Best Genetic Genealogy Company? (2023 DNA Review)

A nerdy approach to determine which DNA testing company is the best in 2023.

The tests reviewed: Ancestry DNA, GEDmatch, 23andMe, MyHeritage DNA, Living DNA, & Family Tree DNA.
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CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
00:20 Criteria
03:27 DNA Company With Largest Database
05:15 DNA Company With Quality Matches
06:46 DNA Company With Best Triangulation
07:51 Best DNA Company to Transfer Into
09:00 Best DNA Company With Useful Tools
11:29 6th Best DNA Company
11:57 5th Best DNA Company
12:39 4th Best DNA Company
13:04 3rd Best DNA Company
13:31 2nd Best DNA Company
14:02 Best DNA Company of 2023

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✅ Let's connect:

#FamilyHistoryFanatics #DNATests #geneticgenealogy

[lisaquigley-moon]

Waiting for the day one of them buys the others & all my matches are in one spot.

[sae]

My Heritage is my favorite because of the large database of European matches.

[andresdiazgarrido]

I am from Chile (Latin America) and myheritage seems super bad for Latinos, since it still cannot separate the DNA of indigenous from European (Spain) and mixes everything as "Mesoamerican and Andean", it still cannot separate well by specific regions america, as if it does familytreedna that separates well the indigenous and european groups. taking into account that what matters most to us Latinos is the reliability of the DNA results to know where our ancestors come from. what company do you recommend?

[Musenschmooz]

Best IF your population is represented in that particular database. Ancestry needs to lower their triangulation cm's. Ancestry makes a big deal about sideways, when it would have been equally helpful (long ago already) to be able to triangulate matches, such as for instance on 23andMe or on MyHeritage. Being European I have to go with MyHeritage, and 23andMe, because 23andMe gives one a full breakdown atDNA, mtDNA, Y-DNA and the X-DNA.

[maxiculture]

MyHeritage stands out with its triangulation at a glance and chromosome browser at a click. It's good for matches for an Aussie with mostly UK background. One negative though is segment inclusion down to 6cM, that throws up way too many junk matches. Thanks for the report.

[amberjenkins]

Ancestry is best for solving family mysteries - large database, detailed trees, and convenient ways to search for matches and easy to research your matches lines.

23&me is best for detailed ethnicity reports with regions being highly accurate in my opinion. Also a large database but no way to research.

My heritage has too many pay walls. But lots of matches to sort, and some basic information about matches to research and find clues.

[DicDeryn]

Ancestry is great for matches and I find its ethnicity is the most accurate. Of course its lack of a browser is frustrating. 23andme has a good browse and haplotype Info, most members are interested in health not genealogy. Myheritage ethnicity is a mess, it does have a browser though. Livingdna and familytreedna are too small to be useful for me

[turkkahvesi]

I think myftdna is the best since it is the oldest and has the biggest database in this field, they also got NatGeos database. All other companies got ftdna user raw data online and formed their own database I belive,
New companies offer autosomal dna testing which I believe cannot give any info about ethnicity. To say that you are 20% Irish they should have a sample of 100% Irish dna which I doubt if they have. Ydna and mtDNA testing would be reasonable to take.

[yepuhhuh]

What do you think about sequencing gnome test??

[celticmulato]

My Heritage has mostly members from the UK and is highly recommended to transfer your dna to My Heritage to have more information. I discovered so much more from my British distant cousins some who paid a professional genealogist so I took advantage of the matches which was correct.

[FamilyHistoryFanatics]

Qotd: Do you agree with these results? Why or why not?

[davidleearchibald]

Now question concerning the size of the database. For the companies that allow one to transfer their DNA into them is that part of the size of their database or is it that one has to test with that company?

[jessikamoore]

But with Ancestry, don't they have less European testers? They give me no communities outside of the US despite me having several great great grandparents that were immigrants. Also I have rarely used Ftdna for matching. I don't have any close family on there. As for Gedmatch, none of my close family want to regiuster on it because of the breach they had before. Most of my matches I have no clue who anyone is.

[ramonmartinez]

Hello, thanks for all this information that helps us select the best DNA WS.
what do you think about CRI Genetics?
Thanks

[gregsim]

Why have you not considered Borland Genetics? BG has matching, tools, collaborations, etc. BG is small but seems to qualify for your rating system. I find BG more useful than LivingDNA.

[kswildlifephoto]

I know this is off topic, but my mom passed away several years ago. Shortly afterwards I got Ancestry. Recently my sister gave me a comb that contains my mom's hair a few strands. Is there a way to get the DNA from it and get the DNA results to Ancestry or 23& ne?

[glenjones]

I have around 30k matches spread almost evenly between Ancestry and MH though only 12 on MH are above 50cM. I have around 450 matches on My Living DNA but only 3 are above 50cM. There is one duplicate on all three sites and the cM figures for that match vary from 68-98cM, where it not for the fact I know who they are and that they have used their name rather than a strange username it would be easy to assume they were a new match. As my matches on MH seem more 'quantity' than 'quality' there isn't much of an incentive to trawl through thousands trying to pick out cross site duplicates which is a shame. A low cM match my be just as helpful (in some cases more helpful), as a high cM match but with so few above 50cM I would soon be in the danger area for false matches. Until I start to see a reasonable number of quality matches I won't be subscribing to MH as it wouldn't offer me value for money.

[davidirwin]

Have to agree if you are serious about Genetic Genealogy MyHeritage overall comes out the best. Everything you need to overcome "most" brick walls is there. There continues to be a problem with some distant family lines in which the matches have "no information/no family trees" and perhaps with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and the ability of these companies to hopefully make use of it in some way - such as AI being able to analyze all your matches and all the respective trees and to propose a possible answer as to the MRCA (where virtually no info exists - in other words solve it better than we can) but this hurdle exists with all the companies. Also - now agree that Gedcom is #2 - finally I've been mining that goldmine they have with their MRCA (your DNA matches that have common ancestors on their trees) - something I kind of overlooked before. #3 - Ancestry - the Thrulines is still fantastic however they do need to get on board with a chromosome browser, clustering and to reveal to us the chromosomes and segments of our matches.

[Iraia_Roberts]

Did you get digital copies sent to other companies, or did you do the DNA kits?

[carolannsuniga]

So which company is the most accurate? I tested first with Family Tree, and then Ancestry. My results were a little different but not too much. But I had a lil more of a break down in my European DNA. I had no idea of French, English, Basque, Portugal, Norway, and Jewish DNA. It trickles down from French after the indigenous. I showed no Ethiopian or Mesopotamia etc.. I showed Senegal, and Congo etc. My mom's nieces and her daughter showed Spanish, English, and Africa DNA line mine, but they had more European. I brushed my teeth and hour to an hour and 15min. before I did my test from both company. Did I mess up my results that way!😬