MyHeritage VS AncestryDNA
My Heritage and AncestryDNA are the two biggest rivals when it comes to ancestry DNA testing with genealogical complementation. Both companies offer state-of-the-art ancestry DNA tests designed to explore your ethnic percentages and tell you more about your direct paternal and maternal lines. They also feature extensive genealogical databases with billions of historical records in the form of old documents, personal journals, newspaper articles, and written stories.
Choosing between the two DNA testing providers can be pretty challenging, so we made this detailed My Heritage vs. AncestryDNA comparison. Once you have a parallel overview of all the most important features of these two DNA testing companies, you can easily make the right decision regarding your needs.
Highlights
- Top-of-the-line sample processing facility/accurate results
- Numerous features and subscription plans available to users
- 45 million family trees, 3.9 billion profiles, 12.4 billion records
- Price: $79.00
- Shipping:Worldwide
- More than 700,000 DNA markers checked for optimal precision
- Search for potential matches among 7 million DNA signatures
- Download your raw DNA data file to use with other companies
- Price: $99.00
- Shipping:35 Countries
Compare Features
Compare Ratings
Compare User Reviews
- Submitted By Peter on 11/09/2019Unable to stop a subscription Be very careful with this company. The website is not that bad but once you want to stop your subscription it is very hard. They respond with an email but next year they just take money from your credit-card and keep your subscription. I have a bunch of emails where I confirmed that I really want to stop my subscription but again they took 189.01 euro. Be warned, do NEVER take a subscription at MyHeritage, they are scammers.
- Submitted By E on 11/05/2019The worst! Our family took DNA tests as a group. After spending $$$, matches appeared on some of the family accounts and not on others. In other words, the match display were incomplete. (Obviously if you have a cousin who appears as a match on this site and every other DNA site, then you should appear as a match for them as well). MyHeritage support was a complete joke. Totally unhelpful, slow to respond, and moronic. Save your money and take literally any other DNA test!
- Submitted By Antonina Starsinszky on 06/07/2019MyHeritage is great for family matches and such, but overly simplified in ethnicity. Mine showed I was 100% Eastern European only. That is very unlikely as I have never seen anyone else get 100%. Kinda cool, but not true. If you have more unique ancestry like tatar, udmurt, ossettian, or something like that it will brush over it and place it in a broad region. Good thing is you can upload your raw data to many other sites for free. !!!!! I uploaded to 5 others(get the most out of your money people) and they all showed diffirent variations of North Eastern slavic, Albanian, North European (disagreed if Im Scandinavian or British(from 12 to 24% so weird MyHeritage didnt catch it). GenePlaza were more spesific to put me as Norwegian, Scottish Argyll and Orkney for Northern Europe) and 4/5 of the others showed small percentage of Indian & South Asia! GenePlaza again traced it back to Gurjati indian which makes total sense knowing I have a great grand-parent of Romani(gypsy) decent. That site also placed me as Mordovian which is highly likely due to my geographical location. Generally yes its not wrong Im 100% ish eastern european. Since I am west Russian that could be similar to North Europe because of Viking influences in the past, and if Romani got lost in translation, but its such a boring result compared to what others give you. So I recommend MyHeritage only as a means to upload to other sites or for finding DNA matches only. They have great feutures for filtering relevant matches as well. + acsess to family tree if you pay.
- Submitted By Marie Utley on 07/06/2019This is Marie, I love the time frame on our DNA test. To me they did a wonderful job, I was totally shocked by the results of where we was from. My daughter and I could not believe it. We really looked at each other and laughed, and it shocked us completely. But I believe it, and my son, we was "Totally" shocked about his DNA. They did a great job, and the price was justified as well. I will recommend them to the rest of my family members. Thank You! MyHeritage.com for doing a great job.
- Submitted By Alan on 04/27/2019Interesting results that align closely with the likes of Gedcom/gedmatch. When you think about that many people constantly migrate from one region to another (or historic invations and conquests) everyone's bloodline gets pretty much mixed up so no test will be able to guess where our ancestors decided to locate. Despite this, I was shown to have 25% French. We always thought it was Germanic, but then, there was a lot of migration across the ages through this area. It accurately showed our dna from 3 continents, though there was much discussion in my family of the countries selected. Only downside is that Ancestry won't accept results from other testers (eg, Myheritage etc) but accuracy is probably about as good as it could get.
- Submitted By STEVEN WOOTEN on 04/13/2019AncestryDNA is a complete rip off. Everything they told us, we knew from googling our last name (which I had done). They did not include anything outside of that information. They did not include anything from my Native American ancestry at all. A person can look at me and tell it's there. I certainly do not look like I am completely Irish and British considering my dark skin, hair, and eyes. What a total waste of time and money. I do not recommend ever using them. There has to be more reputable companies out there.
- Submitted By Sofia on 19/02/2019I have been really disappointed with my results!!!! I am 100% sure I am half Russian and half Italian but the results showed that I am 0% Russian an 27% Italian. Even my Native American results (which were 1%) were higher than Russian! I can not believe it, because my mums side is fully Russian. I hope the company will improve in the future.
- Submitted By Abigail Hunt on 10/15/2018After testing with Family Tree DNA, my husband and I decided to expand our list of relatives and explore the database offered by Ancestry. We found so many new relatives, some of which were located in Europe, out of all places. If you’re adamant about researching your genetic past in-depth, doing a single test is not enough, not by a long shot. Ancestry gave us much more information than FTDNA, but we still have to do the 23andMe test and check their database as well.
Winner
MyHeritage is a DNA testing provider founded in 2003 in Israel. It combines genetic research with genealogy, allowing its users to create family profiles, print family trees, share photos, perform DNA testing, perform MyHeritage DNA Health test, stay in touch with relatives, research family history, and much more. Read all about its services in our MyHeritage review.
Scope Of DNA Tests
MyHeritage provides a direct-to-customer ancestry DNA test with an at-home testing kit based on cheek swabs. The processing part of the test examines 690,000 genetic markers across your autosomal chromosome pairs. This means that MyHeritage doesn’t check your gender chromosomes and can’t provide you with stand-alone results regarding your direct paternal or maternal lineages. The company also offers more than 8.96 billion historical records and over 40 million family trees. The regions covered by the test and the size of the database are currently unknown.
AncestryDNA, on the other hand, opted for a saliva-based at-home testing kit. The test checks 700,000+ genetic markers and explores all 23 pairs of your chromosomes. Your final report will include ethnic estimate based on 350 worldwide regions and you’ll be able to search for genetic matches across 7 million + profiles in the company’s database.
Test Processing Times
MyHeritage’s final report is usually generated within 3-4 weeks.
AncestryDNA test results will arrive 6-8 weeks after your DNA sample reaches its processing facility.
Privacy & Security
MyHeritage will never disclose your personal information except in some cases determined by law. The company will collect your identification and family info, your DNA samples and results, and your usage of the website.
AncestryDNA has a very strict privacy policy and declares you the administrator of your personal test and profile. You’ll be able to customize the public visibility of your test and even transfer your administrator rights if you so choose. The point is, no one will be able to see or access your personal info without your explicit permission.
Value For Money
The price of MyHeritage ancestry test is 99$, but you can also get a free report by transferring your raw DNA data from other companies, which is a great financial benefit. You can start off with a free plan and work your way toward the Premium (9.17$ per month) and Premium Plus (10.95$ per month) subscriptions. Access to the genealogical database is charged 13.27$ per month. In other words, MyHeritage offers excellent value for the money invested.
AncestryDNA doesn’t feature subscription plans and all you’ll ever have to pay is 99$ for the main test. However, its father company Ancestry.com LLC is the biggest genealogical database on the planet, featuring numerous brands you can use to uncover all the secrets of your past. To put it simply, Ancestry offers the most detailed ancestral reports and information for the price.
Overall Experience
MyHeritage was envisioned as a genealogical database, but it outgrew its original frame and implemented a genetic component into its business model. Its genetic processing rivals and even surpasses most of the competitors in terms of speed, accuracy, and scope.
AncestryDNA needs no special introductions. It is an integral part of the world’s largest genealogical conglomerate and features high-quality ancestry DNA testing. Keeping in mind its popularity, you can see just how far MyHeritage has progressed over the last couple of years when it can stand on equal ground with giants like AncestryDNA.