I've had my DNA tested by 23andme as well as familytreedna.com. My interest was primarily in my ancestry, as I am adopted, and my biological mother disclosed no information at all about my biological father. She was supposedly of English and German background, and she's the most common haplogroup in western Europe. My biological father was a bit more exotic in that his haplogroup, G2c, occurs almost entirely among Ashkenazi Jews.

My interest now is more geared toward health issues. I upgraded to the latest version of 23andme so that I could find out my APO E2/3/4 status, and unfortunately I'm a double E4, which puts me at the highest risk for Alzheimer's. As I understand it, E4 is the original ancestral form; that makes me think that might be a clue as to why I do so much better on a paleo diet than on an agrarian diet. I also have an estimated 2.9% Neanderthal DNA, which puts me in the 91st percentile.

And also, I'd take your data from 23andme with a grain of salt. It's fun to play with for sure, but people I trust who do genetic testing for a living (a leading breast oncologist at Stanford, for one, who thinks about BRCA mutations all day long) said that the science behind it is not solid. I didn't quite follow the specifics, but when I asked if BRCA results could be retested with 23andme or similar places, she said no, because they do not use the same methods as the place she uses, and something about the genes being randomly cut and sampled made it less accurate a model.

So have fun, enjoy, but if you're seriously concerned about your genetics, you might want to check in with your local genetic counselor/relevant physician.

Some of the other paleohackers have done some stuff by running their raw data through this program. They always say, "I found out I am a carrier for BLANK" and when questioned they say they ran their raw data from 23andme through this free program. I always try to dig more info out of them, but I always get vague answers. Its really cool stuff too -useable info, unlike most of 23andme results. Sigh..

http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia:FAQ#Why_don.27t_some_genotype_names_match_between_SNPedia_and_23andMe.3F

However, at this point I am useless.

I downloaded it, then it didn't load up like a user friendly program. I think I had it running my raw data, but it ran forever (like 9+hours on a super fast computer) and no end product was produced. I don't even know what the end results looks like, a report with details would be nice, haha.

ALSO: Use the search box and search 23andme -you will find tons of similar posts.

That's why I didn't get tested, and why I also don't do things like track my workouts (or meals). Before I ever collect any data, I always ask the question: "If I were given, for free, 100% perfect data, what would I do with it?" If I don't have an answer for that, I don't collect the data.

I recently was tested as my Dad and Mother's momma have Parkinson's. It was a great relief to find I have no genetic predisposition for anything in most of their tests, and I've even been contacted by a number of potential relatives regarding our genealogy. I imagine my family issues are related to being vegetarian and later having gallbladders removed, rather than genetic issues.

I'd recommend it for those who don't know their family history. Mine stops in the 1920s, largely to do with loosing a fortune on the stock market.

I say if you are interested and have the cash, why not?