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I did a family tree as a elementary school project. Sure it’d be fun to have lineage back further, but the commercial from the DNA company I see most often says find out blah blah blah, then they add the word “possible” when talking of the results. ITs just guesses of your ancestry heritage. they sell a possibility.

ITs just guesses of your ancestry heritage. they sell a possibility.

These companies are not guessing; they analyze your genetic markers and compare them to the statistical distribution of those markers among various ethnic groups.

So, for a really simplified example, they may look at a marker, GN3825, and they see that this marker occurs among 55% of people from the Bantu tribe of Africa, but only in 2% of people of other ethnicities. And they do this analysis for over a hundred thousand different markers. They use that information to determine a statistical likelihood that you have Bantu ancestry.

The other component of the genetic testing is that they look at your genetic markers and compare them to those of other people. They use that to determine whether you are related to those people, and what the likely relation is.

Ancestry.com has said that I am related to my uncle, my half cousin, and several of my mother's cousins. As far as I can tell, it is fairly accurate.

I'm hoping to be able to analyze the family trees of other people that Ancestry.com says I might be related to and try to determine who my great-grandfather really was. My great-grandmother had, as I like to say, the morals of an alley-cat. I've run into a brick wall trying to trace my family tree on that branch.

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.