Have you used genetic testing to learn your ancestry? Please comment on the process.?

Question

I have adopted children, know little to nothing about their birth fathers (not even my son's birth father's race), and am considering enrolling them in the Genographic Project or a similar DNA databank which tracks historic migration patterns (and can at least tell us where the birth fathers' indigenous ancestors are located). I'm also interested in documenting and perhaps publishing an article on such quests, and would like to learn from others whether they found the genetic search to be meaningful and worth the money. Please include info. about which testing company you used, the reason for your search (curiousity, paternity search, etc.) and what the cost was. Also, in order to include your quote in my article, knowing your name, city, and state or province would be helpful (but not crucial). Thanks! -Béa Tiritilli, Santa Ana, CA

Answer 1

Yes, I have gone through Family Tree DNA.  They send a kit with two swabs that I rubbed on the inside of my cheeks and then sent back.  There are two basic tests: yDNA (male side) and mtDNA (female side)  They will give you web access to check what countries the DNA can be traced to.  It will not give names and dates, just areas there the ancestors lived.

While I used www.familytreedna.com, there are many others, including www.africaancestry.com.  National Geographics has Genographic Project trying to trace migratory practices of ancient peoples.

My DNA shows that my ancestors came from every country in Europe, islands (in the Mediterranean, Carribean, Iceland, Atlantice [Canary Islands, for example], and Pacific; Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Morroco, South Africa, Mexico, Australia...

It is definitely worth the money.

Answer 2

I think it would be pointless. All you would learn for all the money spent on the genographic "deep ancestry" project is where people may have been 10,000 and more years ago. It's pure and simple a donation.

What our family did was to submit cells from a brother's inside cheek to a surname yDNA genealogy project which compares particular markers with others with our same surname. Along with this you get the same "deep dna" information you spoke of. Understand that my brother's DNA is nearly the same as mine but will differ in the mix.

If you want to read more about it, go to http://www.familytreedna.com/