Living DNA Review – My DNA Adventure

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I am a great believer of liberalism. I do my best to support and promote the ideas gender and race equality, freedoms of speech, religion (although, I myself being a humanist, I’d rather live in a secular world). I try to make ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, tolerance and science. The respect of other human beings irrespective of class, race or creed as well as other living creatures on this planet is fundamental to the humanist attitude to life. 

This is why this slogan from Living DNA resonated so well with me: “we are all made up of all of us”. The ancestry test based on my DNA was on my adventure wish list for quite a while but I never got the chance to move forward with it. I’m saying adventure because that’s what it is – for me, it was a real excitement to receive my test results. I’m sure you’ve seen some videos popping up on your social media feed featuring people finding out more about their ancestry – all the thrills, excitement and positive shock as they find out more just captivating. I find the whole possibility, that science is now so evolved that something like this is imaginable – I was totally mind blown. I was also really moved seeing these videos and so ever since, I really wanted to take the test. It is really possible to decode your DNA.

For most of the people there are different reasons to take the DNA test to find out more about their family’s past. Most of them want to find out more about their unique ethnicity breakdown, and some people are looking to find DNA matches either to complete their family tree or because they don’t know their biological family. 

How it works

I had to provide DNA sample taken with a help of a mouth swab (really easy, takes a minute), register your sampling kit online, send your sample off (literally, all I had to do was, to put the sample into a bag provided and pop it into a post box!) and wait. It takes 10-12 weeks to get the email saying my results are now online, go and check. 

• Living DNA has the highest level of data and personal in- formation protection and puts our customer in control of how it is used. 
• Living DNA uses the newest DNA chip and innovative soft- ware technology, developed with top academic experts from University College London, Bristol University and Oxford University.
• Living DNA is a socially responsible company with a mission. Some of the profits goes to “One Family, One World,” where they share their their knowledge with schools around the world using DNA testing to show students how we are all connected.

What do you get

Your results cover three main areas of your DNA: family ancestry, motherline ancestry and fatherline ancestry (for males only). The family ancestry will give you a peer into the recent past, 10 generations back in time. This is the most interesting part of the test for me, as it’s possible to follow the last few centuries on a map, clearly giving you an idea where your most direct family is coming from. Your family ancestry looks at both your recent ancestry from all sides of your family broken down across up to 80 worldwide regions, and then allows you to explore this at different times in history. 

Apart from this, there are other extra’s included : like your very own, raw DNA data which you can download – be aware though, that they are not suitable for medical diagnosis.

As the research expands and genetic science evolves, the results will be kept updated.

My results

My results have partially shown what I already knew as my mum did some research too. She managed to track her own family back to the 18th century with the help of the catholic church. Her schwab ancestors were moved from the German dominions of the Habsburg Emporium to the Hungarian dominions during the ruling empress Maria Theresa. These green spots are clearly showing up on my ancestry map. But there were two other interesting thing I didn’t know about: the first is that I’m in 18% British and the second that my motherline goes all the way back to to the Tuaregs in Africa.

It was a fantastic opportunity to take the test and read more about my family history and my ancestors – and ultimately get to know more about myself!

This is a collaborative post with affiliate links.