Is 23andMe the best DNA testing company?

you've tested with 23andme and now you're getting into their website and maybe there's some things you like and maybe there's things you don't like I can understand that I like some things and I don't like some things so let's talk about that today howdy I'm Annie Lee with family history fanatics and this is a segment of DNA now today I want to go through some things I like about 23andme and some things that I don't like about 23andme because so far there has not been the perfect DNA testing company the perfect DNA testing website out there it doesn't have everything that I want and there's a little bit of something like from all these different companies so with 23andme let me go through five things that I really like number one I like chromosome painting I like chromosome painting a lot in fact that is the initial reason why I took the test I was reading a book by Brian Sykes and he was talking about chromosome painting and how it is dividing out your different ethnicities and where that is showing on your DNA and that's what got me hooked really when I was reading that book I I was traveling on a business trip and as soon as I got to the hotel I logged onto the computer and I ordered kids from me and my wife because I wanted to have that chromosome painting number two I like knowing my Neanderthal ancestry Nanda Thal DNA is in everyone who has ancestors that are outside of Africa now this is some research that has really just happened over the last 10 years before that there was a couple of suppositions but for the most part nobody thought that modern humans and Neanderthals had interbred at all after DNA testing had became affordable after the human genome had been completely sequenced we found out from testing an turtles that we have some Neanderthal in us now it's not a whole lot I'll be honest 23andme will tell you approximately how many variants are Angella villians that you have and it's probably gonna range somewhere from 152 to to 350 it's not a lot when you think about the three billion letters that make up our genome but it is the only company of the major testing companies that tell you what your Neanderthal ancestry is and I like that number three I like being involved in research now I know that this is something that some people are opposed to or that they get prep the wrong way but I like being able to contribute to science one of the things with DNA is to do effective research you need lots and lots of samples you need hundreds and thousands of them 23andme provides a way that you can basically donate your DNA to science you can opt in to the research that they do that other companies do with 23andme and 23andme will actually tell you what research reports that were published your DNA was a part of so no longer are you just some anonymous person out there but you actually contributed to some of these research reports that are coming out and I like that if you notice my top three reasons so far none of them have anything to do with jenny ology and in fact my number-one reason with chromosome painting has everything to do with ethnicity which if you've seen a lot of my videos I've told you over and over that hey the ethnicity results they're a good educated guess and on the Continental level they're probably very accurate but when you get down to the country level or even a smaller level they're not so accurate and that has to do with the preference populations so it's it's pretty interesting that some of the things that I like about 23andme have nothing to do with jenny ology but let me go with two more things that I really like that do have to do with jenny ology so number four is being able to manage multiple kits with one account now I know that ancestry you've used to allow you to do this and I think you can still do this with your children on ancestry we thought with the other testing companies you are having to have multiple accounts to manage multiple kits there's ways that you can identify one person as the manager for that but it's still a hassle to put in somebody else's email and get that so that you can be able to do that in my case I manage kits that I've paid for for other members of my family who either weren't interested or they did it just because I asked them to and so if I was relying on on them to be a part of it to me updating things in most cases most of them wouldn't and so that's why I like being able to manage multiple kits it's easier to compare across kits it's also easier to manage the information that you're matching with other people not just within your family but also its matches broadly outside of your family and number five of my top five that I like about 23andme is their chromosomes browser it is an important tool to have ay chromosome browser to actually compare what parts of your chromosome you match with your matches that is a key for triangulation now 23 medias added some other things with that where you can be able to match multiple people with their chromosome browser and that's all great tools that I like that are important for genealogy and genetics and being able to compare your matches to yourself and other people so now that I've told you about the five things I like the most about 23andme let me tell you about three things that I don't like about 23andme first off number one I hate their messaging service I I started out with 23andme in first six months using it trying to contact different people you know there's a few people I was able to contact but the the actual code on the website it must be really bloated or something because it's very slow it is slow to actually get into it the changing from message to message are going from message messages it's not very easy at all it's not like my email where it just downloads everything and I can click quickly go through a half a dozen messages in under 20 seconds and see who's answered me know with with 23andme messaging service I have to wait while the computer loads up each message and find the right place to click to go this so the one thing I would tell you if you're using 23andme and you're making contact with people give them your email address as soon as possible because that's gonna be a lot easier for you then using their messaging service is the number two thing I don't like about 23andme is there is an opt-in for everything now I understand why they have the opt ins for everything but it would be really nice if there was just one opt-in he had your overall terms and conditions your overall consent form and you say you agree to this and you agree to it and you're good to go I tested with 23andme back in 2013 before there was the FDA lawsuit that they had as well as some other changes have happened to their website since then and so I've actually gone through all the opt-in process not once but twice now for myself but also at least a half a dozen times for the other people that I've tested with this and all those opt-ins just take up time and they're a hassle and I can see and I can understand why 23andme probably has one of the lower rates as far as people that contact you back or even people that you're matching with compared to the size of their database and it's really just because their their website is cumbersome to use when you're getting into opting into everything and opting into sharing your information opting into the medical research opting into this I would like to see something simplified where it's just one opt-in for everything or there's just some checkboxes where you can click off what you want and then opt in based on that rather than having to go through multiple web pages for all of these different things number three and this is a big one and it's the lack of a tree now several years ago 23andme with partner with my heritage and so you actually could have a tree hosted on there through my heritage and through 23andme partnership but since my heritage is gone to do their own DNA that partnership with 23andme it no longer exists and so there's no real tree on 23andme now in your notes section in your profile you can put a link to say a tree on ancestry which is fine but I really like being able to have that DNA link to a tree itself to a person on that and particularly when you're talking about multiple kits if I could be able to have a tree that I have me and my parents my grandparents my brothers my aunts and uncles that all the different kids that I manage all connected all in one tree that would be fabulous but I understand 23andme it's not a genealogy company genealogy really is the the side business I guess you can say they are primarily focused on medical research on looking at DNA selling that information to researchers and coming up with new things with that unfortunately because they're not a jenny ology company a lot of their website is not designed for genealogists in mind like I said there's no tree that you can be able to attach your DNA to and so you're always going to have to be using some other website for your genealogy research you're never going to be able to use 23andme as a primary depository for genealogy information so there you have it there's five things I really like about 23andme and three things that I don't like and don't get me wrong just because there are some things some major things like the tree issue that I mentioned that I don't like 23andme is still my favorite genealogical testing company to use I like the information that I get out of them I like the way that they display the results I like the genealogy tools for not being a genuine haulage company they have done a great job providing a lot of good genealogy tools on their website if you like this video sure to give it a thumbs-up so they can reach more viewers connect with us on Twitter at FH fanatics or on Facebook family history fanatics where we can interact with you and respond to your comments [Music]

Channel: Family History Fanatics

Views: 68,974

Rating: 4.8283262 out of 5

Keywords: genealogy, ancestry, family search, 23andme, 23andme review, dna test comparison, chromosome browser, chromosome painting, human genetic research, which dna test is best 2018, which dna test is best 23andme or ancestry, which dna test gives you the most information, which dna test is better, which dna test should i get, which dna test is better for genealogy

Id: 9yKx9O_TFeE

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 07 2017