Testing my DNA

I finally pulled the trigger and bought a DNA testing kit. I took advantage of a sale at AncestryDNA and gave them my spit. It took about a month to get the results. It was very exciting.

The results themselves were not at all surprising. I am pretty darn white, and my DNA reflects that. Also, having learned about European history, and how different parts of your DNA can come from pretty far back, nothing in the tests came as a surprise, even the 'trace regions'.


What I was most excited about, however, was the DNA matches. This is really the best part of doing the Ancestry test. It says I have 90 people that are 4th cousins or closer who have all taken the test. That is awesome! 4th cousins still share enough DNA for the test to be fairly reliable, which means most (if not all) of those people are actually related.

One of those people is my 1st cousin, so I know right off that we are related without having to do any research. Most of the people who use AncestryDNA have at least a small family tree online for you to look through and find matching names. I love seeing how you are related to other people.
I haven't contacted anyone yet, but I am slowly going through my list and trying to find how we are related. I am trying to be as thorough as possible, since some aren't as obvious at first.

Also, now that I have done the AncestryDNA test, I am going to try and transfer the results to Family Tree DNA to find where I fit over there. So far, the transfer thing isn't working for me (i've heard it's because AncestryDNA recently changed up their test and FTDNA hasn't caught up with it yet), but I am hopeful they will fix the problem soon. My dad took their test years ago, so I have access to his information, and it's pretty interesting how they separate the groups and find common ancestors.

The next time my husband is home for R&R I will have him take a test, I am really curious to see if he has any matches on Ancestry.

For more information on DNA and genealogy I recommend you go to The Genetic Genealogist, and the International Society of Genetic Genealogy

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