I Took 10 DNA Tests and Compared Them | Which One Should You Take? 

Which DNA test is best for African Americans? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--_1tgdRfHXA.html

I work in forensic genetics and do those analyses every day for unidentified bodies or kinship analysis for living people. Those companies are scamming people as you can see when you compare them. If they would use scientifically proven methods, the results would match exactly. This is why we are doing interlaboratory test with other facilities around the world all getting the same samples and the results have to match 100% to be certified doing this. There is some leeway when using Y-chromosomal DNA when interpreting the results, depending on if you are using STRs or STRs plus SNPs, but they should not contradict but rather be more specific. Same with mtDNA, if you sequenced the whole genome or just the D-Loop. Doing ancestral analysis with autosomal DNA is bogus. There are some alleles you will find more often in people from region A than from region B, but even if we are talking percentages of about 90% or 99%, will still give you a 10% or 1% error rate. If your database is 20 million people, that would be 2 million or 200000 false results. Do not let high percentages fool you. A paternity test usually gives you a 99.999999% match if you are the father using just around 20 DNA systems, as long as no close relatives are also possible contenders. 99% is not really saying anything. Even if you combine all the thousands of studies done for different ethnicities and their autosomal DNA alleles, you cannot use that data to say with some certainty that this person with those alleles is from that ethnic group, let alone splitting up this group and give you even more detailed information. The Viking score is, of course, also bogus. As are differences between France and Germany, Norway and Sweden and Denmark etc. You could also roll a dice and be happy with the results without paying money for someone telling you random stuff. Now, the only real way to get ancestry information in the way you want, going back generations, is mtDNA and y-chromosomal DNA. And for those, the results have to match because they should be all based on the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence (rCRS) and use the same databases (EMPOP, Mitomap, etc.) which use the same mutations to get to the mitochondrial haplogroups. If they do not give you your data (usually given as deviations from the rCRS) do not bother with them. That way you can just check their work for yourself using the same free databases. Same with Y-chromosomal DNA. We all use the YHRD database. If they do not give you your Y-STR profile, do not bother with them. Actually, they should always provide the data they used to get to the results, so you can check it. As you can see, there is no scientific reason the results should vary so much. Or any reason they should be able to get any ancestral results from autosomal DNA alone that would reliably work. All this "10% Roman, 71% Viking, 3% Inuit"-stuff is just made up. The underlying scientific data is used in a way it was never supposed to be used and thus any references to those articles just want to lull you into a false narrative. And don't get me started on those health related results... they use results, sometimes contradicting each other, from thousands of articles, lump them together and build their own "database" for certain ailments. Some are rather easy and only rely on one or two genes and are thus easy to predict and accurate. Others are under the influence of dozens or hundreds of genes, not yet fully understood. Some paper might tell you SNP AB in Gene X will get you a 70% chance of that disease, other tell you SNP CD in Gene Y will reduce your risk by 10-40% and SNP EF in Gene Z gets you a 20% chance. Not one study will have looked at those three combined, but the company algorithm will lump those chances together as if they were, despite them probably interacting and ignoring the other 84 from other publications and the 93 not yet discovered. But they give you a 50% chance of dying of a cardiac disease anyway. Yet, even 10% or 90% mean nothing in this context. As we could see, the rheumatoid arthritis was right (with a prevalence of 1-2% in the population), the insomnia was not (with a prevalence of up to 30% in the population it was a nice try). Except the few that have a distinct genetic pathway linked to a small number of polymorphisms, all others are just an elaborate guess. Genetic dispositions are often as accurate as horoscopes... Instead of paying good money to these companies, just pay a certified and accredited lab to analyse your DNA and use the free databases yourself to get the real results. They are not as flashy as those you get from them, but feel free to embellish them yourself. Use a dice or toss a coin to determine your Viking Score...it's about as accurate that way. Or just say you are 70% Icelandic Viking if that makes you feel better. But it would be nice, if you put your DNA in a public database so we can get your murderous uncle behind bars. He has always made you feel uneasy anyway and now you know why^^

You are still missing one MAJOR fact. If you buy an ancestry test, you can upload it to my heritage for free. If you buy a my heritage test, you CANNOT upload it to ancestry, therefore, if you are interested in genealogy, ONLY go for ancestry, and from there, you can upload it to my heritage and livingDNA for no cost whatsoever.

Can we just pause to appreciate the remarkable diction and clarity of speech used to convey the information? It's abundantly clear that you are intentionally making an effort to enhance the clarity of speech, and some of us REALLY appreciate it!

Ancestry DNA helped me find my brother that I never even knew I had or existed. I’m so thankful for them ❤

I would be interested to see what happens when you send 2 or 3 samples to the same provider. Before you can talk about accuracy, it is important to know if the results are even reproducible.

The bad thing about MyHeritage is that being from Latin America does not differentiate between your percentage of indigenous and mestizo, but mixes everything as Mesoamerican and Andean, also in America there are many indigenous peoples and it seems that they only take into account the most famous indigenous people such as the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. Being Chilean, I probably have Mapuche or aymara blood (indigenous from Chile) and I would like the companies to differentiate between these peoples. I uploaded my results in case you want to see them.

20 YEAR OLD COLD CASE. Detectives in Jersey contacted me! I guess I share close DNA to a murderer. I allowed them to search through my DNA relatives trying to locate this person.

You didn't mention an important factor in CRI's DNA testing that I really liked for my genealogy research. The tell you at which generational time period changes came into your genetic genealogy. For example, it might show Tuscan Italian was added to my gene pool in my 4th generation during the 1800's. This is useful information when you are researching marriages as it could help in locating church records.

I'm a researcher in Genetics. One issue you didn't cover was how easy it is to get your raw data. I think most of them allow you to request the results, but I remember that several years ago, HELIX didn't provide a way to get your raw genotype data. They wanted to keep your data and sell you lots of extra tests. I would not buy a test that didn't give me full access to my data. Also, if I have the data, I don't need to pay someone to compute my Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) since I can do that myself. More importantly, you didn't mention that a PRS may not be accurate if someone is of an ethnicity not well represented in the reference study (which is particularly a concern for people with non-european ancestry). If you do get the raw data from multiple tests, it would be interesting to compare the data. There are no absolute gold standards here, and all the tests with have some (generally very few, but some) errors. One can look at Kappa statistics between the various tests. Personally, I'd like to get whole genome sequence for myself, but from blood, not a spit or swab kit. In our research, we've seen that the spit kits are less reliable than DNA taken from blood draws.

A major but valuable investigation would be taking all nine existing tests once more, to see if some results deviate significantly between rounds!

I have just binged on 8 or so of your youtube videos (mostly historical ones, but this one caught my eye). You have a gift for explaining complex topics in an "easy to digest" way. You also have a great verbal cadence which is hard to master...not too fast, not too slow with intonation in check. Keep it up!

Thank you for being the tester of many & showing side-by-side results of each. Appreciate the work involved to share & teach.

You forgot to mention that CRI Genetics goes back farther in your dna time line. They also tell you when in time that specific dna entered into your heritage. I’ve taken several DNA tests and this is why I liked CRI the best.

I took both 23andme and Crigenetics. My father was 1st gen American. We know his Germanic ancestors came from the Prussian empire in an area that is now Poland in the 1860s. All have Germanic surnames. While Crigenetics categorized these ancestors as German, 23andme attributed them as Polish using post WWII borders. Just saying...

My sister utilized ancestry. It was interesting. Lo and behold, a young woman reached out to her asking about one of our first cousins. Turns out she was our cousin's daughter who had been searching for him. My cousin had no idea as it was a one night stand. They met and all is well. I can see where this would be a problem for some people finding out you have children you didn't know about.

I like narrator's clear voice, enunciation , tone & speaking speed as it is easy to understand, along with the charts -- very interesting and informative.

Starting in 1990, it took 13 years and billions of dollars to sequence the first human genome, and now they can do it for less than $1,000. That's utterly astonishing. (And you could argue it took 32 years depending on your definition of "fully complete genome")

I'm adopted and my birth mom was of European ancestry. She lived in the US, but was impregnated by an Italian on a trip abroad. I found a "cousin" in Italy via MyHeritage, which checks out as having a greater footprint in the EU. I have met my birthmother through an Ancestry test, and hope to meet my birth father some day from the MyHeritage connection, though he doesn't know about me and that might upset his own family....

Good review. I have used Ancestry and they do periodically update your information, as they get more data. Mine has changed quite a bit over about 5 years, so another thing to consider, as the first results were more broad brush and now, they seem to be homing in on distinct areas.

You did an excellent job in explaining all the various tests, especially using your great charts. Thanks!

I did both MyHeritage and Ancestry, and I got very similar results. That said, MyHeritage lumps together all Scandinavians into one group, which made the ancestry results way more interesting. Also found quite a bit of unknown relatives on there!

My soapbox (one of several): the real value, _the incredible value_ , of taking some of these DNA tests is _to find cousins_ . Many times discoveries can be made about one's family's history by finding these cousins. The biggest will be non-paternity events (i.e., the father was not who is on record.) Genealogy is family history and if you want to know about your family then *study the actual records and see if you cousin matches line up with your developed family tree.*

Did my heritage a couple of years ago and it’s interesting to see how the ethnicity results have ever so slightly changed over the last couple of years to be slightly more detailed. Guessing that’s as they have more and more people from different regions signing up.

I did CRI Genetics and was surprised to see I am 7% Armenian. After talking to my grandfather he showed me a picture of his great grandmother whom he said was Cherokee. She looked middle eastern and did more research to find there was absolutely nothing listed in databases about her being Native American but that she was "found" as a young child and pretty much adopted so I am believing more the middle eastern rather than the Cherokee.

I originally tested with 23&Me and have uploaded to My Heritage, FTDNA, GedMatch and Living DNA. The results were pretty similar for ethnicity. I've gotten the best matches on My Heritage and GedMatch, with Living DNA being a bang on match with my tree research into my UK ancestors. Via My Heritage we discovered our Swedish ancestors actually originated in Finland.

23and Me did a great job. I have an unusual health condition, and it did pick it up. Also, I know exactly we’re my grandfather came from. The test was very specific, and they were correct. I also know where my ancestors came from on the other side of the family. Again, they were correct. Interestingly, there were also some surprises.

I went through Ancestry. Results were very impressive correctly stating the areas in Ireland that my great grandparents came from as well as the area of Poland my father came from. A second cousin who I am on touch with was first on my list of relatives and subsequently when my sister completed a test she became top of the list with the same results. I've also inherited some new cousins with whom I am in regular contact.

Excellent work! This is a great summary. Thanks for posting.

One that is similar to Nebula but much cheaper is "ADNtro". It also shows the scientific papers that they got their info from, their reliability, the risk, etc. It's really nice for all of this health analysis while also including much more such as genealogy, and other miscellaneous stuff.

Since I have an incredibly well documented family tree I opted for Nebula Genomics. All the looking at death certificates had me wanting a deeper understanding of my genetics. Learned some interesting things and am very glad I saved my pennies and then jumped when they had a half price sale last year.

This is really great info! Thank you for providing for free!

As interesting as it would be to take one of these tests, I'm not doing it. A few years ago FamilyTreeDNA voluntarily gave all their data to the feds without informing their customers. Ancestry and 23andMe have sold their data to companies like GSK and Calico (a company run by Google). This industry is completely unregulated and, since it doesn't provide healthcare or insurance, isn't subject to HIPPA laws. It amazes me that people worry about Facebook selling their browsing data, but they'll hand over their genetic data with zero qualms.

I'm adopted in a private adoption in the 50's. I used CRI and was very intrigued by the results. The only thing I was told was (in version 2 of my background) was Biological Maternal Grandfather came over on the boat from Italy. I was really surprised to find I was 32% Italian and to my shock 28.6% German! I'm short, 5'3" with dark brown hair. My adoptive mom is so German mom's last name was Keil, like the town in north Germany. They're all blue eyed blondes so I was blown away. In the Advanced Ancestry section, where they try to go back up to 50 generations, turns out I'm Northern Han Chinese, then Southern Han and it keeps going west from there! Both of my older children have been asked at various times if they're Native American, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korea and more. The answer now is yes, kind of, lol. CRI also found an ancestor from the Esan tribe of Nigera, one from Puerto Rico, Columbia, Peru and Mexico! I was floored to say the least.

good video. you might also include in your comparison which sites allow you to upload your DNA raw data generated from another site's test for free (or for a small fee), and receive their dna analysis.

Wow thank you so much for the extensive details in this video, graphs 📊 and charts are Amazingly useful! I can not begin to tell you how interested I am but had no clue even what I wanted for myself! You helped me so much! I will share this with anyone I know looking into DNA 🧬 testing! Your voice is so pleasant too which is a bonus!

Never came across, nor previously heard of this channel/individual ... nor would I think I'd find it interesting in the least, but WOW have I been surprised. VERY IMPRESSED by what comes across as a convincing non-bias (as much as anyone is capable of), transparency, and great details/breakdown. Instant subscriber, and looking forward to checking out more of their (or your, if you read these) work!

Best bang for the buck is to use the cheapest 23&me kit, then upload the raw data to Promethease to get health reports. They use the SNPedia database to give 40,000 ties to genetic phenotypes. Total cost a bout $100, and you get Mito and Y haplogroups too.

Just as a single critique - 'anonymized' data can be de-anonymized extremely easily, depending on the amount of data provided. You only need a few points of data to make an extremely small pool of potential people, and each additional piece reduces the number of potential candidates gets even smaller. Just Birthday and zip, you're already down to maybe a dozen people, if sex is included you've halved that. Just be aware that 'anonymized' data doesn't really make anything anonymous, at least if the person/group that purchased the data is remotely competent with that data.

AWESOME work and information! Thanks so much. This is exactly what I need.

Wow this is a very detailed review, exactly what i been looking for.

I am part Lebanese and I have seen some videos of Lebanese folks taking DNA tests. Some tests say that they are Jewish, while others say they are Levantine (From Lebanon/Syria area).

I know a woman in her 50s whose family was very close to her mom's ex-boss and his family when they were growing up. She and her sisters decided to all get a DNA test and got quite a surprise... they were all half-siblings of the ex-boss's kids (who had apparently been tested by the same company)! Now the ex-boss and the man they thought was their father were dead by this point, but mom had some explaining to do!

Love your presentation and the graphics!

Your approach to this subject was very informative and I really liked your format. I like that you dispelled all the conspiracy theories about how individual DNA is used and not used. If one reads the privacy disclaimers, it’s quite clear and I’m with you, if my “Uncle Bob” murdered someone, I want him caught. Law Enforcement only accesses public forums and not the private ones.

Very good review! One thing I would add is that if someone is looking for matches (relatives) then they should test with more than one company because you can find different matches depending on who has tested with whom. Also, if you have a sibling having them test also because we don't get the same exact 50% DNA from each parent.

I’ve done both Ancestry DNA and 23 & Me. (My family tree is on Ancestry). Got the complete package including health results with 23 & Me. Happy with both companies. Quite similar results, but a few differences in north west European results. However…yes… accuracy should increase over time as more and more people take the tests. I’ve already seen that happening during updates. Thank you for your videos.

You earned a like just for the premise. Good work!

Excellent video. Thank you for your concise presentation.

The whole clone Army is gonna be Matt at this point!

My ancestry results have been changing overtime which is a good sign that more and more information is being compared with each other making it more accurate which is good!

Thank you brother ... I had insomnia until I watched your video which made me very sleepy, thanks!

In India we don't even need expensive DNA tests, we just have to visit Haridwar or Varanasi there are many priests who had written full biodata of each and every person who had visited Haridwar or Varanasi. I found my Ancestors to be from Pakistan about 400 years ago they came to Pune were I am from 😂

If you do another of these, please do SEQUENCING. I did their whole grenome sequencing and have found several conditions that fit my consellation of symptoms

Thank you, Matt, for your continued research. CRI was my interest. I'm happy it was included. I didn't know about the other "lesser knowns" so including them was an eyeopener.

Thanks. Very interesting. Will look into some of these.

Thank you this has been very interesting, for me because of my very very mixed heritage I will,have to look at a few of them, I knew this early on when I first started looking j to doing this. But after watching your tutorial it has at least given me a good foundation of which companies I will need to use. This is a huge step in the right direction for me, 🤗🤗🤗

This video is sooo well-made and informative, loved it from beginning to end 💯

I was able to backtrack my history through my Grandfather. Though we have been a hodgepodge of German, Polish and Ukrainian, really we were Swedish and Polish descended settlers in German who moved to Western Ukraine. I was only able to solve the mystery when my grandfather's Ancestry results reported him to by 26% Swedish. Gonna check out that Viking Data Base, Thanks Useful Charts!

Thank you Rwandaforever. It’s good to have your expert information on this whole dna testing fad. As I’ve told my adult children, I will not waste my money on it, especially as my eldest daughter had a 23 and me test and it didn’t show Italy in our history yet my mum was Welsh and her grandmother was Italian. Much love from England. ❤

I have wondered about this. Thank you for sharing

I saw your original 5 tests video and decided to use Ancestry because I'm American, but I'm glad someone is doing a "best test for African Americans" video because my results were all over the place which was mostly Africa, but around 25% combined was from Ireland, Norway, Wales, and England/Europe.

Thank you for sharing! I've had interest in trying, out of curiosity, but those seem quite a bit different in terms of results and I'm also not comfortable with private companies having my DNA. If I had the money, I'd be more interested in having a genealogist research my family tree.

Really well made videos, thanks a lot 🙏

I really like the way how you explain!

For those with Anglo ancestry, Living DNA has an excellent database by English county. And their maternal and paternal DNA analyses are great.

I'm glad you mentioned not eating for a while before taking the test. I did a swab once to send for a blood cancer charity but was a bit afraid some of my saliva might have traces of food in it. If I had just eaten say an egg sandwich and a banana they might find I'm 50% banana, 25% chicken and 20% wheat and just a little bit human!! If "we are what we eat", then diet may have just as big (or bigger) role in health than genetics! Unless certain genes make us like or dislike certain foods. I don't have much of a 'spice' gene so can't take much of something spicy before it burns or stings or makes me ill (at least strong ones like chilli, pepper, mustard) Maybe the allergy/intolerance is genetic. A bit of ginger or cinnamon is not so bad...!

I did the Ancestry and found it very spot on with what I’ve uncovered with my Tree.

These have been super helpful and i love the break down! I still cant decide what's most important for me to pick one though lol😅

I’ve only used 23andMe but I can vouch for how well my results matched all the records I have of my family’s ancestry. It even got some of the exact regions correct.

Very interesting - particularly the part where you compare the accuracy between all the labs. Ideally, you'd also check repeatability - that is, the reports generated from multiple tests - even though, that would become quite expensive, quite quickly. I'm thinking about some test among wine tasting 'experts', who regularly fail to recognize the same wine when given repeated glasses . Maybe this is the cynic in me, but there seems to be no way to really evaluate how diligent these companies are in performing their tests.

Thanks for this video & insight. I've been trying to justify spending on a Nebula kit (they are having a huge sale this weekend) & feel that it would assist even more greatly in the creation of a Lazarus kit for my Dad. I also have many health problems, and a vast long-term interest in genealogy (20 years) & DNA (8 years). An interesting site that you can now upload raw data to is mytrueancestry, where they hold the genomes from archeological digs & ancestral royal seats, including all the pre-culloden clans. Very interesting.

Thanks! This was very helpful.

The situation gets really complicated with the Latin Americans, because we are a melting pot of different heritages and races from all around the world. I would like to know which test is better for us.

Have you tried sending in multiple test samples to the same company, or batches to several companies, to see if the testing methods used were consistent?

I'm from & live in North Wales..glad to hear you have some ancestors from here :)

Thank you for the additional information

Ancestry has recently updated their DNA information and now includes Ethnicity inheritance which shows what you have inherited from your parents. Although at this stage it is only Parent 1 and Parent 2.

I hope your friend, Jabari does LivingDNA since they have an extensive Africa ethnicity breakdown

That was very useful. Thank you so much

I had 5 updates within 2 years from 23&Me. I'm glad I took screenshots, cause at moment, the 23&Me site only listed 3 updates on my profile to go back to for reference.

I had no interest in doing a DNA test because I already knew from my own research where my ancestry came from (on both sides of my parental lineage) = 100% from one specific region of one specific country. But a close relative decided to get the Ancestry test done. The results were almost exactly what I expected. The results came back that we were 94% from that country, and 76% of that was concentrated in the same and surrounding region/provinces that I knew our ancestry was from. Of the remaining 6%, that was split evenly between two countries literally across the sea a short sail from the area our ancestry was originally from. Made sense that a tiny portion of our lineage could’ve come from a close, neighboring region. All in all, pretty accurate.

The most important thing that everyone needs to know about about genetic testing for genealogy purposes is that the ethnic percentages are mostly useless. It's better for finding people alive today that are closely related, like distant cousins, so you can perhaps add more information to your tree. That's the strength of these tests which is to see how closely two individuals are related.

Super helpful. Thank you!

Wow the nebula company had me spot on regarding the Arthritis. I did not realize there were so many DNA companies. Baker from another mother. 😎🇺🇸

These videos always make me wonder if the companies afterwards become the owner of your DNA profile or that they don't keep records etc. I'd like that information in this type of videos.

Both of my parents were orphans. The surnames indicated Irish and dutch. I used CRI mostly because they seem more privacy oriented. The results were mind blowing because they showed ancestors from all over the globe, mostly at costal locations. Since air travel is a recent invention it seems that would indicate sea faring was a long lasting part of my ancestors traditions. Sir Francis Drake was a notable ancestor listed so that touches home. Lots more interesting relatives of notables were matched in the 26 generations they traced. Very interesting stuff. I would appear to be a mega mutt.

Great Videos Video Idea! Disregarding the ancestry part, how close is the medical portion? Compare it to a place that just does labs such as Quest Diagnostics.

Very easy directions, and the tip of the swabs simply break off into the medium that you simply put the top back on and send both vials in a sealed bag back to the company in their postage paid box. It is so simple, just remember not to drink or eat for 30 min prior to the test.

My brother went through Ancestry since we knew our grandparents came from the Isle of Wright he went through Ancestry. He found out we have dominant English, Irish & Scottish. He didn’t mention any cousin’s or second cousin’s. Anyway again thanks for the information.

Very useful information. Thank you! My maternal grandmother emigrated from Germany when she was a teenager during WWI, so we always thought we had a lot of German in our blood. My brother took the Ancestry DNA test and it turns out there's no German DNA, but Scandinavian instead. I have been wondering if German and Scandinavian DNA were lumped together, but your video shows they aren't, at least not for 23 and Me and Ancestry. I sure wish all this info was available 40 years ago, I would have talked to my grandma about her heritage more. Her family must have emigrated from Scandinavia to German prior to WWI. I love history. Love your RU-vid Channel!

Excellent review.

Wow! Great info; thanks!

I took both 23 and Me & Ancestry, as a black american woman I also wanted to take the African tribal dna test but was unsure. I can't wait to see what you guys have planned for us. Maybe I will change my mind. Thank you

Some companies want both parents tested. Difficult to do when they are passed on and in their graves.

Thank you very much for the health related information. I already had my ancestry information as my mother did the family genealogy about 40 years ago. My mother’s parents were born and raised in Yorkshire, England and so were most of their ancestors for the 7 generations my mother got information on (8 including my grandparent). The exception was one Irishman who married into the family about 4 generations ago. All 4 of my fathers grandparents were born in Denmark, and his genealogy also did not have much variation. However, in my father’s family an alarming number of family members in his parents’ generation and his generation died of various cancers, including my father. So, thanks to your video, I know which company from which I might be able to get more health related information. So, thank you again.

Very interesting in general TY! As someone who is non-Chinese, and non-Indian from Asia, your last point is of strong interest to me, TY

I used Ancestry and every few months I get an update. This apparently changes as they claim their methods and databases get better. So I was originally 56% English two years ago. This month I discovered that I am now 44% Scottish, 13% Irish and only 11% English, the rest being made up of Scandinavian countries. This makes me fairly skeptical as to the accuracy of these companies.

Thanks - this was interesting. I am female and used FTDNA because i am Jewish, and it has a large Jewish database. I found many mtDNA "cousins," which was fascinating -- and we have become friends. I was an early adopter of DNA testing and in all these years i have never found a single relative from my father's family. I am thinking of taking a second test from another company in order to broaden my search for my father's line through autosomal DNA.

This is helpful. Thank you for your sacrifice.