Are ancestry DNA tests accurate? Or should I just keep doing my own ground work?

Not accurate wait until 50 more years....dna companies has agreed that their databases are developing over time and new research can change old info...so for me it's a no.

Not really. My results have changed so much I barely consider them accurate now. I went from having so much dna from like a fraction in Africa to 1 percent Italy and 2 percent Spain and now it got rid of most of it and now it says I’m 1 percent Finnish and 3 percent French wtf. The only part it got right was my German I’m 1/32 German my 3rd great grandfather came from Germany it changed from 20 percent to 4 percent German I guess that sounds about right and oh every test from different websites will tell you something different it’s all bullshît. It used to look accurate but with all the updates ancestry has went down the toilet

I agree with what everyone else has said. I loved my results, but they did not supply any information of ancestral birth places or anything like that. Just your personal percentages, how English, German, Scottish you are. It is not 100% accurate, as they are continuously advancing their research process. I believe the money is worth it, to have a better gist. Especially for me, growing up with my dad only to find out he wasnt. But like another user said, these results do not change who you are, lessen or better you in any way. You may think they do.

But I am all about my ancestry, and the ground work is the best part for me. Reading through the documents and learning about each and every family member, that will tell you much more than the numbers. Personally, I like having both. But if you arent interested in a somewhat exact estimate of your ethnicity, then its not worth it. Cause thats all it is.

it depend WHAT DO You want to accomplish with this?

it is all purley fun and has no real value

you are neither heighten nor lowered with revelations you have famous or infamous ancestors

your own accomplishments and failures are what make you not other family members

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ME I would skip the very inadequate DNA test

as pointed out the cumulative data is not enough to actually prove the race or heritage

it is a educated guess at best *

yet I fear a collection of DNA for nefarious reasons

I see no value in it

* they take the DNA of other people in other areas based on pure race and compare you. IT is still fledgling data and very inadequate

IF I really said what I think, they are making money and collecting a suckers list to sell -- Wish I had thought of it LOL

DNA tests does not give you anything about your ancestors' birth locations. It only can give you a general idea of what your ethnic makeup is, but nothing about their birth locations. Do you think those tests can tell you that your 10th great grandfather was born in the US? Obviously not. There's no "USA" DNA category. But many Americans are 10th generation Americans. It can, however, confirm your research, if you end up having a family tree that goes back enough generations and you get a shared match to somebody who also did their tree and got back to that same generation, since it shows that both of you had done research that brought your DNA connection to a connection point. Other than helping finding matches like that, and general ethnic makeup, that's about all it can do, and is mostly for entertainment.

Blood does not lie; family tree's do

All they'll tell you is roughly where in the world your very, VERY distant ancestors came from. Probably.

They won't help you draw up a family tree.

That takes years and years of research and hard slog!

I've been working on mine for over 30 years, and I'm nowhere near finished.

DNA is very accurate to find out whether two people are parent-and-child biologically. For ancestry it's not. Even the best DNA-test can't find much more than 47 of your "bloodlines", so if you look back more than 5 or 6 generations, there will have to be ancestors of yours that you did not get any DNA from

I've done both. My revised Ancestry DNA tests are fairly accurate, but my own research is far more accurate.

They are accurate enough to tell you your basic background. They are not going to tell you that you are related to Queen Elizabeth II.