DNA - summary - worth it?

[Philezra]

I apologise if I am being lazy, unwilling to do the due diligence etc..but is purchasing a DNA kit "worth it" and what are benefits?

I have been lucky enough to be the beneficiary of many helpful people from this site.

Will I have the chance to advance my tree if I go ahead??

Thank you.

Phil

[CaroleW]

Putting it bluntly - you won’t know if you don’t try🤣🤣

[Philezra]

I think what I meant...do the results help you go further? Are you relying on "matches"? Or is it merely a summary by percentages and you leave it at that?

[decor]

DNA has helped me confirm some suspicions I had as well as break down a couple of brickwalls. Before I took the test I wasn't that interested in the DNA side of things, but afterwards I became quite fascinated with it.
I'm definitely more focused on the matches than the ethnicity updates, but it is still interesting to see how that side of it develops over time.

[Philezra]

Thank you for this - I'm hoping my Irish may be helped!!!

[Ayashi]

The ethnicity estimates are to be taken with a pinch of salt- they occasionally get updated and parts you had disappear or new ones reappear... and different sites will say different things. As far as matches go, sometimes they have trees and are responsive, other times they don't have trees and don't respond. It takes time to go through the information presented and for the most part I've been happy to confirm the paperwork through shared matches. When it comes to illegitimate ancestors, I had a suspicion about the father of one (and I have a whole mass of matches on his side of the family) and no information relating to the father of another (but by cross matching shared matches of his descendants and eliminating ones proved to be from the 'wrong' branches, I ended up with an unknown family that I'm quietly confident is the unnamed father's family).

If you are interested in Ireland, it would depend on how far back your Irish connection is- too far back from present day and you may have a slim chance of matching with legitimate cousins / cousins may not have information back far enough to connect on paper- but in theory you might end up with the same surnames and places as other people and start to put together puzzle pieces.

[SouthseaSteel]

I manage over 20 DNA accounts.  Some have completely changed their family tree by adding greatly where brick walls previously existed and with new half cousins etc. added to the family. Some have barely added any information, but at least often confirm already existing paper trees.  Most of these DNA tests sit somewhere in between.

Like CaroleW has already stated, you simply dont know what you dont know.  But caveat emptor as always, please make yourself aware of some of the implications you MAY encounter which are very well documented.  They cannot be undone.

[Philezra]

Many many thanks for your insight and responses.

It's really appreciated - looks like I'm going for it ;0)

[Andrew Tarr]

My wife and I got our DNA's a couple of years ago when Ancestry did a promotion.  For myself, it agreed with what I already 'knew' - I have an Irish great-grandmother and the result said 12% Irish, so can't be much more accurate than that.

It didn't add anything much to my wife's tree either, but it meant a great deal to her otherwise, as she made contact with two close cousins she had never met but was aware of (the connection had been slightly shady ).  One of them just happened to get her DNA at the same time.  I suppose you might just be lucky in pushing your tree backwards, but I would guess it would come with a lot of doubt ?