23andMe - DNA Testing Reviews

by AppointedByGod

All my ancestry results were wrong…. My traits … my relatives … everything…. I can actually trace my family and where we come from and 23 and me was 100 % wrong. My results were as far fetched as telling someone from India they are not Indian but all their family is from Ireland… or telling someone from Ireland their parents , grandparents and great grandparents are all from west Africa… when I questioned a supervisor about my results they were not accountable, and had no logical explanation, I honestly believe 23 and me is a scam. It has a rating of 1 at the bbb better business bureau, and I wish I checked this before using. I do not recommend!! Save your money!!! Do not buy!! This is good for someone who doesn’t know anything about their relatives and will then believe anything that is told to them… not for someone who knows… they are either blatantly lying or making guesses… some may be correct but mine is absolutely wrong! You have a better chance doing Google searches or using Facebook to do ancestry searches and find relatives.

by Blah Blah32

This is not a bad review for 23andMe , but for the entire system of this app. I seem to be one of the unlucky few that has very little DNA to be sampled from my saliva. On both attempts to submit samples I expressly followed the directions; in fact I did it first thing in the morning after waking up. Not only did the first attempt take forever to actually get to the destination for testing, I had to wait forever to actually find out that it failed. And now with the second attempt I am completely discouraged with this entire experience. I was really looking forward to finding out more about myself through genetic testing, but it is not meant to be. Perhaps I will try through another competing service and actually find out if it’s my problem or theirs. I also find the lack of direct customer service contact through 23andMe a huge disappointment, and can’t help to wonder if it’s because they want to put the blame on the participants instead of their services. I will take my refund and gladly not participate in any of their services again.

by Fayth S.

The past couple updates at this app have increasingly made the ancestry information less accurate and less informative. With each new update, it seems that although we get more detailed genetic trait information (hair type, cilantro taste, etc.), the ancestry part of this genetic test that I actually paid for and wanted information on gets dumbed down to the point of only one country and ethnicity being shown and no other information exists that used to be available. Before these updates, my ancestry information was more accurate to what is known in our family history and even included some interesting possible other ancestry and now that part of my known ancestry plus all other data, except one, was erased.

this app has been making a lot of improvements in their genetic traits and medical information features and that’s great but if they also continued to make improvements on their ancestry feature and not dumb it down as a result, this ancestry/genetic test company would be great and I would highly recommend to others that are curious about their ancestry and genetic traits. As of right now, I definitely would not recommend the test for ancestry and would only recommend if you’re interested in seeing your genetic traits and health information.

by Bekkah<3

Loved the service, got my results back in under a month. I loved 23andMe for a while though, until it wouldn’t load my DNA Relatives section. It’s been glitchy here and there since I downloaded but I haven’t been able to view my DNA Relatives section in weeks, takes forever loading only to give me an error that something went wrong. I understand how the algorithm works & why you get certain results, but I really wish they had a better Western Armenian population for comparison as they considered that side to be Turkish just because my relatives were from Malatya & Chunkush/Cungus Turkey, before the Armenian Genocide ravaged the Ottoman Empire. My family barely escaped & not without our losses. If you knew what that was & how the country of Armenia came to be, you’d understand why a lot of Armenians are frustrated with being labeled as Turkish because we probably won’t ever match many from the country of Armenia today. Hopefully that and the bugs get fixed soon too.

by Ghgffcfsshj

23andMe is refreshing every 20 seconds so you’ll be reading something halfway down a page but if you can’t get it all read in 20 seconds the page refreshes and starts you back at the top so you have to scroll down like 20 times to finish reading something. It wasn’t always like this but after the update like 4 months ago this is how it always is now. I find it too frustrating to use 23andMe which makes me very disappointed. And I don’t love that I’ve paid into this company and now they want more money to give me updated features, people who’ve paid $150 for their test should just get any updated features as they come for free.
I like the idea of finding out what I’m made of and finding family who I didn’t know I had but 23andMe is refreshing so much I can’t even use it, wish I could. This company has a good start but they seem to be going downhill fast with apps that aren’t working properly to now charging more for information that should have been included in the original costs.

by Cody.Ray

It’s an attractive application, but its functionality as far as user autonomy/interaction is low. There is no in-app messaging feature (so connecting/staying connected with DNA relatives is difficult). If you message a relative and they message you back, if 23andMe doesn’t notify you that they responded (and it doesn’t always), you won’t know that person has messaged you unless you circumnavigate the labyrinth of features back to that particular user’s DNA profile. Another one of the biggest failures of 23andMe is that it does not orient based on how you’re holding your mobile device. It only works if you’re holding your mobile device upright. So if you are using a tablet on its side, 23andMe doesn’t adjust to that orientation. Overall, all it really does is passively allow you to absorb colorful information with your mobile device when you’re holding said device in an upright orientation. Don’t expect to be able to interact with the application or actively use any of the information with it.

by Delta 0917

So I’m trying to register my kit on my 23 and me app. I received the confirmation email and clicked on it. It said that my email had been confirmed, so I go back to 23andMe and it doesn’t do anything. I reread some of the instructions and found out that if you are using the Gmail app instead of the Mail app, the confirmation address should be copied and pasted and put into Safari. No big deal, I did that. It said that my email had been confirmed and I go back to 23andMe once more. Finally it did something, until it said “oops something went wrong try again”. I tried this dozens of times. Every different way I could conceive of confirming my email and having it go through to 23andMe . This has been unsuccessful. I’m not sure if it’s 23andMe , or if it’s me, or if it’s the website. But I am not happy and I would like some help dealing with this.

P.S.

This hasn’t happened to just me. My dad is having the same troubles as I am.

by Crystalight😜

I was so psyched to do the 23 & me DNA test... specially since I don’t know my heritage... family... health predispositions!! I received the kit as a gift from my friend, which makes the disappointment allot less painful. I thought that I would.. like the commercials show.. solve mysteries, gain this incredible new insight... etc. The results are minimal & somewhat cryptic. I was happy to find out pretty much what I already knew.. I’m white, if I eat too much I’ll get fat & have high cholesterol & by age 90 I’ll lose my marbles!! The health information portion is even more-so cryptic & vague I suppose to keep the hypochondriacs from having a nervous breakdown. So I bought the 23 & me plus... which further fueled my frustration. Anyway long review even longer... between Prometheus & Genomlink I’ve finally unlocked my DNA’s deep dark secrets. I do give 23 & me the credit for processing my saliva into letters & numbers!!! Btw.. 23andMe works great!!

by Imannaclaire

Overall it’s a good app. User friendly for the most part and a beautiful interface. That being said, it could use some improvements. There’s no actual messaging section so if you want to message a relative, you have to go to that persons profile and click message. It would be great if there was a section totally dedicated to messaging where you can access them at the same time. There’s no notification that tells you when you get a new message either. You just get an email which can get a little excessive. Also sometimes when you try to send a message, the messaging function will randomly just close out in the middle of sending a message. Same when you try to put anything in the “how can we improve this feature” section. When you try to enter cities relatives were born in it doesn’t always work. You’ll select a city and it disappears similar to how the messaging function just closes you out. There’s also A LOT OF INFO so sometimes it’s kind of hard to find your way around because some sections are sort of arbitrarily labeled. I sometimes struggle to remember how to get back to things I’m looking for. These things don’t keep me from enjoying it though. It’s just a bit frustrating and I feel they could be easily fixed. When you consider the amount of information you get in this one app, these issues are minor and I hope 23 and me will fix them in the future because it could be great.

by Bullet11-182

It’s about as good as an app could be that hasn’t figured out scrolling on a phone. Yes, when you are answering questions, it doesn’t let you scroll to see all the answers, making all the research they collect inaccurate. The only other thing that needs work is connecting with relatives. Location is a filter that can’t be applied by itself, why? It also takes some wild guesses at close relatives, but it’s still pretty impressive.
The ancestry is really good and the health leaves a lot to be desired.
The single most important thing about 23andMe is that they keep refining and improving! The more information(also money) they get, the more accurate results they get. If you decide to buy it, you can keep coming back to see if they have more accurate results for you. They don’t just take your money(and saliva) and run, they use it to get better! As mentioned earlier, health isn’t worth the money yet at least, but I don’t feel too disappointed because I’m hopeful it will be improved later and if not, the ancestry was worth the money itself. I was also happily surprised by the noteworthy people in history that you share DNA with. It’s a nice little value add that may be unique to 23&me. It’s also has an intuitive layout that’s easy to navigate for the most part.
Keep up the good work!

by GimmeDatThang

I enjoy the service but I do have a few observations. What I’m finding is that distant relatives don’t all show in 23andMe versus the desktop version. That’s disturbing because you have people who only access the service through mobile devices using 23andMe . And they will never see certain dna cousin connections. And on top of that you have a new pricing tier to show more relatives. That’s another barrier to discovery for members.

I’d like to see a revamp more friendly navigable version of your discussion boards and internal dna relative email reply system. There are other app and desktop enhancements you cam make to make the user experience better but you’d have to hire me as a customer UI/UX analyst. (SMILE)

I know it’s still a burgeoning industry and that our ethnic composition are all algorithmic based estimates but it’s fun to match the hard paper genealogy research with what’s found in my 23&Me results. Functionality of the service aside I continue to enjoy the service and what I’m finding out about me and my family’s dna journey.

by All Around The World-1234

Hi I hope you and yours are doing well!
I and many other DNA matches are having issues. We show matching to each other but not all us? For example: I am show that “A” is matching to me and five other DNA matches but “A” goes to look at those five DNA matches to see how they are connected to them, 3 of the matches are not showing up for them.? When clearly on my end I’m showing that they should be matching to them because the system shows that we are shared DNA matches,over 20cm. Another example is I am a profile manager for my uncle and he is showing shared matches to one family line. I reached out to one of the persons on that line and asked them if they could tell me how they show matching to my uncle but they can’t pull him up but I clearly show that he is matching to them.
And it’s not just happening to me there have been other people saying they are seeing the same issues.
Is there a fix in the works? thank you

by Thatchels

I love that the this app app does so well at explaining each step of the process from sending the kit out to how to use the kit and how each step after they receive the kit will go. It’s very upfront about expectations and lists them in easy and digestible ways! It walks you through each step! 23andMe uses short videos, graphics, and written text to explain just what the 3-4 week wait is for. It demystifies the process and makes me feel safe sending my sample to them. I have used another service previously and it’s send the sample and don’t hear back for a month. For an anxious person like me, I want to know what are you doing?! this app let’s me know each step of the process and makes the wait fun and exciting. You can do little questionnaires or connect with family members. I love that I can easily give or withdraw consent of my data by using 23andMe . It creates feelings of trust and concern for the customer and I appreciate that! I wish I had used this app the first time and not the other service but better late than never!

by NanaJas

Our adult children bought my husband and I these kits for Christmas, and because u procrastinate haha we finally sent them in this week :-) I was shocked to see how quickly they received and are processing our kits! I’m Very impressed with their service so far!

Last night we did the questionnaires and I got so into it I ended up doing all of them - over 1100 questions total haha it was fun and interesting. I’m really looking forward to getting our results by the middle of June, and then I will add the Health part which is very important to me.

I also think it’s definitely a fair price. So far I am extremely satisfied with this company and the whole process. I also love that they have a simple app for my iPhone so I can access it easily. Hope this helps whoever is reading this.

by A Libby52

I actually received my kit as a Christmas gift. I grew up not knowing who my dad was. My mom was up front with me about what happened back in 1964 and she had an idea of who it was but wasn’t positive. Taking this DNA test confirmed who he was. I’ve since been in touch with a cousin this app matched me with and was able to get pics of my grandmother and great grandmother on my dad’s side. It was very exciting! Her dad was my dad’s cousin. Unfortunately, he lost all the pics he had of them in a flood. I looked for my dad and discovered he passed away back in 1994 so that was disappointing. I would have loved to know more about him. My mom passed before I took this test and she would have been so happy to know I found family. If you are reading this review and wondering if you should try it, please do! It’s fun to see where all the people are in the world who share DNA with you! It’s wild to be 52 and finally learn who your dad is!

by Sbelmont73

I never thought this site would actually help me find family, but I’m here to tell you it’s possible! I joined this site about 4 years ago in hopes of finding some of my bio family on my father’s side. I never met him and he never knew I existed. Until October 4, 2018. A possible 2nd cousin reached out to me and it turned out he’s my nephew. He led me to his dad- my 1/2 brother. He then led me to my biological father who is 80 years old now. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster but if you are hoping to find relatives- it’s definitely possible. I talk to my bio dad every week and we’ve exchanged a lot of photos and cards. I have 6 new 1/2 siblings and their families. My brother has been amazing and we are planning a vacation to meet in person this summer. We’ve been making up for lost time with cards, gifts, texts, FaceTime and lots of conversations. I’m very grateful for this site and what it has brought me! I went from being an only child to all this family!! Thank you this app!!

by Klmckay

I recently joined after my daughter did. Being an attorney who believes in the adage “trust but verify”, i did a lot of reading prior to joining & became sufficiently comfortable to want to take part in some research. (one can opt out at any time). This site is fascinating & addicting! (much more so for me than FB used to be). It’s exciting to see names of relatives of mine that I haven’t heard in years & be able to send a safe msg through the site to reacquaint. It is fascinating to see names of people I recall my parents talking about when I was a child & contact their offspring who are my DNA relatives. And people have messaged me looking to explore relatives we have in common. I found I share DNA with well over 1,000 people who have participated in 123&me. and the site shows a map of countries in which those DNA relatives are likely from or live now. At the least, the educational offerings on this site are worth exploring if you are thinking about finding relatives and exploring your heritage & your personality.

by Sickening Truthiness

Such an amazing concept and 23andMe update is incredible! They'll send you a kit, all you do is spit in the tube they provide and mail it off. Super easy. I got my results super fast too. Thanks to this app I discovered I have a half sister and surprisingly we get along great and we text occasionally and we follow each other on social media so I get to see her beautiful family and her adorable little children. Because of all the information my results provided I've also been able to adjust my diet to fit my bodies needs better (bonus: so far I've lost 30 lbs. by doing so).

The downfall: the kits are VERY expensive! But it provides a ton of information so it's basically worth it.

I'm currently saving up to buy my mom the health and ancestry kit. She's been struggling with her health so it could really help her and give me a lot of insight about myself as well. My goal is to get everyone in my immediate family on this app, which might take a couple years since the kits are quite expensive but I know my family will thank me later.

by 333ctp777

23andMe is very easy to navigate and has most of the same features as the desktop website. this app in general has been a very positive experience for me. The research I’ve done matches up nearly perfectly with my results, especially after the update. The one thing they got incorrect in the update was lumping my German percentage into my British & Irish, despite having documented ancestors from there. I liked the relative matches, and they were easy for my older family members to understand. The traits were interesting as well, most of them were accurate for me. This is also the only testing service I could find at a decent price that tests Neanderthal DNA and paternal/maternal haplogroups (these were not too in depth but still fascinating nonetheless). I’m yet to get my health results but I plan on doing so in the near future. I have friends from many different ethnic backgrounds who have taken the test, and all of them are satisfied with their results as well.

by CptDanno

The main service/product that this app delivers to their customers is data, and so how that data is presented is absolutely clutch to the experience and paramount in achieving satisfying results. For the most part this is delivered on the iPhone, but opening that same app at double-pixels on an iPad is disappointing.

Also, the data visualizations could’ve been delivered with a bit more pizzazz. The newer iPhones and especially iPads have processors that can render 3-D graphics and data visualizations. Taking this a step further, 23andMe developer could make the visualizations interactive, especially considering the touchscreen nature of mobile devices.

In summary, the service is cool & interesting and 23andMe manages to display your data to you in a fine enough manner along with unobtrusive tutorials, questionnaires, FAQ, and other helpful things. I reserved the fifth star from this review bc they really should have a native app for the iPad, and the data visualizations should shine a bit more with Apple’s faster processors in the later iOS device generations.

by TittiePics

I gave you three stars because my I did “receive my results” on the exact day you estimated. But I say that in quotes because honestly, I would have preferred to wait; and receive results I could actually read thru.
I'm half in tears over here because it says I may be a carrier for something pretty ducking serious but. But here I am spending what's now been 20MINUTES letting the actual information page load. Pretty much the only page that will load is the one with the vaguest results. Nothing that actually sheds any light on anything works. Just little loading dots while you sit around crying and panicking if you have early onset Alzheimer’s. I just wanna read my results guys. Should be the easiest part of app development. I have more questions now then when I didn’t know anything.

by Jude-d

No accessibility repairs have been made in the research section and t is September 8, 2018; the first part of this review I wrote in August of 2017.

I logged in using voiceover and found out I’m going to need sighted assistance again; that was needed to create my account in the first place. The reason the health survey profile questions do not speak with voiceover and the paragraphs do not speak either. I’ve already read one unuseable review on 23andMe and I didn’t write that one. Accessibility improvements are needed here and some programmer will hae to audit 23andMe with voiceover turned on to find all of the errors. So what do you do with a research question that asks what do you do when it has a yes or no answer attached to it for VoiceOver users? No accessibility improvements apparent with updates since I wrote the original review; this resarch question is by way of a supplement to my original review.

by Smoakey597

The information gained within 23andMe is stellar. 23andMe itself lacks ease of use- messaging and personal information updates in particular.
Had a conversation going with a probable family member going through the Relative page. We confirmed we were family and the message history didn’t transfer to the Family Connection page. Also, there wasn’t a notification of any sort on 23andMe showing new messages.
Updating family information is also a bit clunky. Seems there should be a space for adding to known family history in the profile section or a specific link in the tray. Shouldn’t need to navigate through a few links to adjust that info.

Updates to genetic background seems solid. This rating is based solely on functionality of 23andMe .

by Vulnavia007

My partner and I both goth this app kits about a month ago, to find out about both ancestry and health reports. Everything was super interesting and I’m glad I did it, however, for some reason his app shows a “Connections” option that can access your DNA relatives via 23andMe but my app does NOT. When I emailed the customer service they informed there was no way currently to access DNA relatives via 23andMe , even though I stated in my email my partner had that capability. Also, I just updated 23andMe and it says that with the current update you get the “Connections” option, but alas, to no avail. I even deleted 23andMe and reinstalled, STILL no “Connections” option...? WTH this app?? I paid the same amount for my kit and my iPhone is the same generation as my partner’s IPhone, IOS is fully updated and yet he has access to more features?!

by Rdhenze

How difficult would it be to add a legend for the colored dots next to DNA relative matches? I can’t find where you state for what they stand.

Also, it would be good if 23&me were to add a section about the focus of the actual genetics research underway: we want to know what you know as you are learning more.

I’ve answered a lot of Research Questions, which appear to be piped in by entities seeking to capitalize on findings drawing on our DNA and answers — not just 23&me. So, I’d like to know — succinctly and clearly — just what are 23&me’s data access and release policies? And disclosure about data belonging to your test subjects to insurance companies (or any financial leveraging of that data for remuneration from those who seek it for insurance or pharmaceutical or other business interests? Not buried in a 6-pt font, 20 page document that refers us all over your websites.

by El Tigress

Besides, enjoying your DNA and you, 23 & me allows you to locate what part of the world your from. For example, we assumed we came from Black forest, Germany, but it was one of only two exit boat departure points from Germany.
In fact, where my family originated was to be found as part of nearby location, as the family were part of that original Pennsylvania settlement. Interesting! I need to go back now to Germany and visit. In the meantime, I’ve collected enough information to make sure I visit London and other locations in our upcoming trip. On a side note or fun fact, I always put my clotted butter on my scone first followed by jam as my paternal grandmother did. Well, as a little tidbit, that is how they did it in Devon.