[bgill]

Can't stand those commercials. One obviously Native American woman says she had no idea. Another obviously Hispanic woman again claims she had no clue. Then there's the black woman crying over a hat, again clueless of her roots. Surely, the libs haven't gone this far with their inclusiveness. Look in the mirror, people!

Before there was Ancestry.com and DNA, I traced our family back several centuries. Easy enough and pretty much proved out the old family stories and common sense. BTW, people lie on those genealogy websites. If you want the truth, do the research yourself. Besides, a DNA test doesn't even come close to giving you any information on who great-great grandpa was.

Soleymani said he didn't take any chances when he sent his DNA to 23andMe. “I literally sent my kit saying my name is Billy Bob,” he added.

Snort, even Barney Fife is smart enough to track down who was living at the return address.

[Drango]

Besides, a DNA test doesn't even come close to giving you any information on who great-great grandpa was.

Mostly false. It will tell you a lot if others have tested and have a paper trail. A Y-DNA test will track your male surname back to the 1600s. Using that it's easy to piggyback off others who match your DNA.

Autosomal atDNA will track back 4-5 generations.

[Verginius Rufus]

That black woman who discovered she has Nigerian ancestry gets me. Of course she has ancestors from West Africa--and probably from other countries besides Nigeria, and most likely some non-African ancestry.

The advantage of AncestryDNA is their very large pool of customers (compared to the other companies) but they give less information. It's a dumbed-down version compared to FamilyTreeDNA or 23andMe. AncestryDNA doesn't tell you your mitochondrial DNA. The woman crying over her Nigerian hat could have found out if her mtDNA is African, European, or American Indian, from one of the other companies.

I have now had test results from 7 companies--which differ widely and in some cases have unbelievable results (compared to what I know from having researched my family tree). So the ethnic results have to be taken with a grain of salt. But they can lead you to matches who may have valuable information on your ancestors.