FamilyTreeDNAFamily Finder, Ancestry & DNA Test Kit, Discover Your Origins & Unlock Your Geographic Roots, Connect with Your DNA Relatives, At-Home Test Kit for Expertly Processed Convenient Sampling

this will be the 2nd autosomal test ive ordered from family tree dna through amazon. for starters this is also the 5th test total ive ordered from family tree dna too, and overall im disappointed with many opinions and or outright problems people have been having with family tree dna. granted genealogy is one heck of a hard concept to fully understand. my own reasons in particular going with family tree dna was the comprehensive Y testing that you really can't get elsewere witch has really turned a few heads in my family but also confirmed many stories that have been pasted down. autosomal tests ive taken though them though i am inclined to think there is room for improvement or at least more comprehensive results but by no means did i fhave outright outrages in my results. this was a gift btw to further my own research but as far as ease of use and instructions i thought it was pretty straight forward and had no problems with any test ive ordered from them. no botched results, no shipping errors, no missing information. and even had pretty speedy results half the time. my advice is if you have any hesitations or concerns with the amazon reviews id recommend going directly to the website and reading up on them. they really do have an amazing Q and A section on darn near everything you can think of.there are pros and cons with family tree dna for sure like high prices compared to other companies but you cannot find a more comprehensive test on the market as others have said, so just just do your research before deciding. from start to finish on this particular test it took 16 days to be processed. i don't think that is unreasonable at all. i just don't understand all the hate...the only issue ive had in particular was finding many matches but everyday the pool keeps growing so im not worried. this seems to be the only thing ancestry has over family tree dna.

I tested previously with another company, which provides better technical information but useless family genealogical tools.AncestryDNA requires an expensive subscription service to make real use of this product. Be sure to look at the Family Plan for discounted rates for 5 individuals, and keep an eye out for the $1 for 3 month starter subscription! However, Ancestry found 35,000 matches to my DNA.They now offer a feature, ThruLines, which can identify the Most Recent Common Ancestor ("MRCA") between you and a match if there is sufficient family tree to link you *** and that information doesn't have to be from your own family tree ***.My Grandmother's story? Her father looks to be the brother of the man she thought was her father. ThruLines was able to establish an MRCA through the wife of the brother.Ancestry has an interesting feature where they can determine which of the two pairs of each of the 22 autosomal chromosomes belongs to which parent if you can identify to which parent some of your matches are related. It does seem to make mistakes, such as identifying some matches, including the above MRCA, as belonging to my father's side of the family. I still need to delve deeper into my father's side of the family, but I am reasonably satisfied at this point.Ancestry doesn't do mtDNA or Y DNA tests-- and the fact they threw out all the results of these tests in the past, leads me to believe they never will.

Don’t waste your money if you’re buying for a kid. My son has been asking to find out his lineage for years! He’s 11. So I bought this, sent it. In and they told me they can’t test his because he’s under 13 years of age. I wasted so much money on this and it was just a waste

I've done testing with both Ancestry and FTDNA. If you're testing for ethnicity, you probably shouldn't be testing at all. DNA doesn't respect political/national boundaries. There's basically no difference between a German and an Englishmen genetically speaking. For the differences there are, they will be different at different times because of migrations/invasions. Both the Ancestry and FTDNA Family Finder test are autosomal DNA tests which tests chromosomes from both parents. Ancestry is a good choice if you are going to do no further testing. They have the largest DNA database to match upon and their ethnicity calculator comes up with results that most people would expect. FTDNA's recent changes in how they calculate ethnicities has produced strange results because of their reference population choices. You can also download your raw results and import them into FTDNA but Ancestry doesn't allow the opposite.The reason to test with FTDNA is their additional testing products. If you're a male tester, you can do additional Y-DNA testing which only tests the Y-chromosome. This allows the test to reach much further back in time; autosomal testing is only good for about 4-5 generations. FTDNA also keeps your sample for 25 years so it's available for additional testing even if the original test taker isn't. So if you're considering doing any additional DNA testing, FTDNA is your best choice. Ancestry only has the autosomal test. FTDNA's test doesn't require any subscription fees on their site to access other member's trees like Ancestry does. They also have a Chromosome browser to check DNA matches -- Ancestry does not . FTDNA is much more about DNA testing; Ancestry is about their genealogy records. Both will come back with accurate DNA results - ie the raw DNA file. The ethnicity results for both should be looked at with extreme skepticism -- the testing is more suited for determining ancestral matches.