is that the one they started on nat geographic? it tells your "racial" profile by country, ect?

I didn't see the post, and I haven't taken the test. But it's something I want to do at some point. A cousin in England and his mother have done it.

My son sent his dna into something called 123 something or other.I don't remember the whole name of it.It took 3 to 4 weeks before he got anything back,but what he did get back was right on.A relative found him as he had done it also.The guy that found my son thru all that had been adopted when he was a baby,but he did know his biological parents last name,and that's how he and my son hooked up.

When I told my older sisters about this,they knew the guys biological family quite well and was able to give him more info.

My maiden name is not a popular name like my married name of davis is ,so that was even more surprising.

I'll have to ask ds for an update,i had forgotten all about it until this post.

Kathi

The DNA test I am talking about is thru Ancestry.com. It shows Your genetic ethnicity and reveals where your ancestors lived hundreds��"perhaps even thousands��"of years ago. This may update over time as new genetic signatures are discovered. (copied and pasted from Ancestry.com DNA page)

This tells about my Scandinavian ethnicity...

Modern Day Location
Norway, Sweden, Denmark
Did You Know?
In the northern latitudes, the sun rarely dips below the horizon in the summer, meaning very long days and very short nights. However, the tables are turned the rest of the year, with almost no daylight at all in the middle winter months.

About Your Region

Looks like you may have some Viking blood in you. Your genetic ethnicity ties you to Scandinavia, which includes the modern-day nations of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. While the Vikings were feared by the coastal towns of medieval Europe as seaborne raiders and violent pillagers, they were also well-travelled merchants and ambitious explorers. They raided the Mediterranean coast of Africa, settled areas as far south as the Black Sea, and traded with the Byzantine Empire. And it was a Norse sailor, Leif Ericson, who is credited with being the first European to travel to North America��"500 years before Columbus.

And it wasn't just the Vikings who had an irrepressible urge for adventure. In the days of the mighty Roman Empire, the Goths, originally from Sweden, wandered south and settled in what is now eastern Germany. In the year 410, they invaded and sacked Rome, setting the stage for the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire.

In the more recent past, the Scandinavian nations have embraced a new identity. Considering their neutrality during the World Wars, high quality of life, and relatively egalitarian societies, they are known more for their peaceful ways than their ancient Viking lineage might suggest.

Migrations into this region

As the glaciers retreated from Northern Europe, roaming groups of hunter-gatherers from Southern Europe followed reindeer herds inland and marine resources along the Scandinavian coast. Neolithic farmers eventually settled the region beginning about 6,000 years ago. However, the tradition of hunting and reindeer-herding remains among the Sami people of northern Scandinavia. The Sami formerly occupied much of northern Scandinavia and Russia, and likely had connections with the Volga-Ural region (where there are other languages similar to Finnish and Sami).

Migrations from this region

The rise of the Viking culture spread Scandinavian ancestry far throughout Europe. Their earliest coastal voyages took them to Scotland, northeastern England and established the settlement of Dublin, Ireland. As their power continued to grow, the Vikings spread farther afield, down the Volga River in Russia, to the coast of France and Spain. But perhaps their most famous accomplishments were the oceanic voyages across the Atlantic, establishing villages in Iceland and Greenland and exploring the northern coast of Canada. Few, if any of the early Scandinavian settlers, are thought to have survived in the Americas. However, Iceland remains a flourishing post of Scandinavian language and culture.

This shows my total ethnicity:
British Isles 68%
Scandinavian 11%
Eastern European 11%
Southern European 7%
Uncertain 3%

There is a colored map on Ancestry that shows where these areas are. It's so very interesting to see the migration of your family

You can link your DNA results to your tree on Ancestry.com and it shows other people that you are related to and if you are 2nd, 3rd or 4th cousins etc. It even shows all the way up to 5-8th cousins. With each one it shows the confidence level of your DNA matching each person.. example 96% to moderate. When it gets to 5-8th cousin it says Low confidence but.. I have found them to be very accurate, in my case anyway.

Sometimes it is frustrating tho... it will show you are related to someone and when you look at their tree, you cannot find the shared Ancestor but that means one or the other does not have that person added to their tree or as another cousin of mine says "some diddling" went on...and a parent isn't who you thought they were.. yikes...

You can search thru the results in several ways, new results just in or results with hints (which shows the shared ancestor) but my favorite way is to search by surname.

It has helped me get past a brick wall with one GG-Grandfather... A cousin with the same surname showed up, the only one for that surname, same area, town, state etc...and that surname is the only one we share.

My brother and I have different father's and I have a DNA kit on the way in the mail for him. I cannot find anything past one of his grandfather's and am hoping his DNA results will find some cousins with the same surname.

One thing I did learn is that, say you know your g-grandma was from Germany... you may not of even inherited a gene from her, so your German descent may not show up.

But it is so very interesting to see your DNA results and read about the area your ancestor's were from and it's very satisfying to see years of work confirmed, thru cousin links. I have found about 4 that we share the same 8th grandparents, not the same surname, 4 different surname's.

This is what I was wondering is anyone else here that uses Ancestry.com has done and how your results turned out... I have really enjoyed it.

I have two of the Ancestry.com DNA test kits within two feet of my right arm (as I sit here typing). One for me, and one for my husband. Just haven't done the "collection" yet. Will get to it soon. We are both eager to learn the results. :-)

I did the Ancestry one but it hasn't shown me much of anything I didn't already know. I am hoping in a few more years there will me more specific and detailed tests with results. I love genealogy!
Joann

Kathi,

Your son sent it into 23 and Me. Cheap, easy, and it gives both disease and ancestry gene profiles.

This post was edited by rob333 on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 10:22

I am in the middle of my husband's family genealogy, have been since December. I have found out alot of information and made contact with a number of descendants of his GGGGrandfathers siblings through Ancestry.com's family trees and research. We are still at a roadblock for finding where his GGGGGrandfather's family came from. I thought I could link them back to the Eastern Shore of MD/VA but recently found a book on those Boston people and there doesn't seem to be a common ancestor.

I gave my husband the ancestry.com website as a gift for Christmas with my doing the research as well. Then for his birthday in Jan. I gave him the DNA kit - well its still sitting on his desk! Not that he doesn't want to do it but as someone said - just forgets. We were also contacted by someone who thinks they may be related back to the GGGGrandfather's generation.
They want him to do a more detailed DNA test, one which I found online. Just waiting for them to send it to us - again that was several months ago that we were contacted.

For those of you who are into genealogy - check Facebook for groups related to the area you are interested in and/or family member groups. I found one for my mother's family, a group for Southern Maryland Families and one for the Eastern Shore of Virginia. All three have been helpful in finding information and I even met up with a gal who I went to church with when I was a teenager when my brother and I made a sibling trip home to Maryland this summer. She gave me a booklet from the bicentennial celebration of the church we attended. It meant so much to me because my GGGGrandfather had donated the land and lumber for the church, which was 100 years old in 1959 and is still an active Catholic parish. We all attended mass there that Sunday and I will treasure the memories forever.

mboston...
Have you tried googling the 5th G-Grandfather's name? I use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Safari, believe it or not, all 3 pull up different things. I have had great luck just googling the names I am looking for information on.

Also, are you aware of Google Book Search? You just put a name in and if they are in a book it shows up. Sometimes you can read the entire book online, if not it will show you where you can buy a copy of the book or the closest library it is in.

And another site, one of my favorites is USGenWeb. You click on the state, then the county... you can look around there at different records, etc they might have for that county, then click on the township and see what records might be there. I have found wills, land records, family bible records, photos... you just never know what will be available, some States and Counties have a lot of information and other's not so much.

I have "liked" several different states genealogy research pages and do look for family pages also.

Is anyone concerned about privacy? Who has access to your DNA? There are civil rights cases protesting the gathering of DNA from arrested (but not tried or convicted) persons.

I can't speak to other kits, but yes, 23 and Me is highly concerned about privacy. They won't give it to anyone without YOUR consent.

Loads of people are concerned about privacy. It's a hot issue in DNA collection. Along with costs and storage. If you have it done, how do you keep it? Who can access it and what can/should they tell you? These are but a few questions being thought about very deeply in the world of collection.

Here is a link that might be useful: privacy page

Very Interesting post! A few years ago our Son submitted his DNA to a Nat'l Geographic DNA search and was excited to find that he had a 'very close' and recent (1850's) relative from the west coast of Africa. Our known ancestors are northern European, however DH father was adopted by the man who married his mother when his father was very young. Had 11 (I think) half siblings. I gave up the research some years ago, but this sounds very enticing... maybe I need to finish up that job. Thanks... will keep this thread.

Yes Rob that is the name of where my ds got his info from.I'll probably talk with him this weekend,and if I remember ask him more questions.
Kathi

My husband did the Ancestry.com DNA test. It was pretty worthless. The results say he's 85% European (Ashkenazi) Jewish with 2% unknown, 6% Persian and 7% British Isles. I blame the Crusades.
Anyway it keeps connecting him with every other European Jew so it really is useless. As of today it shows him with 5 3rd cousins and pages of 4-6th cousins.

This post was edited by coffeemom on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 10:31