Best DNA Testing for Tracing Migration Patterns

23andMe, one of the best DNA testing services, allows you to delve deeper into your family's history and the migration patterns they followed throughout history. Their DNA test will allow you to investigate your genetic ancestry and gain a better understanding of who you are. The Ancestry Composition Report, which is displayed on an interactive, colorful map, will show you which populations your ancestors belonged to, the country in which they lived, and their unknown migration paths. This data also includes information about cultures, languages, and specific regions, allowing you to narrow your search results down to the city level. You can also track your results by going through the Ancestry Timeline section and determining how many generations ago your most recent ancestor was in each population.

While some DNA testing services only provide autosomal DNA tests, 23andMe provides information on your maternal and paternal haplogroups as well. In other words, all three testing options are available for a single price here. Furthermore, in comparison to many other services, 23andMe has one of the quickest processing times, with results typically arriving within 3-4 weeks. However, we believe it's important to point out that the service lacks some serious privacy protection, and deleting your data — which is stored in the company — might be tricky. Also, the price can be a little high.

The $99 fee of your 23andMe kit includes shipping costs, and the company ships its kits to every state in the United States, as well as more than 50 countries worldwide. If you want to learn more about yourself, you can purchase the Health + Ancestry kit for $199, which is more expensive than the basic kit. However, the processing time is short, results are accurate, and interactive features are excellent. You can also order the kits as a gift with a personalized message, and let your beloved ones learn about their family history and migration patterns.

After completing a FamilyFinder test, FamilyTreeDNA provides YDNA Migration Maps to help you visualize your direct paternal ancestor's chronological migrations. This data can be traced back to "Y-chromosome Adam" in Africa and throughout history. The chromosome is a reconstruction of Homo sapiens' earliest yDNA and contains a wealth of information about the evolution of your descendants. It's important to note, however, that the lines and arrows on the map aren't specific to any particular areas; rather, they are meant to provide a general migration direction. In this regard, the results can be rather broad.

FamilyTreeDNA owns the largest mtDNA haplotree. Using mtDNA testing, you can look into your maternal line and find living relatives whose mtDNA matches yours, as well as ancient migration routes your maternal ancestors may have taken in the past. The mtDNA, like the yDNA, will extend all the way back to "Mitochondrial Eve" in Africa and into historical times. Many of these paths were not taken by your direct maternal ancestors. Unfortunately, one area in which FamilyTreeDNA could be improved is privacy. This is because the DNA testing service allows law enforcement agencies to use their DNA data to solve cold cases, which is rather unsettling if your privacy is important to you.

The pricing structure of FamilyTreeDNA is straightforward, with separate prices for each package. The Family Finder DNA kit is the cheapest, and it will help you trace your ancestors' migration patterns for as little as $79 + shipping only. The Paternal Ancestry test (Y-DNA) is $119, while the Maternal Ancestry test (mtDNA) is $159. Uploading raw DNA data from a previous test with another provider, such as 23andMe or MyHeritage, is a great way to save money. If you want to buy the kit along with other plans, it will cost you more, but it's a small price to pay for the health information you'll receive.

The Genetic Groups feature on MyHeritage provides ethnicity breakdowns for over 2100 geographical regions. Genetic Groups can provide detailed information about your ancestors' geographic regions and migration patterns in the past. They can denote a province, district, or even region where people with whom you share DNA have lived, or they can denote a larger area by simply taking a DNA test. MyHeritage shares additional insights about the groups, such as common ancestral surnames, common given names, common races and religions among the group's members, and more.

MyHeritage, unlike the other companies, only provides one type of DNA test, which is the autosomal test. When discussing immigration patterns, this may be a major obstacle to your research because other tests, such as yDNA and mtDNA, must be performed in order to obtain a more complete picture. Another disadvantage is the lack of access to historical records. To access the company's massive database of historical records and other premium records, you'll need to sign up for a paid subscription, which can be costly.

One of MyHeritage's best features is that their Basic plan is completely free, allowing you to create a family tree with up to 250 family members. The MyHeritage DNA test kit costs $89 plus shipping, making it one of the cheapest DNA testing kits available online. To access the company's massive database of historical records and other premium records, you'll need to sign up for a paid subscription, which can be costly. Furthermore, you can learn whether you have genetic predispositions to certain diseases by paying an additional $120 for the health upgrade, but we recommend sticking to what MyHeritage does best — providing excellent ancestry tests.

LivingDNA provides ancestry breakdowns for over 150 global regions, including 21 sub-regions of the British Isles and 72 genetic regions of Africa. Not only will you be able to see your sub-regional results, but you'll also be able to read all of the historical data on each region to better understand your ancestors' migration patterns. The company's European breakdown will also allow you to discover how much Irish ancestry you have in your DNA, as well as see how far back your Irish roots go with extended ancestry reports. Your regional predictions are based on genetic signatures discovered in people who have lived in that region for several generations.

The main problem with LivingDNA is that they only have a small pool of gene data outside of Europe, and their ancestry data is only 500 years old. If you want to know where your ancestors were before that, you should probably use the services of another company. To their credit, though, when it comes to privacy matters, LivingDNA is one of the few companies that guarantee that your results will be kept completely private. While they do conduct research with your data, they do not aggregate and sell your DNA data like other services do.

LivingDNA's prices are reasonable: the cheapest kit, which is the basic ancestry DNA testing, costs $119, while the most expensive kit, which includes the well-being kit, costs $199. You can also get a free 7-day email course to help you decide which test to take. But at the end of the day, this price isn't considered cheap compared to other DNA testing companies, and the processing time is far too long, often taking much longer than stated. Their prices may be considered on the high side for a product aimed primarily at the European market.