I got an e-mail just now that Ancestry.com has finally announced that its new autosomal DNA testing is here. Unlike the traditional mtDNA and y-DNA tests, the autosomal tests are available to both males and females and more specifically gives you an idea of your ethnic make-up and what regions your ancestors came from. For someone like me who is pretty exclusively northwestern European, I'm excited to see if it can isolate any particular subgroups from those regions, but I'm not expecting to find much diversity. For someone like the boyfriend, who has northern European, southern European, black Carribean and Mayan roots, I am almost literally DYING to see what this test can tell him. The last tests I did and made my male relatives do were done only four years ago, but even in that span of time, there have been so many advances in this kind of technology that I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of light, if any, this new test can shed on my family tree.
If you're an Ancestry subscriber, your invite should be coming. I imagine that it won't be long before the test becomes available to the public. I'm curious to hear from you - is this something you have already pursued or plan to pursue as part of your genealogy research?
DNA testing has the power to yield an accurate answer to a mass multitude of questions that one could be asking themselves. Regardless of it's mandated requirement in some areas or not, having it done in general can open the door towards any health issues that your genetics may have passed to you or your children. DNA testing is a VERY powerful tool that one should utilize!
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