Is it worth taking an AncestryDNA test?

[Nortunal]

I took the LivingDNA test and came back as 98% British and 2% Scandinavian. I’m pretty sure the Scandinavian is just noise or ancient admixture since it’s nowhere to be seen in recent times.

LivingDNA seems to have mapped out my regions really accurately, even down to the 2-3%s. The only non-British which might be in there is a slither of Irish, which I think has been absorbed into the Aberdeenshire region. But apart from that - my paper trail is entirely British and I have no reason to believe there’s anything from another country mixed in there.

Having said all that, I wanted to compare results and see if there was anything else in me. I sincerely doubt it, and since LivingDNA has been so accurate, I don’t know if I’d be wasting my time or not.

I have a feeling AncestryDNA would just lump a lot of North West Europe, Irish and probably Scandinavian in there for good measure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not British since there’s such an overlap. However, I’m also aware that LivingDNA can sometimes overinflate British DNA and I’m wondering if anything else has been absorbed into this large 98%.

My papertrail just leads to a lot of rural places where I still have relatives to this day. And if it’s worth noting, my family are all from Western England with a tiny, tiny bit from North Wales. I had around 3% Southern and 3% South East England pop up. But that was it.

Thoughts?

[Angriff]

I wouldn't bother. While Living DNA can inflate Great Britain ancestry when there is overlap with Irish or Continental, this is irrelevant if you have a good paper trail showing you are British.

[Molfish]

I took the LivingDNA test and came back as 98% British and 2% Scandinavian. I’m pretty sure the Scandinavian is just noise or ancient admixture since it’s nowhere to be seen in recent times.

LivingDNA seems to have mapped out my regions really accurately, even down to the 2-3%s. The only non-British which might be in there is a slither of Irish, which I think has been absorbed into the Aberdeenshire region. But apart from that - my paper trail is entirely British and I have no reason to believe there’s anything from another country mixed in there.

Having said all that, I wanted to compare results and see if there was anything else in me. I sincerely doubt it, and since LivingDNA has been so accurate, I don’t know if I’d be wasting my time or not.

I have a feeling AncestryDNA would just lump a lot of North West Europe, Irish and probably Scandinavian in there for good measure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not British since there’s such an overlap. However, I’m also aware that LivingDNA can sometimes overinflate British DNA and I’m wondering if anything else has been absorbed into this large 98%.

My papertrail just leads to a lot of rural places where I still have relatives to this day. And if it’s worth noting, my family are all from Western England with a tiny, tiny bit from North Wales. I had around 3% Southern and 3% South East England pop up. But that was it.

Thoughts?
The main reason I got an AncestryDNA test was for the more accurate raw data. If not for that I probably wouldn't have. If you're interested in Genealogy and want to fill in blanks in your tree the genetic matches can be very useful, although it's going to cost you more on top of that.

The ethnicity estimate will be pretty worthless compared to LDNA if you know you're fully British.

[digital_noise]

I was gonna say, if anything it would be worth it for the raw data. wait for a sale, like fathers Day or whatever excuse they come up with to knock $30 or so off the price.

[jshook]

I would say no. I did it in reverse order (Ancestry then Living DNA) precisely because Ancestry's results were more generic. And, at least in my case, they have a crazy bias towards Ireland/Scotland/Wales at the expense of English DNA.