Beginner to DNA - Head is spinning

[AngelFish]

Hi

I'm sorry I expect this has been asked before.

I'm looking for personal recommendations for DNA testing please? It'd be for a woman with no father or brother to test with so I think that means it needs to include autosomal testing.

I know of ancestry, 23andMe and Family Tree DNA testing services, but I don't understand which would be best in my case, or which can give data that can be uploaded to the other company sites to maximise chances of finding relations (people I can match a known ancestor with rather than just a match 1000s of years ago). Also ease of use and reliability of the company as I don't intend to test with more than one company.

I'm hoping for useful matches, but expect lots of American relations from a certain line of my family tree, do any of the results matching services have a way to filter the results that would help with this?

I have tried to read up on this, and I may be over-thinking, but I've looked at the company websites but my head is spinning and I feel like if I picked a company now I might as well be playing pin the tail on a donkey...

Help? Please?

Thanks, Angelfish

[davidft]

I replied twice but it got lost in the ether both times so if nobody else replies by Thursday when I will be back home I will try again.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Angelfish, I think I can advise you.

I have tested with several companies:

Britain's DNA
Ancestry
FTDNA
And the new venture, Living DNA (my results are due in April with these).

Family Tree DNA should be able to provide you with a good possible selection of matches. Their way of matching can get rather technical at times. Their database is large.

Ancestry is good and is less "techy". Good to use if you have a tree hosted at Ancestry.

Both companies actual scientific results will be very, very similar.

There is a site called GED Match: you can upload any raw data to there from either company and also find matches there.

Hope this helps?

Cheers, Ade.

[AngelFish]

Hi Angelfish, I think I can advise you.

I have tested with several companies:

Britain's DNA
Ancestry
FTDNA
And the new venture, Living DNA (my results are due in April with these).

Family Tree DNA should be able to provide you with a good possible selection of matches. Their way of matching can get rather technical at times. Their database is large.

Ancestry is good and is less "techy". Good to use if you have a tree hosted at Ancestry.

Both companies actual scientific results will be very, very similar.

There is a site called GED Match: you can upload any raw data to there from either company and also find matches there.

Hope this helps?

Cheers, Ade.

Hi Ade.

Thanks for your reply. So both Family Tree DNA and Ancestry will allow me to download the raw data in a format I can use with GED match?

Do you know if all companies do the type of test that is best for me as a female that wont be testing other close relatives as well.

Angelfish

[Ruskie]

Autosomal will test both your maternal and paternal lines (but you might not be able to work out which line any matches come from). It will give contactable matches from 2nd cousins and beyond.
MTDNA, the other "female" test tests just the female line going back.

Autosomal is one of the cheaper options and sounds like it might be what you are looking for if you are looking for possible closer matches.

Many people recommend FTDNA. You can upload data from this test to Gedmatch. I am unsure if this is possible with Ancestry tests.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Anglefish, just to add to Ruskie good reply, yes, you can add raw data to Gedmatch from both Ancestry and FTDNA.

Cheers, Ade.

[Ruskie]

Wasn't there some discussion a while back about the Ancestry tests regarding loss of access to your results or matches if you do not continue with a subscription? I vaguely remember something along these lines - maybe they changed this? 
.

[youngtug]

http://blog.kittycooper.com/tag/gedmatch/

[youngtug]

https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/ka215000000TyGYAA0/AncestryDNA-with-an-Ancestry-Subscription-US-1460090085520-3160