Not MagdalenaLee but the short story is the better deal is ancestry. You should have ordered yesterday when they were $69. Then when you get your raw data at ancestry upload it to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA so that you can find genuine matches with people who will respond to your emails.

Are you trying to find specific family? As in looking at the male line you would buy the Y kit from FamilyTreeDNA. You'll get what you pay for. If you are just doing a general DNA test, the family finder at FamilyTreeDNA would be the one to get or the ancestry kit. Ancestry only has the Autosomal test. Also be aware that without paying at ancestry you will not have access to family trees of your matches so you won't necessarily be able to look for shared names.

Bottom line is choose the test that will give the results you are looking for. And if you don't have a family tree the test won't do you any good. Taking a DNA test doesn't magically provide a list of people that you are related to. You will need an extensive tree for your family and your matches need an extensive tree. Otherwise you will have no name to cross reference. Uploading to FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch will give you contacts who share DNA with you but it won't tell you which person in each of your family trees is who the DNA comes from. You and your match have to figure that out.

Forgot to say, there are some coupons for the kits from FamilyTreeDNA. I'd be happy to share my codes. Or there's a blog that has them, too. If you need the blog I'll look it up.

$25 off Big Y! R96UIRTS0H8

That's $25 on top of the discounted Holiday Sale prices!

Check these and see how many still work.

http://www.promopro.com/merchant-Family-Tree-DNA-coupons-deals-17565.html

I find this so confusing! I want to do this too, and I think for my husband (adopted) but I have to figure out where to start. I know some in my family have already started tracing the tree.

I'm right there with you, Boop! I like the idea of trying to do this, but have no idea where to begin.

23 and me must have just raised their prices. I sent a friend the affiliate link like a week ago and it was $99 then. I just tried to click on the link I sent her and it no longer works. 23andme did just get clearance from the FDA to provide a bunch more health and genetic testing-type info, so I wonder if that is why they raised their prices. I did it about a year ago, more interested in the medical side of things than finding distant family members. It did find me a ton of "relatives" but I haven't put the time into figuring out exactly how we are related. What I like about 23andme is that you get your whole raw genome data, that you can download as a file then upload into 3rd party sites that will analyze your health info for you -- I was able to see if I had the genes for breast cancer, alzheimers, MTHFR, and many other health conditions. Starting last week, 23andme is allowed to tell you some of that info themselves (that was their original service and then the FDA stepped in and stopped them so they could only provide the raw genome and then you had to use a 3rd party site to analyze it). What was nice is that they sent me all the reports for free even though I had my testing done a year ago.

So I guess if you are looking just for relatives and ancestry info, one of the cheaper sites is good, but I think 23andme has the whole health side of things that the other sites don't address.

Boop, does your husband want to search for his birth family? If so, there is a huge network of FREE search angels who will help him - they have a great success rate and many states are now giving access to the real birth certificate, not the amended one for adoptees. You can email me for more info if you want....nonnaubisness at g mail dot com

Maybe the price went up because 23 and me can now provide additional genetic information. I received this e-mail from them about a month ago:

"Today marks a great milestone in the history of personal genetics. I am thrilled to let you know that 23andMe is now the first and only genetic service available directly to you that includes reports that meet FDA standards.

After nearly two years of work with the FDA, extensive user comprehension testing and a complete redesign, 23andMe
is launching an entirely new experience that includes carrier status,
wellness, trait and ancestry reports. We have also developed new and
improved tools to share and compare your genetics with friends and
family - and for those of you participating in research, we will provide
new insights to explore.

When will you get to see your new experience? Soon -
we promise! You will receive an email when your new experience is ready.
We want to ensure each customer has a seamless transition which is why
we have set our goal to provide you with the new experience by the end
of the year.

We are committed to bringing you a world class
service that provides you with ongoing updates. The genetics revolution
is here and we are excited to enable customers like you to keep
learning about your DNA. Today is only the beginning.

If you have questions or want to start learning about the new experience, we put together a new FAQ page. Additionally, we have updated our Privacy Statement and Terms of Service to support the new features, which I encourage you to read.

Together, we have achieved another great milestone in the personal
genetics revolution. It is the first step in many more to come!

Anne Wojcicki
CEO, 23andMe"

He has said yes in the past Olychick, I need to ask him again. He worries it will upset his mom. I will ask him.

If you do the testing at a place not affiliated with Ancestry, does it link up somehow or is it testing for another reason. I guess that is one thing that confuses me. and is Ancestry the best place?

If your object is finding family the first thing you need to do is make an extensive family tree. If you don't have a tree how will you know who you are related to? The ancestry TV ads make it look so easy. It's not. You will need to go back at least 6 generations. ADD everyone! Siblings, all the kids, second spouse and step kids. You need everyone.

You can upload your ancestry raw data to GEDmatch, FamilyTreeDNA, and for the health stuff to Promethease. But be aware you will get pages and pages of files from Promethease. More than you can absorb easily. I think it might be Promethease that charges $5 to upload your raw data and they will spit it out for you. SAVE the files Promethease gives you! Read the site carefully so that you can use everything they tell you.

If you don't understand how DNA is mixed and passed you will never be able to figure out how you got the matches you did. If you haven't already, read as much as you can about % of DNA passed on and recombination. Here's one site.

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask445

No! It ain't easy! But before you spend money on the test, know what the test will tell you. You will not get a list of people you are related to. Won't happen. You will get a list of people who have tested and who have some of the same DNA you have but you still have to do the detective work yourself. Or hire someone to do it for you. The more people who test the better the results will eventually be. Needle in a haystack;-)

Ancestry is specific to ancestry. You can upload your raw DNA to other sites but it isn't automatic. And there's no syncing with ancestry if you choose some other company.

Thanks imhappy! I'm mainly interested in ethnic origin, finding family would be secondary.

I am pressed for time right now so I'm linking to a blog that has a very clear and recently updated comparison of Ancestry, FTDNA, and 23andme.

Genealogical test comparison

It was on sale a few months back (23andme)

I had no idea you could get all this information! It's mind boggling, really. Like joaniepoanie, I've been thinking of doing a DNA test just for ethnic information. It would be a bonus to find new relatives, though I do a terrible job of keeping up with cousins I already know!

The medical information scares me a bit though. The language of 'new experience' and 'genetic service' is vaguely creepy to me. I know that having the genetic marker a disease doesn't necessarily mean that you're fated to get something, but I'm still not sure how much I want to know or perhaps more importantly, to have a corporation know. I'm still wrapping my head around how you can look at something on the Nordstrom website and then have it show up immediately on your Facebook feed.

I have done all three. I think the ethnic/ancestry composition results seems strongest/most detailed and best presented at 23andme.com. They did just change the presentation, but it's still better, imo. 23andme also has a number of tools to play around with the data. In addition, I have seen the new results for health reports, and they were disappointing in number. They can only release certain info as the FDA approves it; for now, the amount of info certainly doesn't justify the price increase. I had gifted several family members the $99 package, but I can't do $199...

FamilyTreeDNA was disappointing to me. It was touted as being best if you're researching your family tree; I haven't found that to be the case currently. I am guessing maybe that was true in the past. Ancestry.com has fewer services currently, but theirs definitely is more oriented towards expanding your family tree and connecting with others similarly interested.

I'm not sure what I just wrote will help clear up any confusion. So... If my interests were in ethnic background and the actual DNA genetics, 23andme probably is the best choice.... although the price is too high. If my interest was expanding my family tree research, I'd probably go with Ancestry.com.

If you are specifically interested in ethnic information, I wouldn't waste money on a DNA test. This is as detailed as it gets at ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA.

Join their mailing list so you know when they run specials. No point in paying full price! Then if you are still interested pay for another 6 months or a year until you have a good handle on it. At this point I would probably use the free sites and the information I gleaned from the green leaf hints. Once you have the U.S. conquered, then if you still need help subscribe to ancestry world for 6 months $134. These are sale prices so watch carefully to be sure you get a good deal. If you let your ancestry subscription elapse they will start offering you a resubscribe deal that's pretty good. Usually 6 months to a year for the really good offer. And notice that the offer is for 6 months, not a year!

There are several sites where you can build a tree or upload a GEDcom and work on it for free. But start somewhere until you are familiar with researching this type of thing. Then add some of the other sites. One tree, one site to start. You will be confused enough.

That sounds like solid advice, thank you, Happy!

My husband has done the Y test through Family Tree DNA and we both have done the autosomal through ancestry. What is nice about FTDNA is that there are surname groups that are done so that you can see the part of the world your ancestors came from. These results come from the Y test (males only). But you have to remember that you are only being compared to people who have tested, so in my husband's case there are not that many Boston surname people who have had the Y test done. Other surnames have humdreds of males who have been tested.

The autosomal test is for finding cousins. We have had some interesting results show up on both sides of our families. However, when you are tested you won't know if the person who matches you is from your your mother's or father's side. That is where your family tree information comes in.

If you are a member of AARP, you can join ancestry with a discount. I want to say it is a 30% discount but I am not sure of the final price. It is a one time shot, so when you renew, you would have to check on the renewal price. This is not the test but actually joining ancestry to work on your tree.

Thanks Happy. I know my mother's side came from Ireland. My father's side came from a town in Hungary that is now Romania....the borders changed after WWI. Through work I had a free subscription to Ancestry but didn't get far. I found the ships' manifests from when my grandparents came over but info seems to stop there. There don't seem to be any records before 1900, at least on my father's side.

check with your public library. Ours has free access to Ancestry. Unfortunately, you have to go there in person to access it; not available through their site at home.

If you're a member of AARP they usually offer a 30% discount on Ancestry membership.

The library edition of ancestry is not a full access. You could get a long ways, though.

I ran across this today from a blog I read

http://dna-explained.com/2012/10/01/4-kinds-of-dna-for-genetic-genealogy/

Try this site for ship's lists. It's overwhelming with information. Take your time. Rome wasn't built in a day.

http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml

Here are some more

http://www.theshipslist.com/pictures/castlegarden1855.shtml

This is the search I did for my 2xgreat grandparents. Mina died a month after she got off the boat. She was sick when they got here. She left 4 small children.

https://aad.archives.gov/aad/display-partial-records.jsp?dt=2102&sc=25902%2C25903%2C25904%2C25908%2C25910%2C25912&cat=GP44&tf=F&bc=%2Csl%2Cfd&q=&as_alq=&as_anq=&as_epq=&as_woq=&nfo_25902=V%2C50%2C1900&op_25902=0&txt_25902=bahls&nfo_25903=V%2C50%2C1900&op_25903=0&txt_25903=&nfo_25904=V%2C10%2C1900&cl_25904=&nfo_25908=V%2C3%2C1900&cl_25908=&nfo_25910=V%2C20%2C1900&op_25910=0&txt_25910=&nfo_25912=N%2C

If you know the name of the ship

http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=fried

ship info

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzbound/Friedeburg.htm

German immigrants

http://www.germanimmigrants1860s.com/