23andMe Ancestry Service - DNA Test Kit, Personalized Genetic Legacy, 4,500+ Geographic Regions, Ancestry Test, Family Tree, DNA Relative Finder, Origins, Ethnicities, Traits

The testing is fairly simple: You receive a test vial (log in and register it on their website) and provide saliva up to the control line. Make sure you don't eat or drink for 30 to 45 minutes before providing your saliva sample. It is best not to brush teeth beforehand since it will wash away valuable DNA and you want to ensure your sample has enough to process. Yes I had a few failed kits in my life and that set us back months of getting results on those kits. Anyway it’s fairly simple to provide the saliva samples. Simple enough I had my 5 1/2 year old done and she was the easiest one to process. Then you place the kit back into included return envelope and wait for about 6 to 8 weeks for it to process. All while keeping tabs of the process online as each step finishes. I have tested both of my parents, my two children, two paternal aunts, my daughter's paternal grandmother as well as myself and two cousins whom I tested to confirm our relationship. If you test at least one parent, you can easily sort matches that are shared with that parent to determine which matches are maternal and paternal. Since both my parents have tested mine literally shows who matches me from each side and my children can sort their matches based on me being tested too. My paternal grandfather died in 1995 and took with him the secret of his past. He had ran away as a young boy and changed his name so we knew him only by the name he had taken. My family always yearned to know more about my grandfather's past but he had endured some sort of trauma or something and for whatever reason chose to never speak of it again. So we grew up only knowing half my father's ancestry - that of his mother. After my grandfather died, I set out on a mission to try to figure out more about his identity. I sent off for birth and school records but hit one dead-end after another trying to prove he was who he said he was. I spent hours going over census data on Ancestry's website, writing to courthouses across the country. The evidence pointed to the conclusion that he was not who he said he was. I had nothing really solid to go by. Until 17 years into chasing cold trails, I discovered ancestry type DNA testing. I figured it wouldn't hurt to order my dad a kit and see where that would take us. If I could just find one close enough match then maybe it would give us a good lead on figuring out my grandfather's real surname. After waiting for what seemed like months (it was actually only about 6 weeks) my dad's DNA was online (on 23andme’s secure site) and accessible along with all his many matches - which were basically cousins at various degrees of distance. It was one cousin (a predicted second cousin) in particular that gave me access to their family tree and actually dove in with me searching for clues that would lead us to my grandfather. Just 6 months into researching my father's DNA, I found my grandfather's family and figured out who he really was. I wanted to ensure that my information was correct and so I contacted the daughters to the man I believed to be my grandfather's brother and offered to test them both. Their test results confirmed they were indeed our 1st cousins. I have since been in contact with close and distant family via this newly discovered paternal side and even obtained a copy of my grandfather's family surname book. His absence was even recorded in the book! I solved an 83+ year mystery and gained a family I longed my entire life to know about. I cannot be more thankful that these tests are available and that it gives us such ability to solve things that seem impossible. Granted this all sounds way easier than it was and in all honesty it took planning and sorting and meticulous record-keeping to rule out my father's maternal matches. I literally mapped my father's DNA and researched every match labeling in an Excel document, which chromosome location that relative fit and what surnames fit within those matches. It’s given me new found respect and interest in knowing about each and every ancestor that left their mark within our DNA. It’s time-consuming, rewarding and addicting. I can say that with all honesty as I now manage 15+ kits on various DNA websites. I tested myself and both parents on 23andme as well as AncestryDNA and Dad was also tested on FTDNA but I met my most useful matches on 23andme. It was on 23andme that I found the best ability to pour over chromosomes - researching every detail I could. Oddly between 23andme and Ancestry their tests show a discrepancy in ethnicity estimates. One shows that my dad has a tiny trace of Native American (23andme) yet AncestryDNA does not show any trace whatsoever of Native American. My son has confirmed Native American and was only tested on 23andme and his percentage came back at nearly exact what is on his BIA blood quantum card. So I lean in feeling more comfortable with 23andme’s ethnicity estimates. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: You can take your raw data (once your DNA is processed) and download it from any of these DNA testing sites and upload them to GEDmatch for free. That site allows you to cross compare matches on there from all the DNA sites. As long as others have their data on their too you can look at those matches and even see where the match is on individual chromosomes, etc. It’s a great tool to utilize along with your DNA testing sites. FINAL THOUGHT: If you are looking to solve a mystery, 23andme is great. If you are looking to just fill in a family tree and you have a paid Ancestry membership or you are willing to pay for it, I would also suggest AncestryDNA. AncestryDNA gives you immediate access to your matches’ trees and you can in turn build on your own tree with the information. But if you are NOT a paid member to Ancestry, their AncestryDNA features are limited. I personally think its poor business practice for Ancestry to force people who already fork over money for the DNA kits to further pay to utilize services that should be totally included within the purchase of the kit. With 23andme, there are no additional hidden usage fees. Whichever one you choose, be prepared to discover a new you.

Excellent, accurate, insightful... I bought the kit because my son is adopted and then I thought, what the hell, I'll do my own because I'd like to know how our DNA compares. I was fascinated by our ethnic compositions and was quite pleased to find that we are both 40% Italian and have similar percentages of other shared heritage. AND because my sister got her results right after me, I also found out that she is in fact my HALF SISTER and that the man who I had known as my father for 44 years is not my father and that my mother had an affair way back when. My siblings are my half-siblings and I may never know who my father is (thanks Mom). Better to know the truth about yourself than to live in darkness. Now begins the journey of finding the missing pieces to my personal puzzle. UPDATE 9/12/19: I paraphrased a bit above. My son is the product of my ex and an anonymous sperm donor (Italian, like me), and I adopted him at birth. My ex was also adopted at birth (sealed adoption 45 years ago) in New York and didn't ever think she would know her birth family. 23andMe has identified my ex's biological family (through my son's DNA), and although she learned that her mother passed away, her extended family has reached out and are happy to have found her. As for my personal discovery about my own biological father, I did learn who the man was (he died 15 years ago) and I learned that I have a half-brother from that man who lives nearby, as well as a half-sister who passed away. I reached out to my half-brother, who didn't want to believe the truth. Things may change when his mother passes away -- who knows? What I really learned though is that this whole experience has been invaluable as far as coming to an understanding of myself, and why I always felt "different" from the three (half) siblings I was raised with. And also, I have learned that no matter how deep you try to bury secrets, they will always come out in the end. WHAT A WILD RIDE!!!

Loved it until the massive security breach. Unacceptable

I was really impressed with the 23andMe Ancestry Service. The kit was easy to use—just follow the instructions, spit in the tube, and mail it back. Results took a few weeks, but it was absolutely worth the wait! The ancestry breakdown was incredibly detailed, showing percentages from over 4,000 regions. I learned things about my background that I had no idea about. The interactive maps and timeline made it even more interesting. The DNA Relative Finder is a cool feature—I've already connected with a few distant cousins I never knew existed. The family tree tool also helped fill in some blanks from generations past. The trait reports were fun and surprisingly accurate (even correctly guessed my eye color, taste preferences, and more). Overall, this kit gives you a fascinating look at your heritage and genetics. Highly recommended for anyone curious about their roots or wanting to connect with relatives.

Is 23&Me ancestry service worth paying for? For me, definitely YES. I wanted to know my ethnic breakdown and bought a test kit online. When it arrived, it was in a box with a sleeve around it that looks exactly like in the picture. I took the plastic wrap off, then the sleeve, and opened the box. Inside, there is a card with instructions for registering your kit and a place to write down your sample number (which is on the side of the spit test vial), a plastic biohazard bag for putting your completed sample in, and a plastic case with pieces of the spit sample tube that require simple assembly. Keep the box after you have opened it. You'll use it to return your sample. The sleeve on the box was for hiding the prepaid postage back to the lab. After you go online to the 23&Me website, and register your kit, you're ready to take the sample. Assembling the vial is easy. A spit cup screws onto the top of the tube, and you literally "spit in the vial". You can't eat or drink or smoke for 30 minutes before you collect your sample. If you do this wrong, you could end up with an invalid test result. The tube might look shockingly large at first, but if you look at the side of it there is a measure mark, and you can see where there is a cut off point inside the tube shaped kind of like a little upside down pyramid. Roughly a fourth of the tube is what actually collects your spit, the rest is simply space for handling the vial. Important: Be aware there is a little cap of solution attached to the spit cup. Don't snap that down until after you've spit in the tube! Once you have your saliva up to the measure line, snap that cap of solution down so it mixes with your sample. Then you can take the spit cup off the vial, and put on the secure screwcap to seal the vial closed. The kit comes with a sample bag to seal your tube in, then you put it back into the box that the kit came in and seal it. There is pre-paid postage on the box already, so you can ship it from home without having to go to the post office. Wait times for kit processing vary. Mine took approximately 2 months for the results to come in. You can monitor your kit's arrival and status on the 23&Me website, which tells you what stage of the testing process your kit is currently going through. I had the ancestry report done by 23 & Me, and I'm going to go back later and upgrade my report through the site, which is $100-$120ish extra depending on whether a sale is going on, to upgrade to the health report. By the way, when you upgrde your kit to include the health background services, there is no need to buy an additional kit. You can simply upgrade through the 23&Me site. Most of my results were expected, however, there was one surprise result, which was exciting to see. I received my maternal haplogroup, and also a chart that shows how far back in time (up to 8 or 9 generations, I forget) when my ancestor with that ethnicity lived. For people specifically looking for the possibility of Native American DNA, I'm including this part of the review for you. If your ancestor goes back further than 8 generations, I've been told by fellow dna geneology buffs that those results can "wash out" of your results. This has apparently happened to me. My great x5 grandfather was born on the reservation and is on the Dawes Rolls. His mother was 100% Peoria Indian. His mixed status is documented through census records. I didn't get any results for the Americas, Native American, or East Asian DNA through 23&Me, which would be an indicator that I'm part Native American. However, my results did show I am 10% broadly South Asian. I was curious if the South Asian result could somehow be misconstrued as Native American, and was told by dna buffs outside of 23&Me to download my raw dna data from the 23&Me site and take it over to GEDmatch. That is one of the bonus awesome things you can do with your DNA from 23&Me. You can download your raw genetic data in a file, and take it to other sites, like GEDmatch, and upload it there for an analysis using various databases. One of the things I noticed at 23&Me is that their South Asian dna, and my maternal haplogroup T1a1, both have very small sample sets in their database. I'm not sure what to make of this. Will these numbers change as more people take the test? Obviously. So, what will that do for testing results? There is nothing on the site to tell users how to fully interpret this information table, and whether or not more input into this database could potentially alter test results. That's the reason I'm leaving four stars instead of five. The interpretation tools on the site could be better in this regard. I've searched high and low for information on maternal haplogroup T1a1, but there really isn't that much information about it to be found on google. Certainly not enough to satisfy my curiosity. I felt like 23&Me should've had more detail on the site about specific haplogroups, after all, that is one of the primary features we're paying for. But let's get back to the Native American test results.... After taking my raw dna and putting it through the world map filters in GEDmatch, I got a hit for 6% Native American DNA, which would be expected given how many generations in distance I am from my 100% Peoria ancestor. What's equally interesting, it turned out that the Native American marker was completely separate from my South Asian dna, which grew to 23% in the World22 and World9 databases. It was also able to take the South Asian portion of my dna and define it as Baloch. That small detail gives me a lot of information to go on when I go searching my family tree again. To sum it up, I encourage anyone interesting in, or looking for, Native American ancestry to take their 23&Me ancestry test results and run their dna through other databases for a broader picture. Since my results came back, I've bought kits for both my parents, and we are going to link them all through the 23&Me site, another great feature they have. There is a report area that allows you to see potential relatives as well. The only downside to that is if the other person has their information hidden (which most of my relative results do), it's hard to make use of it, although you can attempt to contact that person and ask to share information with them. I haven't been brave enough yet to approach anyone and ask to share their dna data. C'est la vie. Overall 23&Me ancestry service is a fun little tool for discovering your ethnicity and learning more about your ancestors. I'm very pleased with all the information I've learned from the site.

I had a friend who did this first and I was impressed with how accurate her results were. I wasn't a fan of taking these things because I thought they would be vague.... but doing my own research I found 23andme to be more detailed than the others. So on May 1st, I bought my package, it came the next day. Did the spit, yadda yadda, sent it out May 3rd, it arrived at their lab May 6th. On May 15th, I happen to login (because I'm excited! I want to see) my results were there. THey didn't send the email out yet, I am guessing information was still generating, but what I saw was pretty SPOT ON!!! My results took less than 2 weeks, I think that's crazy! In a good way. I did this when there wasn't a holiday... it was well after Mother's day. Not only did it pin point where exactly my ancestors were from the last 200 years, it even showed where I was BORN without giving any info! I was born in another country and moved to the U.S in the last 20 years. I was just so impressed, couldn't believe it. The connecting with relatives is cool, and you can get a 40$ book of your dna story. Overall I think the smoothest way to do this, is follow the instructions and don't buy this during a BUSY time of year. If you get this during Christmas, of course it'll take longer. I also recommend when spitting in the tube, to make sure its liquid PAST the line. WHen you spit its a lot of bubbles. SOLID liquid past the line, then bubbles on top. Make sure its enough for them to read your dna. OVERALL this was awesome. I recommend this product for DNA tests. the others show your lineage but this would pinpoint EXACTLY the region your family was from, and more. CRAZY!! I was most impressed at how fast this was. I thought it'd be 3-4 weeks but from May 1st (buying the package) to May 15th, 2 weeks is not bad at all.

When the kit arrives it is very easy to understand the instructions for completing the kit and setting up an account online. After mailing in the saliva sample it was around 3 and a half weeks for the whole process and to receive my results. The percentage results (e.g. 50% european etc.) are excellent and more or less on point from what my family knew beforehand, along with a few surprises and larger percentages than what we had thought. The DNA Relatives tool is also fantastic, allowing us to connect with family easily and is great fun to explore distant connections to cousins we would have otherwise never known. The biggest, and pretty much only negative, for me is that part of my results were not as fleshed out as I had hoped. A large portion, approximately 40%, of my DNA composition is Native American but there is little detail about specific origins for this area. In explaining their apparent inability to more accurately distinguish Native American ancestry, there is a statement on the page for my results saying, "In North America Native American ancestry tends to be 5 or more generations back, so that little DNA evidence of this heritage remains." While I am disappointed with this part of my results the rest were fine, with a great level of detail in areas like Europe. All in all I highly recommend 23andme. I cannot speak to the quality and experience of the Health kit results as I have not yet purchased it, however my family and I have greatly enjoyed the DNA Ancestry kit and are now getting the rest of our family to participate. I imagine the experience will only improve as more family becomes involved. 5 out of 5 stars for 23andme! Thank you very much.

I've always been curious about my background since I was pretty young. When people asked me what I was I'd always say, "I think I'm Irish, German, Dutch and English but I'm not too sure. I don't know a lot." but I was tired of not knowing. My dad was adopted as a toddler. He does have a relationship with his blood related aunt and claims to have a list of his nationalities, but I have yet to see this list. My mom's mother (my grandma) was adopted when she was young also. I also have no relationship with my mom or her side of the family (by choice) so I'm very limited. I finally took the plunge and ordered one if these. It was very simple and easy to use. I sent it in the end of June and received my results today (mid July ish) wish was pretty fast. I guess with Covid it took a little faster because I doubt as many people are doing it right now. Anyway, I was really amazed with the results! My sister and Dad were also blown away. It turns out we're not really Dutch and if we are it's very very little. This was major to me because I thought I'd be at least 40% Dutch. The German didn't surprise me because that was the one thing. I knew about my mom's side. The rest I was very surprised. The Ashkenazi Jewish surprised me a lot and I want to do more research on it. I was also surprised by the Italian, even though it's very little everyone that knows me automatically assumes I'm Italian. I don't was hoping ifd find out I was something interesting and exotic, but I already knew I wasn't because another test only told me I was 95% European. I saw a bunch of people (1500) that share DNA with me. But most of them are 2% or less. One person was 5%. I was hoping I'd find someone nearby more closely related to me that I didn't know about, but no such luck. I did find it interesting that I have some relation to Marie Antoinette. Pretty sure it's my mom's side. This was very eye opening and interesting and I definitely want to keep researching and see what else comes up.