Richard Moody, who works at WLTX, sought out both AncestryDNA and 23andMe genetic testing, the South Carolina TV station's Chuck Ringwalt reports.
Moody, who was adopted, says he wanted to find out more about his ancestry and what that might mean for his risk of disease. But, Moody says the two tests gave differing results. The AncestryDNA test told him he was mostly Western European, hailing from the region that includes Belgium, France, and Germany, among others, while the 23andMe test said his ancestors likely lived in the British Isles, with a smaller French and German influence.
"When you see something and you're going for information, it makes me a little uneasy just because they say two different things. From a broad perspective they say the same thing, but when you get granular, they go in opposite directions. 23andMe was a lot more granular," Moody tells WLTX.
Genetic counselor Whitney Dobek adds "[i]t's fun information, but you do have to look at it as just that and not necessarily something to hang your hat on."
She notes that the variation in the results likely stems from the companies examining slightly different regions of the genome and comparing them to slightly different reference samples.