AncestryDNA: Genetic Testing Reviews

by Only Good To Earn Points.

My spouse and I both are waiting for the results of our DNA test. We have been receiving notifications through email on the progress of our results however according to AncestryDNA they haven’t even received our kits back at this time. When attempting to contact them the computer tries to guess the issue based off key words and then gives you links that it thinks may be helpful. You are given the option to escalate your questions which may possibly get you to a real person. The first time I did not and was told someone would email me. No surprise, I didn’t receive the email. I contacted them again and went through the whole process again of the computer’s wrong guess work. The second time I actually reached Barbara who didn’t pay attention to the actual issue. When I finally got her to understand that there was a problem with AncestryDNA her resolution was for me to delete AncestryDNA and wait for it to reinstall. Well, I have no problem in deleting AncestryDNA but once deleted I will not reinstall it.

by Misccrl

I ordered the kit three weeks ago, and when I try to track the package the only information on the site said that it was shipped two days after I ordered it, and put it on a truck the next day. Then for the next week and a half, there was nothing, except that the delivery day was supposed to be over a week ago. UPS has no further information about it, and USPS also never received it. I called Ancestry on the phone and all they did was tell me to keep waiting for a few more weeks. I asked if I could cancel it, and they said if I cancel it, there is a $15 restocking fee. A restocking fee for a kit that I never received! Unbelievable! What a bunch of crap. These guys apparently don’t know the meaning of the customer service. I would recommend NEVER ordering anything from them, and going with 23andMe whose customer service is light years ahead.

by Cdhjdyj

I received my DNA results today and I feel all Ancestry wants to go is sell me something and get me signed up since I’ve been reviewing my matches, I find it the worst DNA site to navigate of find any useful information. All it does is try to make me sign up so I can find how I’m related. I find it extremely annoying that I’ve paid to share my dna with Ancestry who will charge to share my info with others and give extremely limited information on my DNA matches. I’m not referring to info the person is not willing to share. For eg, if comparing me with a relative it will say what a common person on both of our charts are to me, eg 1st cousin but will not reveal the relationship to the other person & when I try to search deeper it tries to get me to sign up. My heritage does share this information. Definitely the worst site and will not be recommending to anyone.

by MarakG

I was excited to purchase AncestryDNA to learn more from my Ancestry DNA results. Ironically, none of the responses I gave matched what my DNA should have shown. Each item has a disclaimer stating that the genes can be different than what the science shows they should be. Really? And the purpose of AncestryDNA is what exactly? Each item you answer the question they ask, eye color, hair color, does asparagus make your pee stink, do you have a cleft chin, etc. For every one (no exception) of my responses, and I know myself pretty well, the answer was that my response does not match the science. Example: I have brown hair but I should have dark hair. I have green eyes but I should have blue eyes, etc. Each item was a non-match! How’s that possible? Didn’t learn anything new about myself that I didn’t know before buying AncestryDNA. Waste of $9.99 for me. I hope your experience is better than mine.

by Jake Charles Russell

I purchased a DNA kit for myself at Christmas 2019 and had the results within about 5 weeks. I was amazed at the results. I purchased kits for my stepdaughter, wife and mother in law. The kits were all sent off around May 10, 2020 and my step daughter got her results within a month. It’s been close to 2 months and the DNA progress isn’t really moving. If 3 were sent in the same day don’t expect to get results anytime soon on some. I purchased another kit for my mom and it has been “processing” since May 27 and today is June 18. I watched the videos and once the kit is “processed” machines and computers pretty much do the rest. Not sure why the business is running so far behind but I would like to know. I was thinking about 4 stars at first but...I also found out that if you are a Mormon you get free access to the site, everyone else has to pay. Ancestory, DNA, and findagrave are all ran by the same company and they cater to LDS.

by Nicki0913

I was very interested to see my results, and each result I get is different from the other. Also some ethnicities are just merged with others and not specific. I’ve also noticed, since I have traceable roots to Natives, and my family truly looks like we have to native roots that we do not test for having any native. I look at the map they’ve tested, and there is no way it would show up anyway, because they didn’t test most of North America or Canada! They write this off as it skips generation, or you just didn’t inherit any. How’s that when you only tested Texas/California surrounding areas, but my ancestors are from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland region! They do not all have the same DNA factors, and they do not all look a like! This test gets complete fail if you have Native Ancestry!

by VeryManlyManDude

I’ve always been interested in my family history and this app is probably the most accurate app to use to find that out. My only concern is that me and my brother both got a kit, but for me it said I was 17% Scandinavia but my brother had none. It used to say I was European Jewish, then it was removed but my brother still had it. But it does say me and my brother are both Eastern European, me 8% and my brother 16%, so that’s pretty accurate. There was a few differences on the low confidence regions, but that’s ok cause after all, they are low confidence. I defiantly recommend to buy a kit though because they will continuously update it to make it accurate. Maybe it’s just that I am more Scandinavian than him and he has little Scandinavian in his blood because I seem to have more on our dads side and he seems to have more on our moms because he had a lot of Western European (on my moms side my grandmas from Germany) and I have more Italian than him (my dads mom is from Sicily). So yeah, all in all pretty accurate. Great app!

by Dj Chel

I did this finally after wanting to for years. It was interesting at my results, but I don’t know how to read them honestly, but am also not particularly happy because I know I’m Cherokee Native American and it doesn’t tell me percentage or anything and that’s the only reason I did this DNA. My mother and I have recently discovered we were, but we were not sure how much we were because her grandmother; my great-grandmother is full blooded but she died before me and I am still stuck and struggling with how to read these results. It was however easy to do the test, but I am not sure if it was money well spent or not lol. But I’ll give props on the fast it was delivered etc and the regions that my sample was or is whatever lol but I need more in depth explains please.

by Candi Girl 57

Thank you ancestry DNA I was given up for adoption by my birth mother who I met at age 21.I was given a name and a college that my said to be biological father attended and that was all the information that I had .I waited over 50 years to build The courage to find out about my biological father and his Family.. thanks to ancestry DNA I saw many matches of relatives including a first and second cousins we shared communications and confirmed that we were family and that was indeed my father. I was completely amazed and in tears to see so many family members over 500 or so for someone that never knew her biological father‘s family I am so thankful to God and ancestry DNA for making this miracle happen. I must say my father passed two years ago but I now share the love of all my aunts and uncles and so many cousins. I have beautiful pictures of the Reunion I would love to share with ancestry.
Thank you ancestry DNA for making this miracle possible Sandra Stanfield

by Miriam Tierno

I know that my great parents down the line are from Spain. I don’t have any evidence of Italy, France, Portugal and especially Africa/Bantu. I can see Morocco, because there was much influence in Spain, but Bantu is ridiculous!
When I first received my DNA, it said I was 2% European/Jewish, which I can also see, because of the influence of Jews in Spain and my first and last names are Jewish. Now, that was removed! I believe that DNA’s are being mixed up and they are not accurate! The updates are not an accurate improvement! I am very disappointed and so are some of my friends. They claim they have proof from their family line, that they are Jewish, yet it was removed from their DNA.

by Melliebelle

I’m enjoying AncestryDNA. Connecting with a few distant relatives. I would LOVE to have a way to look at the profile of the person messaging me however. I’ve gotten some messages from people but cannot find them on my match list and no option to go to their profile. It tells me the relation at the top below their name, but my only option is to block them. Can we get a view profile option or am I just missing it? Otherwise like it

Edit to add….I found the search feature so I can find the profiles of those who have sent me messages. So I changed my rating to 5 😀

by Happy & Sappy

Recently I have had the fortune to have two members of Ancestry reach out to me. They were aware of DNA that had a high probability that would lead me on a path of discovery. Discovery, well that’s an understatement. It turns out that we are close relatives one being a first cousin & the other a niece. You see I’ve been an Ancestry member with the goal of identifying my biological father for several years & I hit a gold mine. Not only did I find out who my father was but also discovered a group of people that are my family.
With a few text messages & face time I realized that I was accepted with open arms & hearts . I’m a fan of the Ancestry TV show & I have enjoyed seeing people find their ancestors & the eye opening revelations and heart felt reactions . I was always hopeful that one day that it would be my turn them bang it happened. Thanks to this wonderful program it has great value, priceless.

by Blatay

AncestryDNA is pretty good, with one major annoyance. I don’t like notifications from apps because many apps use them to get you to open AncestryDNA for no reason. Apple includes how often apps are opened to rank popularity.

I generally deny apps permission to give notifications. I gave this one permission since I get very occasional messages from relatives. About every other week AncestryDNA shows a badge, implying there is something new, but when I open AncestryDNA , there is nothing. Super annoying. I hate being tricked.

I went to their support chat to discuss my concern. It said I was #2 in line. 15 minutes later, I was still #2. So I came here.

by Aunt Beauty

I am turning 80 in July. I remember so many wonderful relativesI I had the privilege meeting and knowing. It saddens me my children and grandchildren will not have the experiences I remember as a child. So I have tried to document as much as possible. As each young person is marrying or having children, each new group of relatives is a new experience of researching and blending the new families. The new Cousins, Aunties, and Uncles not forgetting wonderful new Grandparents.
I have much appreciation for the information and the joy of being introduced to hard working ancestors who have contributed to our traits and characteristics we are still honing today.

by Windrider991

When my wife Kristal and I had our DNA checked out with this app, I had no idea at all, zero, none at all that I had any Irish in my DNA profile, and not only do I, it’s the Majority single contributor to it!!! This knowledge spurred me on to find my Irish relatives, again whom I never was told anything about, at any time, and behold I found her!!! My Great Grandmother Mary Carr was from Ireland, and she had emigrated to Canada with John Maves, a German. Their daughter, Kathryn Maves is my Grandmother on my mom’s side of the family! This years was the first year that I was able to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, knowing that I am actually Irish too!!! O the joy of it all!!! Not only am I Irish, I also have English, Scottish, and Welsh too!!! Absolutely Thrilling!!! Thank you this app!!!

by Lord Anth0ny

I just want to tell you thank you, I took this test about a year ago to see we’re my ancestors came from and I found out so much more just yesterday I found out who my dads fathers family is he never new what his father looked like or anything about his fathers family in tell yesterday only new his name I texted my second cousin who had the same last name she told me to text her other cousin that told me everything about his family and are stories matched up and now my dads got siblings that want to meet with him he’s spent 37 years not knowing if he would ever see what his father or family looked like and this app made that possible thank you!!!!

by ElusiveSAMO

Had a great interest in using ancestry ever since I was a child once I learned half my family was wiped out in the holocaust, which left many gaps in my lineage and family tree knowledge. However, I went into this fully prepared that there probably wouldn’t be any records remaining due to the nazis trying to cover up the atrocities. And I was right in that aspect. It’s not ancestry’s fault for that at all, even if I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t find any leads. I did find a ton of information and interesting records dating back to the 1690’s on my fathers side though as well as the estimated percentages of my ethnic backgrounds. It’s a truly fascinating process and if you’re at all into family history or genealogy this is a must have service.

by Are You Guys Serious?

People! Even if you have ancestors with a certain ethnic make-up it DOES NOT necessarily mean that you will inherit those specific genes!!!! If your Mom is fifty percent German and fifty percent Irish and your Father is fifty percent Swedish and fifty percent Middle Eastern it does not necessarily mean that you will be twenty five percent German, twenty five percent Irish, twenty five percent Swedish, and twenty five percent Middle Eastern! You could receive results that you are fifty percent German, thirty five percent Swedish, and fifteen percent Middle Eastern. This test measures YOUR genetics, not your Great Aunt Ednas’. And yes if you take the test more than once you may happen to get a variation of like, one percent, but duh! Not every cells DNA in your entire mouth is going to be the perfectly exact same, that’s just not how science works! There’s always an exception people!

by BrianAncestryDNA

Getting my ancestry results back was so exciting and it was my first time taking an ancestry DNA test. The reason I decided to do this because I wanted to find out where my ancestors came from and find out my characteristics. The results came back and a huge portion of my DNA comes from Western, Northern, and even some parts of Eastern Africa which I thought was cool! But the surprising results was that I’m 1% Native American and 7% Scottish which was a huge surprise for me. I had no idea! Ancestry DNA does an amazing job showing the regions on the map as of where your ancestors may have came from, and what I like as well is that it shows who you are related to. It shows who you have a common DNA with and I have so many family members all over the U.S. this app is amazing and I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone! Five Star Baby!

by RōbloxPro12

I am super happy with the wait time on this! I have not gotten my results yet, but only has taken about two weeks for the final product! It took four days to be shipped from my house to their lab. It went from their lab to sample being processed in two days. From the DNA being processed, it took to days to go to the next stage, DNA extracted. Four days later it went from the DNA extracted, to the DNA analyzed stage! It took I think five or six days to finish DNA analyzing stage. Now all I have to do is wait a couple of days and my results will be ready! Thanks Ancestry! (By the way, I bought this on the $60 sale, I expected the wait time to be WAY longer since it said the processing would take about 6-8 weeks, and since there was a sale going on, I thought it would take even longer, since there was a sale and the demand was probably high, it only took about two weeks! WAY LESS THAN WHAT THE WAIT WAS!!!! THANKS AGAIN!!!

by DebbsDebbington

This test… doesn’t work. I had some really high hopes about finding out a lot more details about the places my genes come from, but I also decided to do the genetic traits add on test to see how accurate it was on measurable appearance based traits. Almost none of them were correct, even those that are easily identifiable and pretty well established in other genetic tests (i.e. hair or eye color, earlobe shape, cilantro aversion.) In addition, the ethnic origins directly contradict the majority of well documented history in my family genealogy in ways that are quite literally impossible. Lastly, I was still excited to see some of the detailed regional breakdowns, but I just got some wide regional guesses and generic Wikipedia information about a few countries. I would go ahead and splurge on a more reputable test like 23 and Me instead of going for this.

by Curmudgeon999

Most of the basic functionality is there and works well. However there are some frustrating gaps when compared to the browser based version.

First is the issue of persistent hint leaves in the tree view long after all hints for a person have been addressed (ie no “new” hints remain). These are understandable for minutes due to the need for data to synchronize, but they persist for hours and days after all hints are addressed. This makes for confusion and wasted effort rechecking indicated hints only to find there are none.

Second is reduced functionality in AncestryDNA vs the browser when viewing documents. Where it is possible to page through a document in the browser it is only possible to view a single page in AncestryDNA . So for example if the user wants to see the page before or after the launched page when viewing a census document then the browser is the only option. This cannot be done in AncestryDNA .

Third is the search function. This is severely restricted in AncestryDNA . The browser version has far, far greater functionality.

by BeeTerese

I personally don’t see a need for AncestryDNA. The dna portion of the main app is easy enough to navigate. When I opened the matches in AncestryDNA, it took me to my phone’s browser, which meant that I had to sign into my account again... Might as well have stayed on the main app. I liked the convenience of seeing matches on the main app and being able to look at the details, the option to browse their tree (if public), send them a message, etc.

Hopefully you guys don’t do away with the main app that allows you to do research and tree work or the dna portion of that app for the convenience of users who have trees and dna tests. I hope to see that you just direct the dna app toward people who only did the test and improve AncestryDNA ’s functionality. :)

by Robnation101

It was exciting to trace my roots back to before my family came to the US. However I don’t want to be hounded by constant requests to pay for more services. I haven’t seen anything that is worth paying more money for yet. Also I feel like the website and app could use some improvements. It’s not as user friendly as I would like it to be. I’m sure that you guys could benefit from sending out a survey about improvements your customers would like to see and brainstorming ways to make your site/app more enticing. I do like the services that you offer with the basic package and dna test. I am giving 3* because I believe there are some definite opportunities for improvement.

by Silverk

I prefer the way the matches showed before. It was clear and showed the cm’s without having to click on the person.

Also, my ethnicity showed one thing on my site and something totally different on my mother’s matches prior to the update. Currently the match on my mom’s site shows as my prior estimate. I called to find out which one was correct at the time but you cannot get ahold of anyone who can do more than look at the site questions to answer you leading to frustration and the feeling that I cannot necessarily trust Ancestry’s estimates. It would be nice to be able to have someone that can forward the question to a person that can answer dna questions.

by Rockett2

I was excited to do this, and the results essentially mirror what I expected. Unfortunately, there are three overlapping maps and no explanation or percentage estimates for how my DNA matches to the different maps. It would be nice to know if my ancestry was 100% from the bigger map, 80% from the smaller map, etc. Sounds like others have received that kind of info. but I did not. Also, buyers should be aware that when you buy the kit and nothing else, all you get is basically a map or set of maps, and some basic Wikipedia- type info. that is generic to that particular region, which is fine, but I guess I was expecting something more.

by Anna May AMJ

I never thought this could/would happen: Almost three decades ago when I learned my biological mother’s name and subsequently met over 60 of her relatives, one of them told me what she knew of my biological father which was he had sons. As my busy life moved along raising my children, career, and so on, I figured it was unlikely if I did have brothers that I would ever know them. He was in his late 30’s when I was born and given up for adoption. Well via Ancestry I matched as “close family” with one of them. Now we are in contact and time will tell how what our future holds. Thank you Ancestry for all your dedication to these important matters.
Sincerely,
Anna May

by MikeTheSonicFan

AncestryDNA rocks and is easier to use then the regular ancestry app for dna but some people’s results are a little different then just using the regular ancestry app or the website on my computer. For example my dad(who shall remain anonymous) is said to be 81% Europe South on my regular ancestry app but on the this app app it says he’s 82% this has happened to some other people I’ve seen to. I understand that some results will change in the future but I would like u to make some improvements on this just so that the results are the same on all ancestry products and apps.

Thanks!😀

by Paperbackwriter78155

Five years ago I did my father's line. not Ally enjoyed it but did not make a copy. Now, I am working on getting my ancestors Temple work done & I discover I have many relatives going very far back in time, with their work done! Next, I get Ancestry DNA and get a surprise! I am not exactly who I thought I was, so now I am trying to do my Swedish Grandfather's genealogy and make contact ultimately with his families clan.

All the tools are here to do that. This is very exciting and rewarding work. All my children have their DNA done now so we are marching forward discovering those roots from which we sprung.

by Staceytoy

They went on to meet their real grandparents, parents and cousins. Because of state laws that previously left them at a dead end with no hope in site, these have been able to break that barrier. They no longer ask “who I am” or wonder about medical history.
I also purchased tests for various members of my family on both sides to test accuracy—they showed up EXACTLY as the relation they are! I’ve since helped others to purchase about 15-20 dna tests since then! bravo ancestry!