To Test or Not to Test?

During Thanksgiving and Christmas all of the major DNA testing companies run a sale on their test kits. You’ve probably looked at them and wondered if you should purchase one. Let me give you a few thoughts to ponder. To determine the test that will best suit your needs, you should determine your motivation. Are you hoping to connect with unknown relatives? Are you interested in a broad knowledge of your ancestral origins? Are you hoping to find the specific tribe your DNA matches? Do you want to know your haplogroup? 

A test like the ones offered by ancestry.com, 23andMe and my heritage have similar results, as they are both autosomal DNA tests. The test is done with a mail in kit that includes a test tube to collect your saliva. The processing of your DNA takes 8-12 weeks. Once you get the results, you will know which countries and regions your DNA matches. You will also have the ability to connect with other people who tested on this platform that are a DNA match to you. Here are a few key points about these companies:

1.  If you want to find relatives, Ancestry is the most popular and will likely provide you the largest quantity of results. It’s common to have over 10K matches! This can be overwhelming.

2. The regions you connect with are based on the available database of the platform you test with. They can’t connect you with a country they don’t have a DNA profile for. My Ancestry results show that I’m 25% Nigerian, but on 23andMe I am only 17.9% Nigerian. If you take multiple tests, be prepared for your results to vary. 

3. You only have access to the matches on the platform you tested with. For example, if you test with MyHeritage, you will not see any potential matches on Ancestry and 23andMe. And if you test on 23andMe, you may have matches on Ancestry that you can’t see and they can’t see you.

4. You CAN move your raw DNA data from  23andMe or ancestry over to MyHeritage. This provides you the benefit of 2 sites!

5. 23andMe has an added bonus of providing your haplogroup. This haplogroup is a combination of letters and numbers and is passed down from generation to generation. A woman passes her haplogroup to male and female children. Males only pass their haplogroup to male children. The haplogroup can provide migration information about your distant ancestors and may indicate distant connections to others. 

6. Autosomal testing often offers an upgraded package that will tell you health traits common to those with your DNA markers. Some can be medically significant, while others can be an interesting.

7. Ancestry makes it easy for users to build trees. If you test on this platform, you will have the ability to see the trees posted by your DNA matches to help determine how you may be connected. 

There are a few tests that can pinpoint a specific tribe that your DNA matches. This allows you to connect yourself not only to a country or region but to a specific tribal group! A test that does this is most often a y-DNA or mt-DNA test that traces your paternal (y) or maternal lineage. Only a man has a y-chromosome and would be able to take the y-DNA test, while both men and women can take the mt-DNA test.  For example, this test would show a connection with a specific group, like the Igbo people instead of a broader connection to Nigeria. Either of these tests trace back along 1 family line. Please be mindful that tracing one family line does not tell you the totality of your being. You have 4 grandparents, 8 great grands, 16 double great, 32 triple great ... and so on. The results from this type of testing only tell you the tribal origins of one of these ancestors. 

Obviously cost plays a role for many people. The yDNA and mtDNA tests are far more expensive than autosomal! For my family, I gathered money from a number of relatives to cover the cost of the African Ancestry test. If you want to trace the maternal lineage of your grandmother, you could divide the cost between any of her interested descendants. Instead of 1 person paying $300, 10 could each pay $30. The autosomal tests are often around $100, and can be as low as $40 when there is a sale. 

Another point of consideration is what happens to your DNA. Some companies destroy your DNA, while others offer the opportunity to participate  in scientific research. Each company has different policies, so PLEASE READ them! 

There are a lot of factors to consider when deciding if you want to do a DNA test. We have reviewed some of the key points here. I hope this has been helpful. Next week, we will continue to talk about DNA and what to do with the matches you find. 

Always Searching,

The Tangled Roots Team