1/2 Price DNA testing on Ancestry - but which test?

Question

Sorry for reposting, but I asked this an hour ago and it's STILL not showing on the question board, so here goes...again:

Ancestry are offering half price DNA testing until the end of September (www.ancestry.co.uk/halfprice). Prices are shown in US$ but it equates to £39, £52 and £47 respectively.

I've been interested in DNA testing for around 9 months now, and this gives me the perfect reason to go ahead and do it. But I don't know which one to go for.

WHAT I WANT TO FIND OUT -

I know that my mother has Belgian and Swiss lineage, but there's rumours of German, Spanish, Dutch and French in there too. I would be keen to find out if there is any more European blood. I also want to find out if there is anything but English in my father's side.

I know the tests bring back vague results, and that's fine, I'm still interested in having it. I'm just confused as to which tests can tell me which bloodline. I have a brother that can take the male test, and I can do the female one myself. But does anyone have any more details on these tests? I want to make sure I get the right one(s) for my research.

Answer 1

crikey, that sounds interesting, that sounds cheap too, even at the full price, how is it that when i checked about a year ago on some other sites the costs were about 500 quid???

Answer 2

To get both side of the tree, you can have your brother take the combined YDNA and MTDNA, which isn't offered by Ancestry in their 1/2 off sale. You could order each one seperately and have him take both or him take the male on and you the female one.  

http://www.familytreedna.com/default.asp...  Is the FTDNA company that does offer the combined test. If you join the project under your brother's surname, you get a group rate of $387.00 (so ordering the two separate tests from Ancestry is still cheaper). You also want the male DNA test to be for 24 markers or over and the price Ancestry offers for the Y chromosome 46 marker test is great!

From Ancestr:

Females, as well as males, can discover their ancient maternal lineage through DNA testing. Because a father's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is destroyed at fertilization, a child inherits only the mother's mitochondrial DNA, thus preserving the maternal link to the ancient past. Due to this unique inheritance pattern, both males and females may directly contribute a DNA sample for testing the maternal lineage.

Maternal Lineage tests are derived from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which is passed from a mother to her male and female children. Thus mtDNA is a powerful investigative tool for researching the maternal line and identifying one's maternal ancient ancestry.