A report from a DNA test will give you a clearer picture of who you are, by pinpointing your ethnic and geographical origins, sometimes right down to the county level. In the past decade, technology has advanced so much that there are numerous affordable and accurate ancestry DNA tests available.
Our favorite ancestry DNA test is Ancestry as it offers great value-for-money with an ethnicity estimate, information on your recent ancestry, insights into the migration of your ancestors, and DNA matches. DNA science is continually evolvingnew research is always being conducted, and methodologies and technologies are constantly improving.
Accordingly, companies are steadily getting better at estimating, among other things:. Plus companies — like FamilyTreeDNA — are getting increasingly better at pinpointing the migrations of your ancestors over generations. Importantly, the reference populations of ancestry DNA testing companies are growing and changing all the time.
That means that a test taken three years ago would probably give different results today, as more individuals have added their personal information. Thankfully, our top ancestry DNA testing companies will update your ethnicity estimate as things evolve.
The most common ancestry DNA test analyzes autosomes, which are the chromosomes that you inherit from both of your parents. This makes it ideal for discovering your heritage and ancestors going back as far as ten generations ago. This type of DNA analysis is usually very accurate and our top autosomal tests are from Ancestry ancestry se sök, and Vitagene.
Analyzing mtDNA will reveal the migration patterns and ancestry of your maternal line. This can be especially fulfilling for individuals who were adopted. Ancestry DNA test results give you a vivid insight into your genetic heritage — from recent to ancient ancestry.
It does this by comparing short sections of your DNA to those of a reference population of known ancestry. By taking a close look at the genetic markers that are stongly linked to a particular ethnicity, ancestry DNA tests can give you percentage breakdown of you ethnicity estimate.
You should find your ancestry DNA results easy to understand. Companies try to make everything as user-friendly as possible. Going through so much data can be overwhelming, but companies take steps to make it manageable. Countries are man-made constructs with no real, scientific relation to your genetics.
Biogeographical regions, on the other hand, correlate with the locations of your genetic ancestor s over generations. Ancestryfor example, looks at 42 different ethnic regions and over 2, genetic groups. Your DNA contains certain genetic markers, which are the result of particular ethnic groups breeding within the same region over time.
Groups that have mingled in the same region have genetic similarities. These regions typically overlap and happen naturally, unlike countries.