I’ve done it. Twice. Fallen prey to the advertising efforts of two family search companies.
Who can blame me? I know almost nothing about my father’s side of the family as my only surviving relatives are my sister and an older cousin. My goal was to build a family tree in order to discover if our family name lives on, as all surviving children in our generation are girls whose children were given the surname of their spouses.
The verdict? The exercise was worth the effort, given Black Friday prices. If I had it to do over again, which would I choose?
My maternal uncle traced his maternal ancestry over many generations, so I was familiar of my roots on that side. He even began a search of my father’s lineage and guided me as to how to continue. Bottom line, I was aware of where my a good portion of my family originated prior to their immigration to North America.
23&me’s genetic reports seemed quite accurate placing 50% of my background in Poland, about 37% in the Iberian Peninsula and Southern Europe and 13% traced to my Caribbean Native American and African roots. I was connected to 1061 specific genetic relatives, many first and second cousins, thanks to a prolific great grandfather who had four wives and 20+ children.
Why bother to try another version? Because the last names of my relatives read like a Puerto Rican telephone book, nary a Polish family member to be found. There was one I suspected to have a connection, but I never received a reply. I was hoping that the other side may have more of a presence in another database.
A year later, having read that it is a better source for building family trees, off I went down the path of AncestryDNA. Although they advertise “2x more geographical detail,” I didn’t find that to be the case for me. The results appeared far less accurate, assigning 70% of my lineage to Poland and the Slavic areas and only 13% to the Iberian peninsula and Southern Europe, and about the same amount of Caribbean Native American and African origins. It connected me to over 1000 4th cousins or closer. I found a third cousin who lives near us who looks astonishingly similar to my mother in her younger years.
AncestryDNA allows me to form a family tree and search their database of records such as US census data and immigration papers. Although that’s been helpful on my dad’s side, it requires a paid subscription or a trip to a public library to use their free version. I’ve since found the same information available for no charge, on familysearch.org.
So, bottom line? I probably could have saved $59 by sticking with 23&Me and using Familysearch.org for their free family tree services.
Warning:
- Online family trees are only as accurate as the person who entered the data, sort of like a family Wikipedia. I found loads of errors in other’s trees.
- This genealogy stuff is fun, time consuming, addictive and comes with surprises. I discovered my dad’s mother, was listed as the stepdaughter of the father we knew of, meaning there is another family line to research.
There you have it, not quite in a nutshell. My recommendation: 23&me.
On the topic of family here are a couple of family photos from this year’s holiday season trip down south:
Hiking the Painted Canyon trail in Mecca CA, a slot canyon requiring the climbing of a series of ladders in close quarters:
Cooking:
C, M and high school friend, Laura cooking KC’s birthday dinner, pierogies three ways. Each one picked their own flavour: butternut squash and feta, Philly cheese steak and turkey dinner pierogies (turkey, stuffing, cranberries and mashed potatoes). I made a sticky date pudding birthday cake.
B making his never fail grilled eggplant involtini:
We convinced him to do it twice:
