23andMe+ Premium Membership Bundle - DNA Kit with Personal Genetic Insights Including Health + Ancestry Service Plus 1-Year Access to Exclusive Reports (Before You Buy See Important Test Info Below)

Outstanding item.Just as advertised.

I’m so glad I did this! I found a cousin that I haven’t spoke to since I was a child. The health part is VERY informative!

Seriously, that and the medical stuff my doctor couldn't be bothered with screening for (kidney stones, liver and cardiac disease, cancer susceptibility, drugs I was being prescribed I really shouldn't be taking) and then looking at the results and charging my insurance a premium just to verify yup, that's a true thing. Ancestry is a side bonus and honestly it's what I thought of when I bought it. HUGE disappointment. But the medical tests? God I think it paid for itself in terms of what hereditary issues I have my family wouldn't tell me like dementia, Parkinson, and anemia. So yes, probably really worth your time to pay for this then talk to tour doctor as an ounce of prevention is Seriously worth a pound of cure. Or death avoidance.

I know, I know.... some people are big on not selling your DNA to the government but your umbilical cord is taken away at birth so.... they already have it. Just get the dang test. We learned so much about our family and I even found distant cousins in different countries. Learned a LOT about health as well and got a lot of answers. I really did enjoy this.

I bought both this and Ancestry DNA to cover my bases. Lets' compare.COLLECTIONAlmost identical. You spit into a tube, wrap it up, send it in. Then wait.TIME UNTIL RESULTSNearly identical. It took around 4-ish weeks for both. They emailed me at different steps of the process which was nice.RESULTSPretty surprising. Ancestry DNA says I am 33% English, 23% Irish, 19% German, 13% Scottish, and so on. 23andMe says I am 77.1% "Irish & UK", 17.7% French & German, 4.3% Scandinavian, and so on. Comparing Ireland and UK, Ancestry totaled 56% while 23andMe totaled 77%. Quite a difference. Ancestry didn't even pick up on my French ancestry while 23andMe didn't quite recognize my Norwegian ancestry.23andMe did include results for WAAAAY back results like Middle East, Africa, and even Neanderthal.USER INTERFACE/EXPERIENCEI will give 23andMe the edge here. On Ancestry you can see the highlighted countries representing your DNA. On 23andMe you can click the country and see all of the regions/counties where your DNA is from. Bolder regions show where more DNA is from vs. lighter regions. So rather than just "Ireland" I know most of my DNA came from County Dublin, County Mayo, County Cork, and County Galway. Pretty cool.KEY DIFFERENCES23andMe dives much deeper into your health markers. You really can't make informed decisions on it but it's still interesting to see that I have an increased likelihood of skin cancer, glaucoma, ADHD, etc. 23andMe has the ability to build a family tree but if that's what you're after, Ancestry beats them hands down.Ancestry has years and years of data from others building their family trees. What this means is you can add your parents, grandparents, etc., and there is a high probability Ancestry will automatically identify your past relatives. Basically, "Hey, we think we found a good match for Jane Doe's parents. Does this look right?" With that feature I was able to build out my direct lineage back to the 1700s in a couple of hours.CANCELLATIONThis is where it gets fun. Cancelling 23andMe and SUUUUUUCKS. The site conveniently broke for me when I went to cancel. What made this more annoying is you have to sign up for their annual subscription to get your results. Yes, the results that you already paid for with this kit requires an annual subscription. But don't worry, you can "cancel at any time." I ended up having to write to customer service to cancel. It took almost a month to get back to me. So I just completely deleted my account and scrubbed my DNA results (assuming they follow privacy laws). That whole process was annoying and left a bad taste in my mouth.Ancestry was super easy to cancel. No issues there.BOTTOM LINEI think both are worth it given the varying results. The health data is interesting but not something I am putting much stake in. If I only had money for one, I would absolutely go with Ancestry.A NOTE ON THE RECENT BREACHThe recent 23andMe breach occurred through a password spray attack. Basically, people who use the same password everywhere were targeted. This is all the more reason to use different passwords for every site and app. Also, use MFA whenever you can. Yeah, it's annoying but getting hacked is way more annoying. So no, 23andMe's systems weren't hacked -- individual users were hacked. Because there is the ability to share data with your DNA matches, this also impacted people connected to those who were hacked. Yes, 23andMe should have had detection capabilities to identify this attack sooner but it's not quite a doom and gloom as the media would portray.

One of my cousins convinced me to try and take this test since my family is sort of chaotic. Just to see what type of results I would get. What came out of this test is WILD. My same cousin who convinced me to try the test was demoted to a lesser cousin than we thought. Now, I am in my 40's.... I have spent my entire life believing this one lady was my aunt. My mom's sister for 40ish years. This test told me... that was a lie. This "aunt" was actually my cousin and the cousin I was closest to was my cousin's child. So, that means one of my actual aunts or uncles (mom's sisters or brothers) birthed my "aunt" who is actually my cousin. Say what and none of the aunties / uncles are fessing up on who the parent is and no one else is taking a test! Hmmm..... this got interesting!

Good

I liked having this to see my heritage! As someone who’s adopted it’s neat to see what your DNA is composed of!