This popular DNA kit is on sale just in time for Father's Day
Help Dad learn more about his roots for Father's Day.
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Before I started working at Reviewed, I never gave DNA testing a second thought. But because my coworkers had such powerful experiences, I decided to give it a shot too, and let me tell you—it's been completely eye-opening. Like for starters, I learned that I actually am mostly Irish (more than 70% anyhow). I was able to trace my ancestry directly back to counties Cork and Donegal, and even tracked down my great-grandmother's arrival records at Ellis Island.
Fun fact: I also did all of this through Ancestry Family Tree within a week of getting my results back.
Besides feeling like I really do belong at St. Patrick's Day parades now, DNA testing helped me fill in the gaps in my family tree and gave me the chance to learn more about my heritage than I ever knew before. With a database of more than 10 million people (and counting), AncestryDNA delivers some of the most precise results possible, since they're drawing from more than 350 regions around the world and are constantly updating their geographical data.
The one downside to DNA testing is that it can be pretty expensive. Even AncestryDNA, which is one of the most popular DNA testing kits out there now, is on the pricey side, since the standard kit normally costs $99. But right now, you can get a DNA testing kit directly from Ancestry.com for just $59, which is the lowest price we've seen this year and only $10 more than the best price ever on Black Friday.
Taking the test itself is fairly straightforward: you spit in a tube that they provide until you reach a marked line, then seal it and send it back to the Ancestry. It can take anywhere from two to six weeks to get your results back (I got mine back in a little over two) and once your results are ready, the company will send you an email. You can learn all kinds of details, including information about your ethnicity, potential DNA matches, and more. You can also use it like I did to build out your family tree, and if you sign up for a free 14-day trial of Ancestry's subscription service, you can get access to all kinds of public records, including marriage, birth, and death certificates—and in my case, my great-grandmother's immigration records.
While some people might feel squeamish about DNA testing because of privacy concerns, Ancestry's privacy statement actually makes it clear that your results are in a secured database and the lab will never have access to your personal information.
This great deal runs until Monday, June 17, so it's right in time for Father's Day. If you've ever been curious about your family tree—or you want to help Dad learn more about his own—then this is a great time to try this out. Another great thing about AncestryDNA is that you can get more insights into how your DNA affects your characteristics with Traits, which is now $10 more than when they first released it. And while these kits are technically on sale on Amazon right now too, we think you're better off buying from AncestryDNA directly, since Amazon's selling them for $10 more.