[Misc] DNA ancestry kits - anyone used one?

[blue'n'white]

If it is 'your thing' then a family tree can be really addictive. A subscription to Ancestry gives you access to so much information nowadays you hardly have to leave your chair. Also as someone else has mentioned, you get hints from other subscribers trees showing who else is researching your relatives and what they have found.
It is amazing to see pictures of old documents about your family.
I initially went wrong by chasing my trees as far back as possible and got back to the 1500s on one. I have more interest at the moment researching people from the last 100 years or so and trying to match old photos that I have in my possession.
One word of advice. If you currently have no real interest in it but you have elderly relations, just get information from them and keep it safe. Get them to write names etc on the back of family photos so you know who they are. Somebody at some time will get the bug and find it all useful.

On the subject of certificates, yes you occasionally need to buy them to prove a hunch or find out a person's parents etc but it doesn't have to be that often and always buy through the Government Registry where it is cheaper.

I'd agree with this - I am an only child, both my parents are now dead and my aunt who was my last remaining blood relative died 10 years ago so I have nobody to talk to about the hundreds of family photos which I have which is frustrating in the extreme. I did speak to my aunt a few months before she died about the family and did get some quite useful information but you can always do with more !

 

[Fungus]

I'd agree with this - I am an only child, both my parents are now dead and my aunt who was my last remaining blood relative died 10 years ago so I have nobody to talk to about the hundreds of family photos which I have which is frustrating in the extreme. I did speak to my aunt a few months before she died about the family and did get some quite useful information but you can always do with more !

Frustrating, isn't it? I also have a box of wonderful old photos of people I can't identify. They must be siblings of grandparents or great-grandparents, so I'm still hoping to get lucky by finding cousins with similar photos. I wish I'd started a few years ago when my parents were alive.