My wife has been researching our family tree, much of it online, but we haven't hired a researcher. She does pay for the Ancestry.com subscription, which offers a lot of resources, but doesn't do the research for you.
My daughter , Robin , has an ancestry.com membership also, and we have been doing some research online using that as well as the findagrave.com website. We have also sent in the dna swab; but I just did mine recently, and have not heard anything back from them at this point. One question that I have been wondering about, is whether all of the dna results from the different companies (doing dna tests) goes into one large database or not ? It would seem like it should. Suppose I have unknown relatives, and they use a different dna company to research their dna than the one that I used. Would the results from the two different companies reach an overall database; so that we would be notified of our relationship, or would that only happen if we by chance used the same company (ie, both used Ancestry) ?
I'll bet it will, but the NSA will be in charge of it. I am not certain, but I don't think they are now. That may change at some point as it certainly would be helpful. On a related topic, my brother had his done by Ancestry.com (as I have) and then he had it done by one of the others, I forget which, and there were fairly significant differences in the results.
Now, I have done several of the DNA tests, and so far, I am looking forward to finding out the results of the one from Ancestry.com. My daughter first got me one from Helix, which is the National Gorgraphic one, but it only goes way back into your genetic background, and then they keep wanting me to buy stuff, so I was not impressed with that one at all. The next one was the ancestry one, and I am hoping that it might help out with the ancestry search that we have been working on. Robin has a membership with Ancestry, and we have both been enjoying the research and finding some of the early family history and relatives. The one that I just finished doing tonight is called 23andme, and (my goodness !) the questions took me almost 2 hours to finish all of them, and on a huge variety of topics, so I am really interested to see what this one has to say about me. It also does a health search, and it should be informative as well. I will share more when we get some results back.
My sister had her DNA with both Ancestry and 23andme. She speaks highly of 23andme and has been trying to persuade me to have my DNA tested with 23andme. They provide different geneology info but 23andme goes further to offer health studies to members. My sister has Lupus and participates in one of their studies on Lupus.
I've only done my own research with the help of a couple relatives who are much better at it than I am. One thing I have learned is that you might find out a lot more than you wanted to know. I haven't done the DNA test yet (that's going to be my Christmas present) but one of my sisters did and it came back "part Bangladeshi". WHAT? Bangladeshi? I'm thinking not.
@Mary Robi Well, you are likely quite correct in that consideration. You should see the mouths gape if I sense the need to call myself a "Polack"! Frank
My husband has been wanting to do the Ancestry DNA thing for a very long time. I finally ordered a kit for him ..they had a half price offer so I thought why not ! It's on the way .. he will be very surprised and super anxious to begin finding out things he never knew.
So far, I think that as far as finding unknown living relatives, 23 and Me is the best, hands down. They have sent me information about relatives that I had no idea existed, and both Robin and I have started contact with some of them. There is also a map that shows where our relatives are located (not an actual address or anything), and it just shows where the concentrations of that family line are at. As far as actually doing research into ancestry, of no-longer-living people, then I think that Ancestry.com has the best database, and provides a family tree where you can add information and pictures as you discover things. It also connects you with other people who are researching the same people in their ancestry, so in this way, you can actually find living relatives as well, and they do give you a list of dna matches. If a person were only going to use one source, then probably the Ancestry one gives the most results overall, because you get dna matches for living relatives, and their whole database to search for ancestors. Robin has the membership that allows her to search overseas records, as well as the ones from here in the United States, so she has been finding things from our German relatives, who came over in the late 1800’s. I always thought that my mother was an only child, and that her mother was an only child, too; but now we have discovered that my grandmother had sisters and brothers, and my grandfather came from a really large family. Apparently, his father was married several times, and had children from each wife. So, the part of my family that I didn’t know I had any relatives to speak of, it turns out that there are quite a few of them. I am really enjoying browsing through the “hints” that Ancestry sends out, and finding the old documents. I have started shared picture albums of the old photos and documents , so that my whole family can see these. I definitely recommend doing at least one of these dna tests, if you are at all interested in your family ancestry.
I've been continuing research started by two of my father's cousins years ago. I've hopefully traced back to an ancestor born in St. Martins Parish, Birmingham in 1500. I'm hoping to get info from St. Martins to confirm. My daughter has sent for her DNA from 23 and me.
Here in Britain we live in hopes that our forebears were Dukes or successful in business. Reality is that if we came from working class stock our predecessors were kept in their place, very few entered another class. I came from Norfolk where many great people lived and many of us were told that we were related to these grand people. I have no doubt we were. Unfortunately many of our distant relations were in service and our connection to fame was started over the wash tub. I did know of two village girls whose grandmothers were set up in business by guilt stricken gentlemen