Ask Lemmy

The thing to avoid is to not give your DNA to a company that will sell it the very instant the money is worth more to them than their reputation.

It's owned by the Mormon church, and that alone should steer you away from it. You don't want the Mo's to have your DNA.

Just a quick recap of how shitty they are:

Holocaust victims and Queen Mother posthumously baptized by Mormons

The LDS Church Released "Egregious and Onerous" New Policies Restricting Trans Mormons

Mormon church fined for scheme to hide $32 billion investment portfolio

Topeka LDS missionaries mock Chinese people on camera

Study: Utah women in tech report religious sexism

When they go bust they will sell your data.

Personally, it's not worth it. Giving up your DNA can be used against you. People can perform "social proof" phishing attacks on you by claiming sibling relationships. In the USA, law enforcement can use ancestry.com data to aid them in an investigation. So, if you leave some DNA at a crime scene (guilty or not) you might get caught up in the investigation.

You can also get caught up in the information breaches that seem inevitable with these things.

Plus: Ancestry.com is not necessarily as accurate as it is purportedly advertised. DNA doesn't have magic labels that tell us what it represents or where it came from. The only way to associate certain aspects of DNA with a particular gene, region, etc. is by comparing it to large sample sizes of people that exhibit the features you're seeking out. So, basically lets say you want to know if you come from Scotland. The way they would accomplish that is they would collect DNA from tons of people who - at least anecdotally - claim they are from Scotland. They then use that as a baseline for "Scottish DNA". When you submit your DNA sample, they look for markers that are unique to those people who claimed they were from Scotland. The less DNA they have from a particular race/region, the less accurate they can be. I'm not saying Ancestry.com is lying. Their methodology makes sense and across broad strokes will give you a reasonably accurate genealogy. They are also capable of validating siblings/cousins thanks to DNA matching. But it's only as good as the data they have. The more data they have, the more accurate it will be. But that's probably not public information and would be impossible to tell without access to their PII data. They might have 0% of data from people in Kazakhstan or Laos or Papua New Guinea. So, it's possible you have ancestry in places they currently can't know about.

It's just not worth it because it opens you up to a lot of risk and the reward is dubious information about your family history. They might know where you're from, but they can't give you a 100% ancestral lineage. You might discover lost siblings, cousins, etc. but it's not really that uncommon (so who cares?)

Lastly, the cost is just silly. They make you pay so they can have access to your most personal data? That's wild to me. They should pay you.

Just my 2 cents though.

My father has been working on WikiTree for years now. He has traced one family branch back to the 1200s I want to say and he stays busy a few hours every day updating info he finds online about grave markers and historical family facts world wide.

It’s not going to be as slick looking as Ancestry.com but it’s got all the same info if not more and you don’t need to give them a dime (or any DNA).

Some thoughts, as someone who has used ancestry.com in the past:

• Do NOT submit your DNA to them! If all your family wants is to trace your family back for several generations, in most cases you can do that with old-school research. Not providing DNA doesn't usually prohibit that. And as others have said, these companies are not trustworthy when it comes to being keepers of genetic information.
• You are right, the free trial on ancestry.com is a hook in to get your subscription, with the hope on their end that you will forget about it and and up paying for months on end while not using their services. It's basically like a gym membership, but for history information.
• That said, it's not that difficult to cancel an ancestry.com subscription. They make you jump through several screens and try to persuade your to keep it going, but it's not insurmountable, and I've cancelled and renewed and then cancelled my subscription with them a few times.
• They do have an exceptional amount of genealogical information on hand, at least for Western researchers. I've found some surprising things about my ancestors on there that I couldn't find elsewhere.
• For libraries and subscription level, it depends on what your needs are. They bundle them into subscription packages. If you think your ancestors have been in America for several generations I would just go with the cheaper American subscription. If you have ancestors who came from Europe a few generations back then you might want to go with a broader subscription plan that covers European sources. If you want to trace ancestors back from Africa or Asia you are going to be SOL regardless, because genealogy sources from those areas are usually very bad.
• One thing to note, in case this is a problem for you: ancestry.com at least used to be owned by or managed by the LDS church (the Mormons). And they have a pretty sordid history when it comes to the exploitation of women and girls, and (like quite a few other religions) have done and continue to do some very sketchy stuff in general.

Hope this helps.

It autorenews and it's relatively expensive.

I wouldn't do that DNA test, because it's really sensitive data.

WikiTree is a free alternative to the genealogical database. The genealogy nerd in my life says that its data is a bit better. Ymmv.

The LDS church is big into genealogy and has a competitor called FamilySearch. No submitting DNA or anything, it's actual genealogical research. I believe it's free as well (could be wrong)

We found out I had an unknown half-brother because my grandpa decided to do one of these. My grandpa was trying to see how much of his Native American ancestry would come up. He is, supposedly, half Wyandot. It showed 0% Native American ancestry. Make of that what you will.

And yes, they’ll absolutely end up selling your data at some point.

I have a friend who has to keep going in there to re-correct bad data and bad relationships that people keep re-adding. They think they're helping, but they're not, they're just contaminating the data and the site keeps letting them do so.

I use it and like it. DNA and all. Yes it's expensive. I generally pay for a month, then let it expire for a few months while I catch up, then renew as needed.

It is the 900 pound gorilla of the hobby. If you want to get DNA matches, it's the first choice by far. And it has enabled me to learn an enormous amount about my family - and my wife's, and several friends who are interested.

If genealogy is your thing, do it. If you only want to half-ass it, there are alternatives.