Who to test with??

[deledge]

Hi All,

Any views on which company (of the many that are out there) do people feel is most worthwhile to use.

I have read most of the spiel and my current view is 23andme anyone add their two pence please.

Planning to pay for both parents to be tested (not against their will).

Del

[Liz_in_Sussex]

Hi,

I, and various members of my family including, my parents have tested with 23andme, FTDNA and Ancestry.  Of all of them I find FTDNA the most useful because the matches are more responsive and less likely to be anonymous.  Many of my Dad's 23andme top matches seem only to have tested because of the health reports - which is so frustrating!

Potentially Ancestry should get better but a lot of people still have no tree attached to their result and there are not so many British people there - but that's true everywhere still.

Finally, it depends on the type of test because FTDNA is the only company that will do Y-DNA tests and I was very keen to get both my Dad, and Mum's brother, tested to give me both Y haplogroups.

I'm sure others will have different opinions though.  The most important thing is to decide before taking a DNA test whether you are prepared for whatever the outcome might be - I thought my family were the most straightforward imaginable - how wrong was I - part of my tree had to be culled and the surprises keep coming!

Liz 

[Pheno]

If your parents are elderly then the method of obtaining the DNA might be a factor.  My elderly mother could not have coped with producing a third of a test tube of saliva as in the Ancestry test but was happy to provide a cheek swab as in FTdna.

Don't know what method 23andme uses.

Pheno

[Liz_in_Sussex]

Don't know what method 23andme uses.

It's a saliva sample.

Liz

[davidft]

Hi All,

Any views on which company (of the many that are out there) do people feel is most worthwhile to use.

I have read most of the spiel and my current view is 23andme anyone add their two pence please.

Planning to pay for both parents to be tested (not against their will).

Del

Which company is best will depend on what your objectives are. As you have not said what your objectives are you are asking people to basically guess.

What would be best is to look at a comparison chart such as

https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_testing_comparison_chart

hope that helps

[RobertCasey]

There is first a big fork in the road that you appear to already taken: atDNA vs. YDNA testing. If you are looking for all of your lines and you are willing to accept that the test will not catch all of your ancestors prior to 1800, atDNA is the way to go. If you do not have a very robust pedigree chart, just starting out with adding relatives or have a recent NPE event (post 1800), atDNA tests from FTDNA, Ancestry.com or 23andme are your primary choices. Two tests are better than one - but many people are much more proactive and test many cousins and uncles/aunts as well. So, it is not as inexpensive if you are proactive and plan on testing many relatives.

If you want to concentrate primarily on only two or three lines and want to brick through brick wall prior to 1800, YDNA testing is your choice for this type of project (start with a 67 marker test from FTDNA). You can take both paths in parallel as well - both atDNA and YDNA. I do not recommend mtDNA as this DNA is only 16,000 base pairs (vs. 18 million base pairs now readable via YDNA) and has very minimal genealogical application.

[stonechat]

I have been considering DNA test for some time

Though I am of a scientific bent, I do not claim to understand that much, though I do understand the concepts of autosomal, mtDNA and yDNA.

I am stuck on my paternal line in about 1730, I would hope to link up to other Douglases - not expecting too much.  yDNA I presume

The rest is really fishing.
To me it seems that FTDNA offer a good range of tests.
I was also consuering mtDNA as well as autosomal. From what was said above, this may not help. I had though it migh help along the female line

Any thoughts?

[RobertCasey]

If the time frame is 1730s, YDNA is your best bet. atDNA only works very well on more recent connections between 1800 and 1850. As you go prior to 1800, most of your ancestors randomly can no longer be detected unless you start testing all of your lines via uncles/aunts, cousins, etc.

mtDNA has very little genealogical application. This is due to the size of this particular piece of DNA which is not part of the nucleus and is only 16,000 base pairs long. Since it is so small, this is really only an ancient history test to develop how womankind settled the earth. Currently, YDNA is now being used for 18,000,000 base pairs (getting pretty close to the maximum that will be readable). Eventually, YSTRs (500) and YSNPs will allow us assign several mutations to each male on our pedigree chart. Unfortunately, it will require testing costs to come way down (the best YCHR discovery test is still $2,950 which cover almost twice as much as the Big Y test) and it will require the number of testers to increase by at least ten fold (we currently have only a 30 % growth per year). Eventually, YDNA will probably replace atDNA testing in the next 10 to 20 years. atDNA will still remain a good tool to get started with though.

For YDNA, you need to always start out with 67 markers from FTDNA - 111 markers is not really needed unless you get lucky and have a very large surname cluster (500 markers from Whole Genomes Sequencing tests will start being used in the next year or so). The next step would be order any appropriate YSNP pack (some of these are getting down the 1,500 year time frame down to even 100 to 200 years in a very few cases where extensive testing is being done).

However, an alternative to SNP pack testing is testing private YSNPs at YSEQ if you have a close match with a NGS/WGS tester (Big Y, etc.). Of course NGS testing and recently WGS testing is your only option to reveal YSNPs that become tomorrow's branches of mankind. Prices are still pretty steep from $450 on sale, low resolution at $575, medium resolution from Full Genomes Corporation $775 (30 % more content for 30 % more cost) or high resolution with the long read FGC test (100 % more content but at a steep 500 % more cost - prices will fall though). Also, YSEQ now offers WGS tests as well. Over the next year or two, all NGS testing will be replaced by WGS testing since WGS will come down much faster (prices are almost the same now). You will get a free full mtDNA test included in the WGS (to me, not that useful).

[stonechat]

Thanks

I understand the basic idea but some of the newer test are over my head at present

I am likely to go ahead with yDNA, there are some people out there looking at my surname.
I might also get autosomal done, it might reveal something. I supppose I could go with Ancestry for the latter, though I have an inclination to use FTDNA.

Don't know what I am waiting for - perhaps to try to understan it a bit better

I have read up a bit but have already forgotten what SNPs are!