to both sons and daughters but only the daughters pass it on to their children. In other words, you would get it from your mother, her mother, her mother and so on back down the line.

   Autosomal is what most of your DNA is. You get it 50-50 from both parents but when you get back to your grandparents, it isn’t a 25-25-25-25 breakdown. You get 50% from your paternal grandparents and 50% from your maternal grandparents but it will not be even steven in either case between your grandmother and grandfather and this can vary between you and your siblings.

   Y & Mitochondrial make up the 1 each chromosomes a person gets from their parents that determine their sex. They are used in genealogy since they both go back in a straight line virtually unchanged. I can’t see how they would be useful unless they are used in conjuction with family research. People are usually able to match themselves with other family trees and learn more about their families.
   But they represent a small part of your total ancestry. Right off the bat if you could have both tested they would leave out your paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. The number of people you descend from pyramids as you go back. If you get back to your 6xgreat grandparents, you are directly descended from 510 individuals, barring any duplicates. Of those 510, you get your Mitochondrial DNA from only 8 and if you were a male you would get your Y from only 8 leaving out a total of 494 people.

   You might think, why bother. Well if you can match yourself with other family trees you will discover people in your direct Y & Mitochondrial lines but it will no doubt open you up to discovering some of the left out people.

   The best company for Y & Mitochondrial is

   http://www.familytreedna.com/Default.aspx?c=1

   Now some people just want to get a view of their regional/ethnic background. There is a company that will take your Autosomal and match you with population groups throughout the world. They will give you your top matches in descending order. They will not tell you that you are 1/2 of something, 1/4 of something else and 1/4 of another something else. The same DNA crosses national, racial and ethnic boundaries and there is no such thing as national, racial or ethnic purity.

   Then they will break your results down in descending order for something like Northern European, West African, Aegean but not in fractions or percentages. That company is
   http://www.dnatribes.com

   When you go into their website you can go under feedback and ask questions.

   Now one company that only uses Y & Mitochondrial advertises that they will help you discover "your deep ancestral roots." They will assign you to a Haplogroup based on your DNA and show you the origin of your nomadic ancestors going back thousands of years in those 2 lines only. You come from a myriad of familylines.

   FamilyTreeDNA does do Autosomal testing but they WILL NOT give you an analysis. I think at one time they did. I had to send my results from FamilyTreeDNA to DNATribes.

   I asked DNATribes if my sister with whom I share both parents had the same Autosomal test would her results be the same and they replied:

   "Two siblings will each obtain unique results. Family members do typically share some regional or ethnic genetic affiliations, but in some cases matches can vary substantially between siblings."

   I also found a link that said you don’t get Autosomal 50-50 from both parents so I asked a question about this on the Biology Board and this was the reply:

   "Actually, you do inherit your autosomal DNA 50-50 from each parent. That site is wrong.

   "Your mother’s egg contributes one set of 22 autosomes and one sex chromosome (an X). Your father’s sperm contributes the other set of 22 autosomes, and another sex chromosome (either an X or a Y).

   "Where the 50-50 part breaks down is when you pass on your DNA to your children. Each of your children will get half their DNA from you, but they won’t necessarily get an equal mix of what you inherited from your parents. They could inherit a more from your mother, through you, and less from your father, or vice versa.

   "Another way to look at it: you inherited 50% of your autosomal DNA from each parent, but you didn’t necessarily inherit exactly 25% from each grandparent. Your maternal grandparents contributed exactly 50% in total, but it could be biased in favor of either your maternal grandmother or your maternal grandfather. Same goes for your paternal grandparents.

   "When you take one of those DNA tests, which markers they find depend on which ones you inherited through your mother and father, and that will be different between you and your siblings (assuming no identical twins). If