Ancestry DNA 2024 UPDATE!

[Purple Panther]

23&Me actually breaks out specific regions in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, and possibly elsewhere where your DNA occurs. They're ahead of everyone else in this respect. Certain parts of the world are under tested, but should eventually catch-up and then that level of breakdown will be possible in those regions as well.

France seems to be the sticking point and the wild card. Have they changed their law on testing yet, because it was as taboo as American fast food joints in the past?

[Purple Panther]

You should get Ancestry if you can. It would be interesting to see if you get any GCs and also what your breakdown is. Also one of the best things with Ancestry is that they do updates nearly every year and you won't be asked to take another test to get updates like 23&Me do.

That indeed is a great selling point. It's almost like compensation for the Hormel warehouse full of spam that you get from them in your inbox.

[J. Ketch]

Hmmm. I don't think that I would have changed that one since it does make sense, but maybe that's why they changed it.

[ShieldWolf]

France seems to be the sticking point and the wild card. Have they changed their law on testing yet, because it was as taboo as American fast food joints in the past?

France hasn't changed their law. Their concern is misplaced, IMHO.

[Purple Panther]

That brings Family Search, the LDS genealogy site, to mind. Someone put my White Appalachian grandpa in with some Black New Orleans people because he shared a name with one of them.

[J. Ketch]

Ancestry and 23andme have the means to start comparing people to the many ancient/medieval samples that are around now with ibd, I'm a bit surprised they haven't done it yet, as sales for their regular product must have been in steep decline in recent years (most of the people who want a dna test for recent ancestry have already done it). They'd attract lots of new and old customers with ancient/medieval ancestry estimates, regardless of accuracy or price.

[ShieldWolf]

That brings Family Search, the LDS genealogy site, to mind. Someone put my White Appalachian grandpa in with some Black New Orleans people because he shared a name with one of them.

It's the LDS church's site, but not their research. This is just a mistake that an incompetent researcher made and posted to the site. The same goes for the rampant errors in pedigrees posted to the Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc., sites. Do your own research with the excellent source material readily available on those sites. Don't trust the pedigrees without verifying them.

[Purple Panther]

France hasn't changed their law. Their concern is misplaced, IMHO.

They should change course. I want to know if I have genes from my French Huguenot ancestors who were targeted for death by the Catholic Church. My forebear was warned that they planned to murder him. He and his family split that day if I remember correctly, and they lived in the colony of New York. My grandpa's grandma had their surname as a middle name. That solved a mystery since it had an Italian ring to it, but it turned out to be French. Their descendants were minsters of some note. Sadly or not, we're linked to the Baldwin actors through that line.

[Purple Panther]

It's the LDS church's site, but not their research. This is just a mistake that an incompetent researcher made and posted to the site. The same goes for the rampant errors in pedigrees posted to the Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc., sites. Do your own research with the excellent source material readily available on those sites. Don't trust the pedigrees without verifying them.

It's a hot mess in many ways. I recall its Golden Age in the late '90s when I got a lion's share of genealogical information from the site, but it likely devolved since. A lot of genealogical sites have come and gone through the years. It would take a decade for me to get some of the information that I got in ten minutes if I went the pre-internet route of legwork, and I exclude the lines that trace me back to Noah.

[ShieldWolf]

It's a hot mess in many ways. I recall its Golden Age in the late '90s when I got a lion's share of genealogical information from the site, but it likely devolved since. A lot of genealogical sites have come and gone through the years. It would take a decade for me to get some of the information that I got in ten minutes if I went the pre-internet route of legwork, and I exclude the lines that trace me back to Noah.

The data in the 90's was better, because it was based on information compiled by actual genealogists. Since then, amateurs have made mistakes and pedigree copiers have propagated them extensively. It's not as hard to confirm your lineage as you might imagine with source material at your finger tips these days, but few people have the inclination to invest the time to do so. No judgement, just stating what I have observed over the time period from when I started doing genealogy to now.