My 23andMe Ancestry Results

A couple of weeks ago I finally received my results from 23andme! Before we delve into the results I just wanted to talk a little about the process after you've sent off your sample and my experience with it.

Waiting For The Results

The samples can take anywhere between 6-8 weeks to come back and as I mentioned in my previous post (Click here to read) my dad did his ancestry DNA too. 
In the space of 8 weeks I had to send two emails to 23andme about the status of my sample. You can track your sample online once it's reached the lab and see all the process's it goes through. My dad received his sample after 3 weeks and at 4 weeks I emailed because we had sent both off together and I was concerned with where mine was. At 5 weeks the tracker said mine had been signed for at the lab but by week 7 there had been no progress so I emailed again. Both times I emailed the response was a generic email about the process and they said shipments from the UK take around 2-4 weeks to reach the lab and will be diverted through the distribution centre in the Netherlands before reaching the US. It will then be a further 2-4 weeks for the lab to process them.
It wasn't until I emailed the second time my results went through the whole process in the space of a few days, then I had an email confirming my results.

My Thoughts

I wouldn't say I was wholly disappointed with the service but I didn't appreciate the generic emails or the fact my tracker updated after the second email I'd sent. I think my sample was probably was being sorted but my tracker wasn't updated. It isn't ideal but I can understand it can happen as they more than likely received a bigger influx due to the Father's Day special. 

The Results

In my last post I said "If I was to give percentages and go with what my family have said I would lay it out that I was around 80% British and Irish, around 10% Broadly North Western European and then the last 10% would be Eastern and/or Southern European." 

As you can see I was way off the mark! 

One thing to note, when I originally opened my results they were different to this. I had a higher percentage in the broadly sections and I did have Iberian DNA in my results. After I was able to link my dad's results to mine and after a study by 23andme which was able to add new information to the database it updated my results to be more accurate. Once my mum does her 23andme my results will more than likely change again. If you want to know anymore about how phasing and inheritance affects your results click here.

I am so happy I was able to get specific lines of ancestry out of my results. Some people get larger percentages under the broadly sections and I did the 23andme DNA kit in the hopes it will help my ancestry journey. The amazing thing 23andme provides is a timeline of when each DNA line came into your history for example as you can see below I had a Great Grandparent, Second-Great Grandparent or Third-Great Grandparent that 100% French & German. It tells you in a little box when you hover over each line and also gives you an indication of when they were born. So my ancestor who had 100% French & German DNA was born between 1840 and 1900. 

It's information like this that is helping me with my ancestry journey.

Other results from the kit also determine which maternal and paternal haplogroup you belong to, your neanderthal variants and most importantly to me you can opt into DNA Relatives.
I haven't screenshot the opening page in order to keep other's privacy but you can see the profiles of those who have also opted in and how they are related to you. For example I can see my dad's profile and he is obviously listed as being my father, I can see distant cousins profiles and they list which side of the family they are and how much of a distant cousin they are. When you click the profile you can see a timeline of the relatives you share. Here is a screenshot of a third cousin I have and it shows we share the same 2nd Great Grandparents. 

You can also message these family members which leads to more knowledge of your family history and ancestry. 

Overall I would say this is an amazing service if you are; tracing your ancestry, curious about where you come from or in cases where you have been adopted and may not know your biological family. I'd recommend everyone do this and although there were issues with generic emails from the company they regularly update and add new studies to your results which speaks to me as accuracy being a priority to them.

Are you curious about your ancestry? Would you try 23andme? 

As always, thank for reading...