10 Reasons Why Ancestry.com and AncestryDNA are worth it.
More than likely, you’ve seen the show Finding Your Roots and maybe even know people who have taken DNA tests with surprising results. However, in your mind, you’re wondering. Are Ancestry.com and AncestryDNA worth the effort and associated costs? From the people I’ve personally helped whose lives are changed, the answer is a resounding yes!!
But before I go into the reasons why I recommend Ancestry® I want to address the fear and concerns some people have regarding DNA tests. I’ve seen a few of them, and the ones below are just a sample. My goal here is to ease your mind.
“The results are inaccurate.” DNA is an ever-growing technology. As such, ethnicity results can be slightly questionable. However, as they say, “DNA doesn’t lie.” That match you see is related to you. You can deny it all you want, but it doesn’t change the facts—sorry, people.
“DNA is vulnerable to hacks.” As of this writing, it’s 2021 and EVERYTHING is vulnerable to hacks, even your Ring doorbell.
“Companies could sell your Genetic information.” I’ll keep this simple. Just go with Ancestry.com and problem solved.
“Your genetic information is not anonymous.” Really? This statement is not even worth my response.
“Your genetic data can be used against you.” Want to be safe on this one? Go with ancestry.com
And the most significant reason, which encompasses all of the items previously mentioned, is…Fear. Now that’s a tough one as fear doesn’t respond to reason. It is a function of brain chemistry.
I’m an educated person and have a B.S degree, working in Manufacturing Engineering at a major aerospace company. My wife can tell you that I’m an extremely logical person. I won’t even argue with you if I consider anything that you are saying to be illogical. I’m a Sci-Fi fan, so I can blame it on years of watching Spock from Star Trek. “That’s highly illogical, Captain Kirk.”
Yet despite this, I will admit one thing in my life that is illogical; my fear of heights and tall bridges. I know that It’s irrational. I will drive 50 miles out of my way to avoid a tall bridge. I’ve done it once before. Don’t judge me! LOL. In 2016, I was in Charleston, SC, and decided to visit its historic downtown area.
As I was driving there and using Apple maps for navigation, the APP didn’t notify me that I needed to take the last mainland exit which forced me to travel over the Arthur Ravel Bridge. I was petrified, and when I got to the other side, I immediately closed Apple maps and used Google Maps to provide me a route back to the other side. My route instructions? Make a U-turn and head back over the bridge.
I didn’t use Apple maps for years after that. My wife is afraid of cats, one of my daughters is afraid of wax figures/taxidermy, and another is afraid of spiders.
So, I get it. At one time, early American Indians were afraid of being photographed. So if you are still absolutely terrified of DNA tests, no worries, you can still have an acestry.com tree but without the advanced DNA tools. For the rest, read on.
1. Ancestry® is the Leader in Family History
Ancestry® is the world’s largest online family history resource, bringing together billions of historical records, tens of millions of family trees, and millions of enthusiastic family history researchers. It is the best place to build a family tree, find new ancestors, and share discoveries with family. And because it’s stored online in the cloud, you will never lose your data or have to worry about backups. I have genealogy programs on my computer’s hard drive, but I use Ancestry to store my full tree.
2. You can Discover Rich Details about Your Family
You can get answers to your questions, such as who were your ancestors? What were their lives like? What motivated them? And how did it all lead to you? This is how I found all of you, my cousins and relatives. You can do the same for the other sides of your family.
These are the questions Ancestry® can help you answer, with access to over 20 billion records. Here are a few examples of Ancestry® record collections and what they can reveal:
Census records: Can tell you what your family members did for a living if they owned a home, how much education they had, and more. You’d be surprised. After leaving Washington, Texas as a farmer, I discovered that my grandfather Nelson Winters was a longshoreman in Galveston.
Vital Records: Birth, marriage, and death records can reveal details like where your ancestors lived and where their parents were born.
Yearbook records: You could find out what your relatives looked like in their school years, what their interests and hobbies were, maybe even find their senior quote. You looked so cute! I’ve found lots of your embarrassing high school photos, which I use as your profile picture.
3. You can Build Your Family Tree
A family tree is both the starting point for putting together the pieces of your family story and the framework for continuing your family history research.
With Ancestry®, each person on your tree has a profile, where you can enter the details you learn (like birth dates and places), include links to the online records where you found the information, and even attach photos.
Once you enter a few details into your family tree, Ancestry begins scanning its vast database of records and member family trees for more information about your relatives.
Based on the details you provide, Ancestry® can often generate Ancestry Hints® (also known as shaky leaf hints) that can lead to new discoveries, like a marriage record, an obituary, or an old yearbook photo.
4. You Can Use the Power of DNA with Your Family Tree
AncestryDNA® can give you unique insights into your family’s origins and enhance your family history research. If you opt into the DNA Matches feature, your test results include a list of other opted-in test takers you share DNA with—and thus could be related to.
These people, or DNA matches, could be relatives you never knew you had. They may be able to help you fill out your family tree even further with additional information or family documents passed down through the generations.
Your AncestryDNA® results also include an ethnicity estimate, which can give you insights into where your ancestors might have come from. This can provide important clues, especially if something unexpected comes up, like ties to a region you didn’t expect. This is how I discovered that our family has roots in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and especially Mississippi. And I might mention that although we are from Nigeria, we also have European roots. That’s a story for another blog.
AncestryDNA® could also help narrow your family history research, as it could pinpoint very specific areas within a larger region. For instance, the Winters family seemed to be centered around Hinds, Mississippi, where the slaveholders lived in 1849. I’ve found so many DNA matches in that area.
5. You can Make Real Discoveries
Every day, Ancestry® customers make fascinating discoveries about their family stories through genealogy research and DNA testing. They tell me about the findings, and I help them through them.
These discoveries help each of them piece together the puzzle of their family past and help shape their understanding of who they are today. Here are a few of their inspiring stories.
In short, this means that you don’t have to be featured on an episode of Finding your Roots like celebrity LL Cool J. You can make some discoveries on your own.
Discovery Examples:
Finding the African American Heroes in Her Family Tree Michelle was in college when a friend did some family history research on her behalf. It led to conversations with her grandmother that resulted in surprising revelations about her family, fueling her interest in her family story. She has since discovered many heroes in her family tree, like a great-grandfather who was born into slavery and became a reverend and four ancestors who fought in the U.S. Civil War. Learn more.
Honoring the Legacy of Their Ancestors Jason, a longtime customer and Ancestry employee, was on a mission: to discover the names of his enslaved ancestors. He never dreamed his research would lead him, along with his mother and sister, to the Virginia plantation where their ancestor’s culinary legacy lives on to this day. Learn more.
6. You Can Uncover Your Origins with AncestryDNA®
AncestryDNA® has the world’s largest consumer DNA database: Over 18 million people have taken its DNA test. It uses advanced genomic science to help test takers uncover new details about their origins—from the regions of the world their ancestors might have come from and where they might have moved over time, to possible relatives, to insights into personal traits like freckles and lactose tolerance.
7. Learn More about Your Origins with Ethnicity Estimates
AncestryDNA® tells you which people and regions your family is connected to. For example, it can tell you if your ancestors are connected to people from Ireland & Scotland or Senegal. My uncle and I share traces from Germanic Europe, which ties into my great grandmother Gertrude Yarbrough’s lineage. Gertrude is a German name.
Each region is assigned a percentage, such as 31% Nigeria, 17% Mali & Ireland 2%. The world region with an accompanying percentage is known as an ethnicity estimate, and it tells you approximately how much of your DNA likely comes from that part of the world. An ethnicity estimate of 25% Ireland & Scotland, for instance, means about 25% of your DNA most closely resembles that of people who have historical roots in Ireland and Scotland.
8. Trace Your Ancestors’ Journeys Over Time
Using the massive AncestryDNA® database and its vast treasure trove of millions of family trees, AncestryDNA® Genetic Communities™’ technology can also tell you more about where your ancestors may have lived in more recent times. And it can shed light on how some people in these communities might have moved around the globe over the same period.
For instance, your ancestors who may have come to the U.S. from the western part of the state of Durango in Mexico could have migrated to Southern California between 1925 and 1950 to work in agriculture.
9. Connect With Other Opted-In Test Takers for a Deeper Family Story
If you opt into the DNA Matches feature, your AncestryDNA® test results include a list of other opted-in test takers that you share DNA with—and thus could be related to.
These people, or DNA matches, could be relatives you never knew you had. They may be able to help you fill out your family tree even further with additional information or family documents passed down through generations.
10. Ancestry Thrulines™
One of the most valuable features of AncestryDNA® that is useful for building out your family story is ThruLines™. It’s a tool that links your family tree with those of your DNA matches as well as other Ancestry members. This helps you see how you may be related to your DNA matches (for instance, how exactly you are related to a particular DNA match listed in your AncestryDNA test results as a “3rd to 4th cousin”). And it can help you potentially expand your family tree and connect with new cousins.
Summary
In the end, value is perceived by one’s own perception, and what matters to you. What price are you willing to pay for good service? Ancestry provides unquestionable value as it relates to family research. And its DNA products are second to none. In addition to Ancestry, FamilySearch.org is invaluable. It even has records that are not on Ancestry. However, unlike ancestry, the site uses one big tree, which you don’t own, and anyone can edit it. It sounds good until someone with the same name changes your tree and connects people who you know are incorrect.
Also, as far as DNA goes, there is 23andme, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and a few others. I have DNA tests with quite a few of these, and even found one of my favorite cousins, Rhonda Jenkins, with 23andme. In fact, she was on the 2019 Winters Family Reunion Committee. And if you are looking for family, you want to look under every rock if you can do so financially.
In closing, this site is mainly focused on my maternal grandmother, the Winters side. My Winters Family Tree on Ancestry.com can be accessed here.
But there is also my father’s side, and my paternal grandfather’s side as well. And if even if you’re a Winters relative of mine, you still have others sides to explore. So take the plunge! And if you need any help in your research, just reach out to me here.
What are you waiting for? Go get em’!
