Howdy y’all,

I have always been interested in my family history, possibly because I knew so little of it beyond my Great-Grandmother who died when I was five.

I have dicked off on Ancestry.com several times over the years and had paid for and canceled the service more times that I remember when I would get on a history kick and then let it fall to the wayside because I never learned much.

One day while I was still working in North Dakota, I was listening to the Jason Ellis Show on Faction in my work truck and they mentioned everyone taking DNA tests through 23andMe.

That night, when I was home, I decided to research 23and Me and found out more about their DNA testing kit and through looking it up, I found out that Ancestry.com also had a DNA testing kit.

They were both $99 and I did not know which one to get. It was a dilemma. So I bought them both.

I figured that if the results were similar, then they weren’t a scam, and if they weren’t, I may be coming into some money.

Sadly, they were similar.

But, since I did them both, I can tell you about features that each has to possibly help you in getting one or the other for yourself.

The first one to send me their report by two weeks was Ancestry.

And I LOVED IT!

It gave me percentages of each area my DNA coincides with and a map with each area. I would show you the map but it doesn’t allow me to save it because it is interactive.

My Ethnicity Estimate came out as:

46% Great Britain

17% Ireland

16% Scandinavia

10% Europe West – This contains parts of France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria.

I had trace regions of:

4% Italy/Greece

3% Iberian Peninsula – This Area contains parts of Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia

2% European Jewish – I did not even know this was an area but apparently it contains Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Romania.

1% Europe East – This area contains Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania

1% Caucasus/West Asian – This area contains Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Jordan.

As you can see, it is pretty detailed and it opened up a TON of people I do not know who I may be related to so if I ever decide to pay for Ancestry again, I may be able to find out a lot about where I am from although the DNA test itself satisfies a lot of my curiosity.

Like the commercials, I heard all my life that I was either Irish or German and when I took the test I found out I was mostly British with far more Irish than German ancestry.

That is about the extent of the Ancestry DNA test.

Now on to the 23andMe DNA test.

My 23 and Me results took much longer to reach me even though I sent them both off on the same day.

23andMe goes above and beyond on the reports, we will look ay my Ancestry report first.

63.3% British and Irish

9.4% French and German

6.9% Scandinavian

0.3% Finnish

18.4% Broadly Northwestern European

0.1% Iberian

1.1% Broadly Southern European

0.5 Broadly European

My map covers the entirety of Europe into Russia and the Middle East

Also in Ancestry reports I learned that I have more Neanderthal variants (283 total) than 59% of customers but my Neanderthal ancestry accounts for less than 4% of my overall DNA.

The reason I say 23andMe goes above and beyond… just based on my Neanderthal variants:

I should not have straight hair (true)

I should be less likely to sneeze after eating dark chocolate (true)

I should have less back hair (it is very hard to braid)

But besides goofy shit like those, 23andMe also has a wellness report that is based on your DNA

Pulling up my Wellness Report:

Tolerant to lactose (true)

Likely to weigh more on a high saturated fat diet (true for any diet… eat dust and gain)

Unlikely to flush when drinking alcohol (i drink so little, I do not know this one but I am always warm so)

Likely to consume less caffeine (somewhat true)

More likely a deep sleeper (I have slept through mortar fire in Iraq)

Unlikely Sprinter (Nothing in the history of the world has ever been truer)

Likely Typical or less movement during sleep (I roll over a lot but don’t think I move besides that)

They give you reports on what you looks should be, what diseases you are susceptible to, just tons of information and constant emails asking you things to further their research.

Some good things i just learned, I should not have hair loss before 40 and even if I do, I should not have a distinct bald spot.

23and Me also connects you with people who share your DNA and lets you know how close you should be based on the results.

I love the layout of the map feature on Ancestry and really they are both pretty amazing but I would say unless you are actively working on Ancestry.com, 23andMe gives you far more for your money.