It’s good to know where you come from. It makes you what you are today. It’s DNA, it’s in your blood - Alexander McQueen
The story of humanity is written into the core of every single living being on Earth. As a species, we are the sum of our collective history, wisdom, and knowledge, but as individuals, everything that we are, and will be is imprinted in our atomic structure.
Our past is just as important as our present in determining our future, and that past is fashioned into every cell of our beings.
We are the product of everyone who came before us, and everything that they were is imprinted in us, and to understand, and access all of the information that is stored within us, and what it means for each of us, we just need to learn how to read it.
Less than two centuries ago, the idea of a genetic marker that contained all of the information that nature used to make us who we are, was a laughable concept.
First identified by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher in the eighteen sixties and then later isolated and “discovered” by James Watson and Francis Crick in the nineteen fifties, DNA is the building blocks of life that makes all of us who we are.
Our DNA is unique, it makes each of us who we are, and while no two individuals share exactly the same DNA, there are enough common markers within our DNA to trace our familial and ancestral origins.
It isn’t just who we are, it’s the story of who we were and could eventually become. But if you want to know your story, you’ll have to read your DNA, or more accurately you’ll have to find someone who can read your DNA for you.
That means you’ll need to employ the services of a DNA testing company, to do it for you. And one of the most reliable, and fastest-growing, DNA testing companies that you can trust to help you untangle, and read, your story is DNA Worldwide.
Who Is DNA Worldwide?
DNA Worldwide was founded just over a decade ago to ensure that everyone who wanted to could have access to the sort of testing that would unlock all of the hidden secrets that their DNA possessed, and could without a shadow of a doubt, establish biological and familial relationships.
They’re a company that understands how difficult, stressful and demanding it can be to have to face and undergo a DNA test, which is reflected in the level of client support and customer support that they provide.
Fueled by a joint commitment to integrity and reliability, DNA Worldwide developed and patented the United Kingdom’s most advanced testing platform that covers all of the DNA, drugs, and alcohol testing services that the company offers.
While most DNA testing companies regularly test sixteen DNA makers, all of DNA Worldwide’s tests examine forty-six markers or more to deliver a far more complete and accurate record of your DNA.
In fact, their tests are so detailed and in-depth they can be used to trace familial bonds up to the fifth cousin level. That isn’t just detailed, it’s the deepest dive into DNA that you’ll find outside of a government-based intelligence agency’s laboratory.
Regularly asked to retest for other laboratories, DNA Worldwide ensures that all their staff are given the sort of training that their exacting standards of accuracy and detail demand.
With an in house team of scientists and technicians who have hundreds of years of experience between them, their services have been called on to solve vastly complex legal cases.
Specializing in immigration services, their exacting and exhaustive testing is regularly used to prove an individual’s right of residence in the United Kingdom.
While we were never in doubt about the scientific ability of DNA Worldwide to deliver the sort of results that we’d expect a company with their impeccable credentials to, what initially drew us to them, was their near-flawless record of customer care.
Because of the nature of the services that they provide, their customer care team regularly goes above and beyond the call of duty to thoroughly and comprehensively explain the testing process and everything that it entails and involves.
After spending some time talking to them about the service that they provide, what the testing involved, and what we’d be expected to do and could in return expect from them, we felt confident enough in their commitment to their customers to entrust our sample to them for testing.
DNA Worldwide Ancestry Test
We’re DNA test veterans, and we’ve been around the home-based kit block more than a few times during the last couple of years in an effort to compare the services that various DNA testing companies promote and offer.
Unfortunately, we had to pretend to be testing virgins to DNA Worldwide’s customer team in order to make sure that they were going to treat us the same way that they’d treat any other potential customer, and even though playing dumb was harder than we thought it would be, we managed to pull it off.
The best way to compare testing companies, in our experience is by using the one kit that they all seem to offer no matter what else they specialize in, and that’s their own version of the Ancestry kit.
That was when we hit an, admittedly minor, stumbling block with DNA Worldwide. The Ancestry Kit that they’re responsible for creating isn’t actually sold or marketed by them and is only available through Living DNA's site.
Produced in partnership with Living DNA, it uses the testing technology that DNA Worldwide developed (and was used to create the kit in collaboration with one hundred acknowledged expert in the field from all over the globe) to test the sample that you provide and traces your ancestry back at least ten generations and also provides free lifetime updates to your familial results.
And as both Living DNA and DNA Worldwide claim that it’s the most detailed ancestry home test in the world, how could we resist trying it?
Testing The Worldwide Living Way
So, even though the kit is based on DNA Worldwide’s testing technology, we had to order it from Living DNA which felt a little strange, as we were supposed to be reviewing one company, but we were going to another to get the product that we needed to do the review.
It was a convoluted way of doing things, and one that we weren’t used to dealing with and hadn’t had to deal with before.
The kit arrived remarkably quickly after we’d hit the buy button on Living DNA’s website and as soon as it was in our possession, even though we already knew what to expect as both Worldwide and Living’s sits had provided a brief overview of what was in the box, we opened it to examine the contents.
It was, as both sites had told us it would be, a standard based home testing kit that contained detailed instructions concerning its usage, a swab, a sterile container to put our sample (the used swab) in, and a pre-paid envelope to return the sample to the testing company.
As we said, we’re old hands at hand testing, so we broke the swab out of its packet, and while rotating it to make sure that we collected enough saliva for Living (and Worldwide) to be able to extract a sufficient amount of DNA for testing, we rubbed the swab inside of our right cheek.
After sealing the swab in the sterile container, we put it in the envelope and posted it to the joint ventures responsible for testing it.
We did, however, remember to activate our online Living DNA account using the twelve-digit code that came in the kit.
This was a new step for us, and one we hadn’t had to do before, and if we hadn’t been paying attention and hadn’t read the instructions thoroughly, we might not have done it.
And no account would have meant no results. Whatever you do when ordering a kit from Living DNA and DNA Worldwide, remember to read the instructions a couple of times before you do the test.
The Worldwide Results
Here’s the thing. Unlike other ancestral tests, the Living DNA uses a combination of mtDNA (the DNA that comes from your mother), Y-DNA (that you get from your father), and your DNA to trace your maternal and paternal ancestry to provide a far more in-depth and detailed record of your familial history.
It breaks your ancestral history down to around eighty different regions around the world, including twenty or so from the United Kingdom. When they say their test is detailed, DNA Worldwide really means it. And that probably explains why it takes so long to get your results back.
We knew it was going to take a while, as DNA Worldwide warns you when you purchase the kit that it’ll take around twelve weeks for your results to be available in your account, and they were fairly precise when it came to estimating the time of delivery.
When they did arrive, even though we knew they would be, we were surprised by how in-depth, and easy to understand, the results were.
While we were aware of most of what we learned from the results, there were some unexpected revelations, despite us thinking that we already knew everything about our ancestry, that we weren’t quite prepared for.
It would appear, after receiving our results, that the old adage about the best things being worth waiting for, is true.
What Else Does DNA Worldwide Do?
As a company DNA Worldwide is keen to point out that rather than being focused on Ancestral testing, they specialize in Immigration testing, which seems to be what the company was specifically set up to test for.
Immigration DNA Testing
Comprised of a set of three individual, and distinctly different tests, the Immigration DNA testing service that DNA Worldwide offers is exhaustive and among the most comprehensive in the world.
Boasting an infallible one hundred percent accuracy record, it’s designed to test the paternal, maternal, and sibling familial connections in order to determine an individual’s right to settle and live in the United Kingdom.
Legally binding, these tests are so definitive that, depending on their outcome, they can be used to alter an individual birth certificate, challenge a will and grant the person being tested full citizenship.
As part of the test, DNA Worldwide offers a full support and care package in which their staff will guide the person being tested through every step of the journey, provide regular progress updates and help them to understand what their results mean for them and their family.
The meticulous approach to testing and the scrupulously detailed results that it provides go some way to explaining why all three tests included in this umbrella grouping are so expensive.
While they’re far more affordable than pursuing legal advice and funnily enough are far more likely to be successful, it doesn’t change the fact that it is an incredibly pricey way to prove who you are.
DNA Paternity Test - Establish The Father
With two available paternal testing options, DNA Worldwide state with absolute certainty that both their standard paternity test and their prenatal paternity tests are the most advanced in the United Kingdom and are one hundred percent accurate.
Both are legally binding and the results are indisputable and will prove with absolutely no margin of error, who the daddy really is.
What is surprising, given how long the results of the ancestral tests take to reach their clients, is how fast these tests are.
The prenatal tests take a maximum of twelve days while the standard paternity test results are available to all parties within five working days. And all of the options, as well as providing absolute legal proof of paternity, are incredibly, and easily, affordable.
Extended Family Testing
The first thing that DNA Worldwide stress about these tests is that they’re incredibly complicated, and in an effort to maintain their one hundred percent accuracy record, they test four times the number of DNA markers that other companies do.
Another umbrella grouping that includes maternal, avuncular (aunts and uncles) sibling, twin, and grandparent testing, all five tests involve the examination of up to sixty-eight different DNA markers in order to prove or disprove familial relationships.
While most of the tests are within the easy financial reach of most people, the test that DNA Worldwide uses to prove the grandparent and grandchild relationship is, due to its complexity, reassuringly expensive and will almost certainly put off any but the most determined of possible grandparents from being tested.
Drug and Alcohol Testing
The final tests that DNA Worldwide offers are sample-based drug and alcohol tests. Unlike DNA tests, they require a sample of the person being tested’s hair, nails, urine, blood, or saliva in order for them to be successful.
More invasive than the other tests that DNA Worldwide provides, they are primarily designed for legal cases and are, as with every other test that DNA Worldwide performs, designed to be one hundred percent accurate.
The results are fast, usually being returned within three to seven days, and can determine whether the testee has used, or abused alcohol or illegal narcotics at any point in the last six to twelve months.
While we’re sure that they’re a service that you’ll almost certainly have no, or very little, use for, knowing that they are readily available at an affordable price point is something that we find both comforting and reassuring.
DNA Worldwide - In Conclusion
Before we contacted DNA Worldwide and set the DNA testing ball rolling, we didn’t really know what to expect. We thought, wrongly as it turns out, that they would be a cold, clinical company who were more obsessed with data than their client’s wellbeing.
In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth and we found them to be open, communicative, and extremely forthcoming. They went to great lengths to explain everything that they do, and what they expected from us, and what we could expect from them in return.
It was a little disconcerting to find out that the test we wanted was only available from the second party site, and made us wonder whether Living DNA was actually an offshoot company that was set-up to deal with a different arm of DNA Worldwide’s business.
Regardless of how their business is set-up when the kit did arrive, it was easy to use and the instructions that were provided were simple and straightforward.
Despite the fact that it took three months for our results to arrive in our account after we sent our sample in, when they did they were so in-depth and detailed that we nearly forgot all about how long we’d had to wait for them to turn up.
And given the all-inclusive, incredibly affordable price (that includes the lifetime updates) that we paid for the kit, and the results that we eventually received we’d have absolutely no compunction or hesitation in recommending DNA Worldwide (and Living DNA) to anyone and everyone who was slightly interested in tracing and establishing their familial and ancestral history and story.