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Founded in Utah in the 1990s, Ancestry.com — the parent company of AncestryDNA — started out as a publishing and genealogy company. Since then, it has had a somewhat tumultuous corporate existence, having been bought, sold, publicly traded and then purchased by private equity groups.

The company’s basic DNA kit service provides you with an “ethnicity estimate” derived from its proprietary sequencing techniques. It’s noteworthy that the company’s genetic testing, which is outsourced to Quest Diagnostics, is distinct from most other companies that use paternal Y chromosome and/or maternal mitochondrial DNA methodologies, and less is known about the particular criteria it uses. 

That noted, AncestryDNA says its database contains more than 18 million profiles, making it the largest of all of the DNA test kit services. The company also maintains a powerful tool for searching through hundreds of historical document databases — but any substantive research will quickly bring you to a paywall. Ancestry’s databases are further bolstered by its partnership with FamilySearch.org, a genealogical records site run by the Mormon church.

An entry-level membership, which provides access to more than 6 billion records in the US, costs $119 for six months or $25 per month, after a free two-week trial. The “World Explorer” membership, for $40 per month, broadens your access to the company’s 27 billion international records, and the “All Access” tier, starting at $60 per month, includes unlimited access to Ancestry’s historical and contemporary database of more than 15,000 newspapers and military records from around the world. 

AncestryDNA offers a personalized health report with “actionable insights,” access to genetic counseling resources, an online tool to help you map your family’s health over generations and a next-generation sequencing service for screening your genetic risk for heart disease, some cancers and blood disorders. Still, the results are not diagnostic — though the test result must be approved by one of the company’s physicians — and the service does not have FDA approval. For now, 23andMe maintains the advantage when it comes to introductory DNA testing for health risks and genetic screening. But AncestryDNA’s service is particularly well-suited for leveraging an introductory DNA analysis into deep historical research to build out a family tree.

AncestryDNA allows you to download your full DNA results profile and upload the raw data into other tools, and it provides reasonably good control over your privacy preferences, though the options are not as granular as others. 

Read more: What AncestryDNA taught me about DNA, privacy and the complex world of genetic testing