23andMe Health + Ancestry Service: Personal Genetic DNA Test Including Health Predispositions, Carrier Status, Wellness, and Trait Reports (Before You Buy See Important Test Info Below)

Oct 2019 update revises promethease recommendation; oct 2018 update adds alzheimer comments.

I had dna analysis from 23andme. My wife had dna analysis from both ancestry(anc) and 23andme. This review is my comparison of the two. I now do not recommend secondary analysis of your results by promethease, see further discussion at end of this review. Basically i like 23andme. For developing an ancestry tree, ancestry.com is much better if you signup separately for ancestry’s subscription search service. Do not use anc & promethease for alzheimer’s – see discussion at end of this review.

Taking test and signup – very similar test taking. 23’s signup was more secure. Anc’s was easier, but they automatically put my wife’s test on my previously existing ancestry account.

Waiting on results – both send emails confirming sample receipt and when results were available. After logon, 23 provided step by step progress reports on the analysis process. The analysis process itself took about 10 days, including a holiday weekend. Total wait time was 3-4 weeks. Anc took 5 or so days longer than 23.

Web site security – 23 is better. 23 requires a typical logon and password to get to the site. Anc automatically remembers your logon and password and just opens up when you go to the site. However, actually downloading your dna file from anc requires a full sign-on and confirmation link via your e-mail..

Ethnic origin analysis – i think 23 is more correct. Both 23 and anc keep updating their ethnic origin results. Note the results are only approximate considering the accuracy ranges provided.

Dna relative identification – recognizing that allocation of relatives to 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins is somewhat imprecise. For my wife, 23 identified 4 second cousins and about 32 third cousins. Anc identified 1 first cousin, 2 second cousins and 9 third cousins. 23 also has ‘cousins’ outside the usa (in my case in the uk) which are really valuable contacts for ancestry searching. The web site does not directly identify a cousin’s location but you can easily guess this from supplementary info optionally provided by the cousin on 23’s site.

Dna relative contact and analysis – anc provides the e-mail for a contact and shared ancestors for each dna relative. You get a lot more when you pay for their regular ancestry services, see below. 23 provides an internal messaging application for communicating with contacts. The application works but is rudimentary and unsuitable for more than brief messages (especially with ms edge); exchanging e-mail address’s after contact is more satisfying. Both have a couple levels of ‘sharing’ (aka privacy). Both have tools for grouping contacts.

Anc provides a powerful tree searching tool if you subscribe to the regular ancestry service. This is expensive, in the range of $200/year, but less with special offers. Given the moderate ‘tools’ in their basic dna service, i view their dna analysis as an (effective) teaser for their subscription service. Update: i did signup for the ancestry services and they are great. Specifically, with a subscription their dna site shows a contacts pedigree chart if that contact already has built an anc family tree. This is massively better than 23’s unsorted list of surnames. When you search for a particular name it searches all of the connected family trees – this is exceptionally useful.

Medical info – anc provides no medical info. In late 2016 23 had two test options – $100 for just the ancestry service and $200 for ancestry plus medical. As of sept 2018, 23 provides fda approved reports on your risk of 9 medical conditions, including alzheimer’s, plus several genetic carrier reports. Their discussion/explanation of your risks for these conditions is specifically approved by the fda and is understandable, informative, and useful. [update anc now advertises health results – i have not tried this]

if you are so inclined, you can participate (answer a lot of online questions) in 23’s medical research. This is probably 20 ten minute questions sessions. I did this and feel like it was useful for medical research.

Analysis of you dna results by promethease, a third party service, provides some medical info.

[october 2019 update] in late 2019 promethease was bought by myheritage, an israeli company. They have advised that they will use the dna profiles downloaded to them for dna ancestry searches, including searches by police departments. I personally am uncomfortable with this. Further in early 2019 promethease stopped providing reports for a number of snp’s potentially related to drug usage, apparently due to pressure from the fda. These are among the most useful (actionable) results. For these reasons i think promethease is now of substantially less value. Perhaps myheritage will reinstate the deleted snp’s, but i doubt it. Use promethease with caution. Note that i have not updated the remainder of the prom discussion to reflect the above comments.

Connection to promethease – promethease (prom) is a third party service that assess’s your detailed dna results from either 23 or anc and provides a detailed medical risk report. Go to the prom site to get started. The download process is not too difficult. In oct 2018 cost is $12 per report.

Promethease results –prom generates 20,000 or so reports (hits) from the 700,000 or so genes that are tested by 23 and anc. 23 and anc test a different set of genes, although they mostly overlap. For my wife’s test from both 23 and anc the corresponding prom reports were about 85% the same for the 40 most significant hits (prom magnitude 2.5 and above). There were 5 or 6 unique hits in the top 40 for each report. I judge that the unique hits were about equally important, between 23 and anc – none were critical.

[nov 2017 update] in october 2017 i resubmitted by 2016 23 test to prom. About 15% of the hits were changed. A couple unusual hits were deleted. A very significant change was that one gene comment changed from ‘increased risk of type 1 diabetes’ to ’18x risk of type 1 diabetes’!!! I read up on this. It turns out that the genetic – diabetes risk/connection is currently a very hot and complex research topic. The relevant research report was published in 2017. My suggestion is to update your prom report every year or two if there are concerns.

Using promethease – important – use of general dna analysis to identify general medical conditions is an emerging (not well developed) technology/business. My guess is that the info provided by prom is perhaps 30% or so of what will be available in 10 years or so. I regard the info provide as indicative, definitely not complete and possibly incorrect (due to either testing error or interpretation error).

Having said that, it is interesting, likely useful and potentially lifesaving. The information will be disturbing (negative), but in most cases not surprising. I think most people will be able to absorb the info without getting too stressed out. If you are a hypochondriac, this could be a problem. If you want a chance of good news, you can write down the stuff your are concerned about ahead of time, and then see if they actually shows up.

My comments for using the report are:
• make sure you download a copy to your pc for future reference, don’t just look at it online.
• after you figure out how to use the report, move the ‘0’ magnitude slider up to a range of 2.5 or so. This will limit you to the top 40 or so hits. Then go down to the bottom of the report and hit the ‘2x’ bar a few times to see all the hits.
• you can then hit the ‘table’ button at the top and print a summary of the hits to help see the big picture. You can also open this table in excel and modify/save it for a more useful table. If you do this, add a frequency column if it’s not already there.
• to me, after magnitude, the most important factor is ‘frequency’. This is what percentage of the target population has this condition. If its around 40% or higher, i think it’s already ‘dialed in’ to the normal medical process – it is something your doctor and the medical community will look for in any case. Most of the hits fall into this category. If it’s less than 10%, it’s likely not on your doctors radar screen and you will want to consider if it’s worth mentioning to your doctor.
• the second most useful item is the relative increased risk in the item discussion. Recognize that the absolute risk is not provided – for example, the absolute risk might be 1 person in 100,000, so a 1.1 relative risk increase is almost meaningless. On the other hand i looked up amd (age related macular degeneration-eye problems) on the internet; it affects 1 in 3 to 5 people by age 80, so 2x risk is really significant. Good to know this ahead of time.
• after you assess the top 40, which takes a while, you can expand the magnitude to it’s full range. Then click on ‘topics’ and click on sub topics of interest and see if any common concerns emerge. Do the same for ‘medical conditions’. This seems like a lot of work but only takes an hour or 2 once you get started. For me the common themes seem to be heart disease, alzheimer’s and rheumatoid arthritis – none of which are a surprise.
– when you find something that might be relevant you need to do supplemental research on the internet. The prom report is a brief and simple identification. Fuller understanding can significantly change (reduce?) your concern for the issue. Be aware that there are ‘hypochondriac’ web sites for some of these issues. I like to start with wiki, mayo clinic and webmd. Search for the prom gene name ‘rs……..’. Then find out what the common term(s) for the gene is e.g. Mtfhr and search for that. Write stuff down, gene names can be confusing.
• again, remember this is an emerging technology, so the results will change from year to year. I guess that in 10 years it will be a routine consideration in a physical.

Important. Do not use prom results from anc for alzheimer’s. Anc almost always reports zero copies of the alz apoe4 gene. Prom notes this in their report, but it’s carries a low magnitude and is easy to miss. In sept 2018 i did an anc test and it returned (via prom), zero copies of the alz gene. The anc and prom medical results were otherwise similar but slightly less extensive than 23 and prom.

I bought this with prime and it took exactly 2 weeks from the moment i clicked ‘buy’ until my reports were published. I may be one of the lucky ones but i think it is because i bought the kit april 20 2018 – so it wasn’t during any holiday rush periods. From reviews, i would hesitate buying this around christmas time if you aren’t patient – they seem to get slammed and delays seem normal.
This and ancestry.com seems to be the top 2 kits in most comparison reviews. Ancestry for heritage related results due to larger database & this for health related results. I chose this one because of the health related results and because ancestry requires extra costs to integrate dna results into their extensive database. Ancestry does not offer health related results to my knowledge but i think you can export the data into 3rd party tools to get those results.
One note of warning – there are kits on ebay that are a bit cheaper but most of those do not include the lab work – and i’ve not seen any that were cheaper than buying the kit with lab on amazon. Read the fine print if you look on ebay.
2nd note of warning – i wouldn’t do this at all if you are concerned about your dna being hacked and shared. There are reports on internet that fbi is searching these databases for criminals – and if you believe the government is able to secure secrets the way x-files portrays, then maybe it’s safe forever. Personally, i can’t think of any realistic consequence to my dna being shared that outweighs the benefit of knowing my dna. If i get tied up in a lab so they can harvest my stem cells because i’m the beginning of an x-men mutation, i guess i’ll have plenty of time to think about my decision.
The kit itself is very simple. Once you receive the kit (2 days with prime) and before you collect specimen (saliva), you open an account with 23andme and enter the code off the vial in the kit. You will make some decisions about the process at that point – such as if you want your data used for research and if they can keep your dna samples for future use, etc. Once that is done, you will need to clean your mouth very well and not eat/drink for an hour or so before spitting into the vial. I cleaned my mouth very well before going to bed, drank a big glass of water when i woke (so i could spit easily), and waited an hour and filled the vial. Spit until clear saliva is just above the indicated line – the bubbles will all be floating above that line. It doesn’t take much and you don’t want to overfill it by much or you may not have enough stabilizer for the amount of saliva. The vial initially has a funnel on the top that you close the lid and it will release the stabilizer into the vial. Once you have stabilizer in saliva, remove the funnel and replace it with the round cap. Shake it well and put the sealed vial into the included baggie. Box it back into the original box which is addressed and has prepaid postage – ship it off. I had mine back in the mail on the 3rd day after ordering.
I used the iphone app at this point. The app tracks progress of each step. It didn’t show the post office received the package, but in 2 days or so the status jumped to the vial being received and being pre-checked. Each step seemed to complete about 2 – 3 days apart until the reports became available.
Be sure to switch to a computer at some point. It either has more options, or they are easier to find there – especially where contacting others is concerned.
I am no dna expert, but the results are interesting to read over. It found my niece who took the test successfully and correctly identified her in my lineage. She had shared her ancestry results so people could find her. Contacting matches is easy with the messenger in the online tool.
I think the results i’ve seen are pretty accurate – some of the expected traits are off – it seems to do better with hair, eye color and skin tone than things like attached/detached earlobes and which finger is longer. Since some of those are wrong, i’m not sure there is much more value in that than going to an old gypsy woman looking into a glass ball but it’s entertaining to see the predictions.
Recognize you can export the raw data into other tools – prometheus seems to be most popular – to have reports run to interpret the data. 23andme seems to keep things at a level that is more manageable. I only exported to prometheus which is about $5 to $10 usually, but free for this week. If you really get into this stuff, i think it’s worthwhile to see those results, but prometheus gets a little confusing because you can have one result reducing your risk for something by some multiplier and another increasing your risk for it. Do they cancel out? 23andme tends to just tell you increased or decreased risk.
Where i think this is weak – is for determining native american ancestry. If that is your goal, you may want to research dna accuracy for that before spending your money. My research shows that getting matches on that must be fairly close to the ancestors – mine showed none in my lineage. My grandmother always said she was part indian and she looked the part so i tend to believe her. It wasn’t until i found no matches that i started researching why – and it sounds like it is common for that to be missed by most dna ancestry kits.
My overall thoughts – i question the accuracy of some risks indicated – i just don’t think we are really there yet. I personally think one can only say labs see this sort of trend when this strand is found. Prometheus shows relationships for genes and medicines that may not metabolize properly for me. I am capturing that to discuss with my doctor – just in case. The ancestry part does work reliably to find relatives and seems to be fairly accurate to place them where they branch off from your family tree.

The initial results were so vague and generic. I’m hoping they dial in more detail with time. I’ve heard that they do. We have solid family genealogy going to specific locations and really haven’t travelled extensively as a family history. With that said the locations were not specific with the dna results and only broadly covered a massive area of europe for that section of my results. Considering those branches of my family left in the 1640s to new amsterdam and other large branches to mass bay, you would think it would be more specific.

Hundreds of years in one location for each branch as they didn’t really move around in the 1300s like we do these days should result in more specificity

The estimated time of completion (once received and the sample passed screening) was 6-8 weeks. I ordered this product november 24th, received it on the 26th, sent it out on the 27th, it made it to the facility late on the 30th and the reports were complete on the 8th of december! That’s fourteen days from clicking the purchase button to receiving the results or one day over a week from passing inspection!
I purchased this as a christmas gift for myself during a black friday deal ($100 versus the usual $200 or $150 during black friday on the website). I’ve always wanted to find out some of my genetic information and possibly use it to create a family tree. I felt like this was a really great deal and therefore the perfect time to try this out.
When it arrived it looked very much like the kit pictured (will upload pictures at a later point). The instructions were easy to follow. I was worried about the quality of the sample, so i brushed my teeth before going to bed and immediately (before breakfast or brushing my teeth again) collected a spit sample. They are quite serious about the fill line. Don’t try to be an overachiever. The coagulant still has to go in the rest of the tube! Shake for about 5 seconds and marvel as your clear saliva produces a filmy substance (that’s your dna!!!!). It’s pretty cool. Absolutely do not forget to register your tube. I took a picture, registered it, and wrote it down in several places. After packing it up and putting it in the mailbox, i realized that i’d forgotten to take down the tracking number (the kit box has the prepaid shipping label on it). I was a bit distraught, but when i logged onto my 23andme account, there was a chromosome timeline with each step (there’s approximately 9 steps) clearly defined and the first step was having the package scanned at a mailing facility (so tube # is associated with the tracking number). I’ll admit, i checked daily and filled out as many survey questions as i could. I really wasn’t anticipating any surprises, the very skinny family tree that i’m aware of pretty much all goes back to germany or prussia in the 1700s. Well, my family and i were in for a shock when the results came back and said that i had an irish/english ancestor and a bit further back, an ashkenazi jewish ancestor. The overall composition was 100% european, mostly in the northwestern region. No other surprising ancestors in the wood works. While i fully understand that this cannot be used as a medical diagnostic tool, it was neat to see the genetic health results (it should be noted that these are not conclusive by any means). The carrier status reports were interesting. I didn’t have anything flagged, so i didn’t spend much time looking at those results. The genetic health risk reports did have a bit of a surprise. Apparently i am at an increased risk of developing celiac disease because of my genome (doesn’t mean i’ll get it, but it’s something to look out for). The trait reports were fun to go through, they all lined up. I haven’t really dug into those reports yet, but so far they look fun from a scientist perspective (biology major). I think the wellness reports are perhaps the most immediately useful results for your individual health. I did find one report to be a bit faulty (but i’m weird). I’m likely to be lactose intolerant, which most of the world is despite the mutation to produce lactase into adulthood occurring 3 times in human evolution (anthropology as a second major). Milk and other dairy products make up a considerable amount of my diet and i am considered an adult. I’m really not sure how to explain that one hiccup.
23andme found 1175 people that are related to me. This is out of the pool of people who have actually used 23andme. My relatives on 23andme are all 10th degree relations (google coefficient of relationship), so the most closely related person is about a fourth cousin with less than 0.4% shared dna. So we shared a great-great-great-grandparent.
I would definitely recommend this product if you are curious about your ancestry or just want to secrets your dna may hold, or if you know someone who just loves this type of stuff.
Before purchasing, i was definitely a bit leery of what i was getting myself into. Is it really worth up to $200 to spit in a tube? Yep. If you want to break it down shipping a small flat rate box is approximately $6.45, multiplied by two because you got it shipped to your house and then you mailed it out. If they mass produce the kits, the kit itself isn’t going to be too expensive, maybe $5-10, it’s very simple and elegantly put together. So rounding up, we’re at a max of $25 just for the test and mailing. Then there’s the process that your dna has to go through (6-ish steps once it has passed the inspection) before your reports are generated. There’s scientists working on your dna and processing it through various techniques (there are tutorial videos that explain the process on the website), so there’s expensive machinery that most people have limited access to being utilized (don’t really know how to put a price tag on this). Then, there are the 79 reports. If you bought the kit for $100, each report is less than $1, if you bought the kit for full price at $200, each report is close to $2 each. There’s a wealth of information that you really can’t put a price tag on.
I also purchased the ancestrydna kit through ancestry.com. I have not yet submitted it, but when it’s complete, i will add a comparison. The kit itself was $65 (on sale), but lots of people recommended having an ancestry.com account in order to unlock the full potential – so not really that much cheaper than 23andme.

I was very excited to try a dna testing kit and i chose this one because it expanded past just the dna history but it also gave more information on my personal health. The information that i receive daily regarding my health is amazing. I’m very happy with the service that came with this kit. I mailed off my kit and i expected a couple of weeks for results. But i got my results in about a week and a half. Very very pleased with the service.

I’m still waiting on my results so i will post an update but i love how easy this was to use and send off. Registering the kit was very easy and a lot of the questions that they ask were simple. Can’t wait for the results

I gave this to my dad for christmas and he is loving it. He found lost cousins and has had some fun surprises in ancestry.

Item arrived just as described, all instructions available and ready to ship back. 10/10 recommend.

I can’t wait for my results, delivery was fast and the instructions were easy to follow. Great experience.

Was interesting to see the ancestry broken down and i enjoyed being able to see the health traits that this test for and well as your physical traits. Was definitely interesting

As an adopted person, i wanted to be able to find out what my genetic background was. I ended up finding my birth father’s family, which i knew could happen, but they didn’t. I was definitely a surprise for them. He’s apparently dead so they have no closure on my existence or his explanation. I’m totally fine with that, but i don’t think they were. So be prepared for any surprises that may come up even if you are positive there’s no skeletons in your family closets.

I also throw out that while i was excited to do this for myself and my kids, i didn’t fully think through the ramifications of the government being able to track down criminals through my personal dna which i would never have given them access to without prior knowledge (not that i’m against tracking down criminals – just not in this way). The ability of the government to subpeona 23 and me to access people’s dna irks the crap out of me so consider what you are giving up to the government prior to turning this in. There’s no going back.

For the most part i already knew the history of my family and where they originally came from. This was very accurate in that information and gave me a few smaller pieces that i hadn’t know about.

The traits it said i should have were not accurate. According to that i should be a freckled face and have a full head of red hair, alas i have no freckles and my brown hair is halfway gone. I also don’t have any close family in the ancestors tab but that could mean that no one used the test yet.

I would recommend if you are interested in your genealogy but take the traits and health risks with a grain of salt and have your dr run their tests.

I had it, and i am buying it as gifts now. Good thing is only one person need to test among siblings, cuz everyone will have almost same results about at least ancestry if they have same dad and mom.

Waiting to see what surprises may be in store

After trying the ancestry dna kit, we wanted to compare this version along with getting some additional health details that the ancestry one does not have. Like the ancestry test, i think these are a bit overpriced, especially at regular price. I did get this on sale, but still pricy in my opinion.

Included in the box are the instructions, a pre-paid mailing box, a plastic, sealable bag, and the saliva container.

The instructions are pretty clear as you have to register an account on the website and activate the kit so that you can get the results. The hardest part is making sure you have enough saliva to fill the vial. After mailing, the results are supposed to be returned within 6 to 8 weeks. Even being around the holidays, it only took about 2 to 3 weeks to get the results, which was a bit faster than ancestry. I am not sure whether that is because of less testing being done, since i did ancestry last year, or whether they are faster now.

An initial problem with the kit is that 23 and me registered the health plus ancestry as just an ancestry kit, which took a phone call and proof being sent to them to fix the issue, otherwise they were trying to charge me 125 bucks to upgrade to a kit that i already had purchase. Fortunately, the issue was corrected online within 48 hours.

Having done the ancestry test already, there was no surprises. The test does appear to be accurate and pretty similar to ancestry, although there are some differences in some of the variables by about 4 percent. It accurately told me where our family migrated to and based on what i know of my family, the majority of the percentage of my dna test matched the regions of the world that i knew about. There are way less dna matches in this than ancestry. I assuming because more users are in ancestry than this. It does have a lot of tools for diving deeper into your ancestry than on ancestery.com.

The health portion is ok, but not as interesting as i thought it would be. I am unsure how accurate this is as this is relative new territory in science and genetics. Some of the traits are not close to correct or easy to predict without a test, so some of this is a bit lackluster in what they provide and feels more like marketing than anything else.

Overall, i think a bit overpriced, especially considering the health portion is a bit lackluster and a bit overhyped.

4 stars

It’s informative, but as a person who already knew a lot about my ancestry, it mostly told me what i already knew. It was nice to learn about what genes i carry though.

There are a variety of home testing dna kits out there, but it feels like 23andme and ancestry may be the most popular ones in the us (or at least they appear to be the most heavily marketed). The popularity of the kits is integral with their value in that the larger the customer base (and therefore the pool of dna results), the more family matches and genome insights you are likely to find. That’s the main value in trying more than one kit.

The collection process is not a big deal… A bit of saliva in a tube, a prepaid mailer, and a registration code to match the kit to your online account. Budget a few minutes for all of that, but be sure to follow the guidelines regarding food/gum/beverages. From mailing to receipt of results was about 3 weeks, but your mileage may vary.

I bought the ancestry + health testing, and it resulted in 91 reports (5 ancestry, 43 carrier status, 9 genetic risk, 26 traits, and 8 wellness). Actually, it was significantly fewer, but your your results get updated as 23andme add new genetic tests and screens. I haven’t accessed the results via the web portal, so i can’t speak to its interface, but i do use the android app. The interface of the app works well. Some of the more sensitive test results (like brca1/2) are initially put behind a readme layer; you at least have to scroll through the writeup about what the test result means before you can have access to the result.

Because of the health results, i found the overall results to be more interesting than what i got from ancestry. The genealogy results were similar, but not identical, owing to the different pools of subjects. That’s the main reason why i recommend using more than one test… You’ll have a better representation of your dna relatives than if you only use a single provider’s test.

I have seen this and other similar products before but never wanted to spend the money. When this was on the black friday deal, i thought ‘why not’? I solicited friends and family feedback and i read the reviews, which are over the place. Some people are mad because it got their eye color wrong (trait reports), others think there is some conspiracy to get everyone’s dna for nefarious reasons, and some even think the results are given to insurance companies! Back to reality: before you do this, ask yourself what you really want to know and what you expect to get out of this. This is not meant to give you definitive health information, but instead tells you if you have any of the genetic markers or variants that they test for; and they only test for some, not all. There are genetic health risk reports, carrier status reports, wellness reports and trait reports in addition to the ancestry reports.

Why did i purchase this and what did i like? The ancestry part wasn’t a big deal for me. I’m not into genealogy, so it wasn’t about finding my heritage, but i was curious if there were any surprises (none). The health component was my primary reason and i read the disclaimers (listed over and over). I found my report to be interesting and it has given me some things to look into for long term health reasons. As for the other reports, it was interesting to read the wellness and trait reports, and no, it didn’t get everything right, but nor did i expect it to.

I didn’t give it 5 stars because it told me i’m likely to weigh more than average! Ha ha ha!! Just kidding — not about weighing more, that’s true — but that isn’t why i didn’t give it 5 stars. I’m not sure you could really rate a tool like this 5 stars, but it is something i definitely recommend!

One last note….you have to spend several minutes spitting into a container, and they need quite a bit. Read the directions before you do this and you shouldn’t have any problems with a good sample!

I gave this to my son as a christmas gift. He did it right away, we mailed it from the post office and haven’t received results. I went online to see if i could get information and realized we were supposed to use the numbers on the test tube to register, but the directions are not clear about doing that first. So, we mailed it in without registering. It’s not like ancestry, where you register after mailing it in. We didn’t know that so that is our fault. Says online they will email you with your test tube numbers to register, but we haven’t received any emails so, right now i feel like i wasted $$. If something changes, i will update this review.

This test is awesome because you can find out your genetic makeup, your likely health traits, and it has a nice family tree feature where you can add relatives on your own in addition to adding other family members who may be on 23andme. I was most interested in my genetic makeup because my dad’s family doesn’t really know their background. It gave a lot of explanation about the different genetic groupings and estimates the percent of each. I discovered a lot more diversity in my ancestry than i expected. The traits were fun, too, because you see that you have a genetic disposition to things you didn’t know were affected by a specific gene.

The drawback is that it’s very limited when it comes to finding family. I have only one cousin identified on my list of relatives, and other than that a few second to fifth cousins. I wish they had a bigger database of information to help me identify family. Even when it does show partial dna matches, a lot of people don’t seem to use their account or put any sort of helpful information on it.

The test directions were easy enough, they responded within the time frame they promised, and they provide quite a bit of helpful background information on the different aspects of the test. I’d say it’s worth it if you don’t know anything about your family’s health traits or genetic makeup. Not so much if you’re looking to fill in a family tree.