Quote Originally Posted by cudarunner View Post
The ONLY WAY that I'd even consider using the Ancestry site is if I had all of my brothers and sister do it also---Separately! Just to see how 'accurate' the results are.
My whole family did the test (they had an xmas special last year) from different parts of the states and the results came back almost identical. some had more of one geographic region than another but they were all very similar. this just has to do with the different alleles that get passed down by chance from your father and mother. So as far as consistency, they're spot on. Now the argument that they may not be representing the historical geographic regions accurately is a different story, though I tend to believe it for the most part. There's a lot of science that goes into validating their results up front.
I worked with 23andME (a similar service) when I worked for a cognitive assessment startup, and the science behind what they do is sound and practical without making many assumptions. I'm fairly comfortable with the results to be honest. and I'm a bit more cynical than most.
Just my 2 cents, but I figured I'd share since i have a bit more insight just by chance... i'll stop hijacking the thread now.