AncestryDNA

Bought this kit, had it sent and ATTEMPTED to activate the kit as directed, received the same error at the end of the process, on every device I have. I then spent AN HOUR on a chat with a support person who had no idea how to solve the problem. In the end, the answer was, go find someone with a WINDOWS machine that will let you activate your kit there. Chrome and Safari and iOS don't always (ever in my case) work in activating the kit. I know it is an obscure hardware set up I am using, macbooks (2) and iPhone, so I guess I can't expect them to support Apple products, even the very latest version of every operating system and Google Chrome, which I guess is also an obscure browser that they have not tested. Avoid this crappy product. 

As I am 5th generation in Australia to carry the Prussian surname, I discovered that only a small percentage of me was East European. I was ecstatic to find that I am over 50% British (mainly because I could easily research UK and because of this I found that I have 2 Convicts in the family tree plus a free person arriving on the 2nd fleet when Sydney Australia was 1 Year old. (definitely an Aussie! :))

Just recently, i received an email from Ancestry with an update of my DNA and now know that the Eastern European side has been broken down again with someone coming from Lithuania.  I have now confirmed this with my research of an ancestor's christening record.   

Also, I completed the surveys that were emailed to me which as I understand, were looking for the next step; genetic makeup in regards to personality traits and physical attributes EG: short fat toes... etc.  After sighting photos of a family member from 1840's I've learnt that I have his eyelids and he looks remarkably like my brother and my son.

My biggest take knowing this information is, I now know my roots and where I am from.

 I am absolutely loving the journey of discovery so happy to help with any further research.

I'm an American living in England, and my sister in the states gave a gift of a DNA kit to my mother.
I hear the kits are around £130 in the UK, and $200 in the USA.

It was a complete waste of money - the results came in my mother's email, and the information was so general it could be applied to anyone.

We were all disappointed, and would never attempt that (scam) again.

The commercials are very misleading and make you think that there are specifics and some nice things to download. None of this is true. Our family new that there was aboriginal from our Swedish side from family photos of very dark skinned Grandparents. We also have darker skin ourselves. All ancestry dna gave was a general region called Norway/West Russian and after a second inquiry asking what our aboriginal tribe was that could be Laplander and why wasn't it in the results?, they replied saying that the region Norway/West Russia could mean that we have Laplander or something else from that region.

It was completely vague, and I would not recommend that anyone purchase an ancestry dna kit.

Dee

I did not really find ancestrydan was worth the money. I guess some could if you have no idea what your background is. I found the reports very vague. I already knew I had some Russian and was about half Irish.

 My results where:

48% Ireland/Scottland/Wales
24% Europ West
21% Europe East

and then a few low confidence results.

See it is not very informative at all and noy my genetic DNA is in the Ancestry database. I didn't think they would keep my genetic information after the testing. Not worth it.