Testing your own DNA is becoming more popular as time goes on because people want to dive into the past and find out about their own history and where they came from.
DNA testing can tell you lots of interesting things about yourself and your family that you might not have known before. It can also help to confirm some facts about your heritage that you think you might already know.
Your family is only able to tell you so much, and some families might have knowledge that stems from a few generations ago, but there is always more information just waiting to be discovered.
With these DNA testing kits, you will receive this information at your fingertips through your results.
Your results can include things like ethnicity estimates, personality and traits information, information about your genetics, and even information surrounding your health, like conditions that you may be genetically predisposed to developing.
If you are looking for the very best DNA testing kits available, then you have come to the right place.
What is a DNA Testing Kit?
You can order a DNA testing kit online from a variety of different companies. These companies are all competing to provide the best tests on the market, and there are so many different options to choose from.
When you purchase a DNA test, you will be sent a testing kit in the post, and you will have to provide a sample of your DNA. This is completely non-invasive and doesn’t take much time at all.
For most companies, you will be required to send either a sample of your saliva in a collection tube or a cheek swab from inside your mouth. This varies depending on the test that you choose.
After you have provided your sample, you will need to send it back to them in the mail. Usually, you will be given a pre-paid envelope along with your kit so that you can send your sample back with ease.
Your sample will make its way to a lab, and once it has arrived, the lab technicians at the facility will begin processing your sample. This process usually takes a few weeks to be completed.
Once your DNA has been analyzed, the lab will put all of your results into a report, which you will then be given access to. Some companies will provide this in a paper format, and others will give you online access through your account on their website.
You will then be able to explore your results and start your journey into the past.
The Best DNA Testing Kits
There are so many different companies offering DNA testing kits that it can be difficult to choose just one.
This is why we have done lots of research to determine which ones are the best possible choices.
This way, you can make a well-informed decision about which product to buy.
OUR TOP PICK
Ancestry DNA
EDITORS CHOICE
23andMe
BEST VALUE
My Heritage
OUR TOP PICK
Ancestry DNA
Ancestry DNA provides you with detailed results about your ancestry and is a great place to start when looking for information about your past.
Ancestry DNA is a cutting edge DNA testing service that utilizes the latest scientific technology to uncover stories from the past.
The service combines DNA science with the world’s largest DNA database to help predict your genetic ethnicity and help you to find new connections with the family that you may not have even known about.
It will map your ethnicity back multiple generations and provide information about where your DNA originated, and even where your ancestors were from and where they migrated to.
In order to take the test, you will need to provide a saliva sample by following the simple instructions provided.
Your results will then provide you with information that connects you with your ancestors and provide you with the geographic locations that your DNA originates from.
The regions that are available to be tested are now at over 1000 possible locations across the world. This information can provide you with links to living relatives that have also taken the test through Ancestry DNA.
It will usually take between 6 and 8 weeks for your results to be ready, but it can also take less time than this. It will all depend on how long it takes for the lab to process your results and how busy the service is at the time.
You will also need to activate your DNA kit online in order for the process to begin, so don’t forget to register your sample.
You will be notified when your results are ready via email, and you will be given a link that will take you to your results. You can also view them via your account.
There is also a search function on the Ancestry DNA website that will provide more insight into your past familial ties.
You can look through birth, marriage, and death records as well as census and electoral rolls, immigration and travel documents, military records, school registries, criminal records, and more.
They have a huge database that you can look through to find these historical records and documents, which can help to shed some light on previous generations of your family.
You can search for people’s names in relation to the year they were born and the location they lived in.
You will have to pay a subscription fee to access the most information, as the free version is limited as to what you can view.
There is also a family tree function where you add known family members to your tree, and as your research uncovers more information, you can start to add more and more names of family members to your tree.
This is a great feature for keeping all of your family information in one place, as it is more easily accessible to have it all in front of you at once.
EDITORS CHOICE
23andMe
23andMe has two different DNA testing kits that you can choose from, depending on what type of information you are looking for.
The two kits that are available for purchase are the Ancestry and Traits service and the Health and Ancestry service. Before we go more in-depth about the two types of DNA tests, here is some information about the test itself.
To take this test, you will need to provide a saliva sample. This is similar to most other testing kits, and once you have provided your sample, it will need to be sent off to the labs for analysis.
Anyone can take this test, and it only takes a few minutes to complete. Once your sample has reached the lab, they will start to carry out the necessary tests.
The first thing that they will do is look scan the barcode to find out who the sample belongs to. This is why it is really important to register your sample before you send it along in the mail. Without this information, the lab will not be able to process your results.
Next, they will extract your DNA from the sample and process it using a genotyping chip. Once this process is completed, the lab will send the final results back to 23andMe to begin interpreting your data.
Your results will be available to view in your account within 2 to 3 weeks of them receiving your sample. This is a guideline, and your results may take longer during busy periods.
The first type of DNA test that you can take with 23andMe is the Ancestry and Traits service. This test is the cheaper option of the two, and it will provide you with lots of information about both yourself and your ancestry.
You will receive a full ancestry composition report that uses the DNA that is inherited from both sides of your family and will tell you how much of your DNA originated from each of the 45 genetic populations across the world.
It can also tell you where your ancestors migrated to at different points throughout history. The report will compare your DNA to people from over 150 different countries across the world and which can help to tell you much more about where your ancestors lived.
You can also opt-in to the popular DNA Relatives Feature, which will allow you to find and connect with people that are genetically related to you.
This will enable you to be able to share your results and combine forces to find out even more about your past and even the segments of DNA that you share with each other.
This can tell you how close you are related. This feature will identify any available relationships on your family tree using modern knowledge about chromosomes.
When you get your results, you will be provided with trait reports that will tell you about the different traits that your DNA makes you more likely to inherit.
This can include physical traits like eye color and freckles, or it could be personal traits like an aversion to certain tastes and smells. It can be interesting to compare your results with reality to see how accurate they are.
The Health and Ancestry report will give you access to all of the same results as the first test, but it will also include information about your genetic health predispositions to certain health conditions.
You will be able to find out what health conditions you are at a higher risk of developing, and also the ones that you could be a carrier for.
BEST VALUE
My Heritage
The testing process for MyHeritage is slightly different than most other DNA testing kits, as you just need to take the swab that is provided in the kit and collect a cheek-swab sample by following the included instructions.
This makes the test really easy and quick to complete, and once the lab receives your results, it will take them between 3 and 4 weeks to provide you with your results.
When your results are ready, you will be notified via email, and then you can access your results through the MyHeritage website.
In order to process your results, the MyHeritage DNA test uses microarray-based autosomal DNA testing. This test will provide them with raw data that helps them to calculate your DNA matches and ethnicity analysis from your paternal and maternal ancestral lines.
The experienced lab technicians process each sample individually using new technology. They will extract your data and amplify it to translate the biological information into raw data.
They then use algorithms to calculate your ethnicity estimate, which will tell you which parts of your DNA originate from which regions around the world.
They will also compare your DNA to the DNA that they have in their database to find any of your close or distant relatives.
You will also be able to connect with these people through the website to find out more information about your family that you might not have already known.
The places in which your ancestors lived will be known from testing your DNA, and this information will tell you about which ethnic groups that you come from. MyHeritage has 42 supported ethnicities that they can test your DNA for.
You can also use this newfound information to create your very own family tree on the MyHeritage website. They will recommend relatives that share your DNA that you can add to your tree.
There are different subscriptions available that you can purchase, which will give you access to more information.
As you might have expected, the higher the price of the subscription, the more information that you will be able to look at.
The three subscriptions are the Premium, Premium Plus, and the Complete subscription, and with the Complete version, you will be able to access all of the available information. This includes features like smart matches, instant discoveries, and access to 12.6 billion historical records.
Each subscription will give you one year of access to the relevant information.
RUNNER UP
Tell Me Gen
This DNA testing kit is another where you will have to provide a sample of your saliva in order to take the test.
When you receive your kit, the first thing that you will need to do is to register it. You can do this online through the Tell Me Gen website, where they will walk you through what you need to do.
Once you have finished this, you can provide your saliva sample following the instructions that came with the kit and mail it off to the lab for testing. For young children between the ages of 0 and 3, you will be provided a swab to take the test.
Included with the test kit is a prepaid returns label so that you can send it to the correct place without any hassle. You will get your results back within around 4 to 6 weeks, but this is an approximate time, and it may take longer.
When your results are ready to view, the company will contact you so you can log in to your account on the website and take a look.
The genetic map that is created will tell you all about your likelihood of contracting a number of different known diseases in comparison to the average risk of those of the same ethnicity, age, and gender. This knowledge can be beneficial in giving you the opportunity to better protect yourself against such diseases in the future.
The test can also tell you about whether or not you are a carrier for certain health conditions. These are conditions that you might not actually develop yourself, but you could pass on to your children and future generations.
Your results will also give you information about your personal traits like your alcohol tolerance level, tendency to gain weight and any other traits that make you unique. You can also find out certain aspects about your future children, like what color eyes they are most likely to have.
More recently, due to our ability to look within our genetic material, scientists are able to figure out the origin of our ancestors and what region they belonged to.
When you get your result, you can expect to see your assignment to different ethnic groups, which will be shown as a percentage.
You can see how many groups you belong to and what percentage of your DNA comes from each different region.
There are certain populations that are not yet represented through Tell Me Gen, which means that some places may not show up on your report.
Instead, it will show the ethnicity estimate of those ethnicities that are represented through this company so far.
RUNNER UP
Living DNA
Living DNA has three DNA testing kits to choose from that will provide you with different types and levels of information.
The three kits available are the Wellbeing kit, Wellbeing and Ancestry kit, and the Full Ancestry kit. To take the test, you need to provide a simple cheek swab sample and mail it back to Living DNA to be tested.
Your results will usually take between 6 and 8 weeks to be ready, after which you can view your results online.
The first product, the Full Ancestry kit, will provide you with a detailed view of your ancestry and your family history. Living DNA provides worldwide ancestry results that can show you exactly where your ancestry began from a list of 150 different regions around the world.
When these regions are located, they can look even further into your ancestry and can sometimes find out the exact town or village that they originated from to provide you with even more details.
Your results will also be able to reveal your close and distant family relations through the DNA matching tool that can match you to people all around the world.
You can opt-in to use this service to see how much DNA you actually share with other users. You can even look back to tens of thousands of years ago to see your relationships with your ancestors and see how they migrated from Africa to different places around the globe.
The Wellbeing DNA testing kit will help you to understand the role that genetics play in your lifestyle. This can help you to figure out how to optimize your wellbeing by making adjustments to your lifestyle.
You can understand how different foods, vitamins, and exercises work with your body, and you can even find out aspects that you may be lacking in.
You can discover how your body metabolizes and how it responds to key vitamins, and even see if you are prone to certain food allergies.
This test is great for letting you know how your body works well and what small changes you can make to benefit more.
The Wellbeing and Ancestry DNA kit will include all of the results from the two previously mentioned kits, and is therefore the most expensive choice out of the three.
You can use this test to uncover your ancestry and obtain comprehensive wellbeing reports for nutrition and fitness.
Conclusion
The five kits that we have mentioned in this article are some of the best DNA testing kits available to the public, and they can provide you with lots of information about your past and even the present.
You can learn all about your ancestry with all of these kits in varying detail, and with some tests, you can even learn about your health and traits that are associated with your DNA.
The level of detail that you will receive in your results will depend on the type of kit that you have used, but you can find out all of the factors that they test for before you buy it.
Usually, the more expensive that the DNA testing kit is, the more information you will be provided with. This is because they tend to run more extensive tests that will provide you with more information.
All tests will require you to submit a sample of your DNA, but the results that you receive based on this sample will vary between different companies.
Now you have an idea of what is involved in the top five DNA testing kits, you can make an informed decision when it comes to choosing just one of them. Hopefully, your results will uncover all of the answers that you are looking for.