DNA Company Reviews

Note: the following reviews that I am about to give are provided solely based on my own experience. I have not been paid by any company nor been renumerated by anyone for giving my opinions on these tests. Please realize that everyone may have a different experience and different results than those posted here. I can in no way vouch for everyones experience; however, I will tell of my own experience and give my own opinions on these services. This information should be taken at face value and one must realize that these are only my personal opinions.

My first experience with any DNA company was in 2008. Like many folks out there who are avid genealogists; I had some stories passed down through generations of the possibility of Native American lineage. That reason alone was enough to prompt me to order my first test. I bought the Mitochondrial DNA test from Ancestry. I anxiously awaited my results. After a few weeks wait I was happy to get the email that my results were in. That is when the disappointment sat in. I was basically given a set of four letters with some corresponding numbers and at that time I had no idea what that meant. I was assigned a mitochondrial haplogroup. I found the information there to be minimal at best. I had several matches show up but nothing was explained to me as to what that meant. I was basically left to guess on my own. I made contact with a couple ladies on there who shared my same haplogroup. We could never narrow down a most recent common ancestor. To sum it up I was not very pleased with the results I got from this test. I feel like at this point I do not know anymore than I already did before I submitted. I knew that my mothers people were German and so I was not surprised when I was told my mothers family was of Northern European Descent.  On a scale of 1 to 10 stars, with 10 being outstanding, I would honestly give that test a 1 star grade. Note that this was strictly the X Chromosome test that I had done and not the Autosomal DNA that Ancestry now offers.

The second company I have experience with was the Y DNA testing through Family Tree DNA. I had my husbands DNA tested using their service. For the most part we are both pleased with the service we have gotten from them. My husband happened to have had a Non Paternal event in which neither of us were prepared for or even aware of. Had we not gotten this test we never would have discovered the other half of his family we did not know existed. It helped us to find his biological family. Out of 10 stars, I give this service an 8 overall.

Finally, the last one I want to talk about is 23andMe and their newest Autosomal DNA test. I was so excited when I found out they offered this sort of test. My brother has always been reluctant to get his DNA tested so that had pretty much bashed my hopes of finding out anything about my fathers side of the family. Once I realized I could have a shot at that with this test, I jumped on it! The myriad of health results they offer was an added bonus as lots of autoimmune condition's are prevalent in our family. I have not gotten my results back yet from 23andme so I cannot give a complete review of their services at this time, but no longer than I have been using them I am very pleased. Now for the downside to their testing. The recently lowered their price and since then the response has been overwhelming and they are back logged to say the least. I have had other customers tell me that what used to take 2-3 weeks, now takes upwards of 7-8 weeks.  Their website states that they process samples in batches of 96 on a first come first serve basis. So far my timeline has been like this:

• Sent Sample to Lab on March 7th, 2013 via US Mail.
• Sample Arrived at Lab on March 15th, 2013-Step 2 Prepping
• March 30th status changed to In the Que
• April 18th- Step 4-Analyzing DNA on a Microarray they have stated this step could take anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks;however, I did an average using other folks data and it has been averaging about 9 days from the start to when the first results begin to come back

I will update as soon as my results are in with the rest of my thoughts on 23andMe.  While they are astronomically slow at this point in time, I still think one gets a great value for such a little cost and its worth it to me.  Apparently from what I have read on the message boards it seems they only have one lab at this time trying to work through the samples so that could explain the delays we have been getting thus far. My grade as it stands right now for this company would be a 7 out of a 10. The reason being is due to the fact that they are moving so slow and has nothing to do with the quality of their service overall. I cannot honestly rate that until my results are in. So stay tuned!