UsefulCharts

• No single DNA test was best for everyone because the five services examined served different purposes. Matt Baker found CircleDNA strongest for health information, FamilyTreeDNA for advanced genetic genealogy, 23andMe for combining health and ancestry, AncestryDNA for North American family research, and MyHeritage for European and Jewish genealogy.

• CircleDNA offered the most extensive health testing but was also the most expensive. Its $629 premium package examined risks associated with 36 hereditary cancers and 79 other conditions, carrier status for 163 inherited conditions, and potential responses to 103 FDA-approved medications; the basic package cost $189.

• Baker's own medical history demonstrated why DNA risk predictions cannot be treated as diagnoses. CircleDNA identified elevated susceptibility to type 2 diabetes but did not flag ulcerative colitis, which he had developed in his twenties, illustrating the influence of environmental and other factors beyond genetics.

“genetics is not destiny”

• Autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome tests investigate different parts of a family tree. Autosomal DNA reflects ancestry from both parents, mitochondrial DNA follows the direct maternal line, and Y-DNA traces the direct paternal line; the latter two can reveal lineages extending tens of thousands of years into the past.

• FamilyTreeDNA provided the deepest specialist lineage reports, but obtaining all three test types cost $360. Its $80 autosomal test excluded mitochondrial testing ($160 extra) and Y-DNA testing ($120 extra), making the full package most appropriate for experienced genealogists interested in detailed mutations and haplogroups.

• AncestryDNA produced Baker's most convincing ethnicity results and offered the strongest North American relative-matching database in his comparison. Its $100 test correctly identified his German, English, and Irish origins and ancestral connections to Nova Scotia, while historical-record access required an additional subscription of approximately $25 monthly.

• MyHeritage offered a cheaper alternative to AncestryDNA, with particular advantages for European and Jewish genealogy. Its $80 cheek-swab test identified Baker's Nova Scotia connections, provided relative matching and family-tree tools, and offered access to European records through a separate paid membership.

• 23andMe combined ancestry and health testing while including haplogroup information without separate specialist purchases. Genealogy testing cost $100, the combined package cost $200, and customers received ethnicity estimates, relative matches, genetic health reports, and additional research-based updates over time.

• DNA relative matching uncovered a first cousin Baker had never known existed. They connected online and discovered that they shared a health problem, illustrating both the personal value of genetic genealogy and its potential to reveal unexpected biological relationships.

• Kamala Harris was not the first nonwhite person elected vice president of the United States. Charles Curtis, who had European and Native American ancestry, won the vice presidency in 1928, while Harris's 2020 election made her the first woman, first Black person, and first person of South Asian descent elected to the office.

• Charles Curtis descended from three Native American nations: the Osage, Kaw, and Potawatomi. His ancestors included Osage chief Pahuska and Kaw chief Nampawara, also known as White Plume, whose marriage to Pahuska's daughter Mina strengthened an alliance between their peoples.

• Curtis's ancestor Pahuska fought in one of the worst military defeats in American history. At the 1791 Battle of the Wabash, also called St. Clair's Defeat, a Native American confederacy inflicted nearly 1,000 American casualties while suffering comparatively few losses.

• The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transferred French territorial claims over lands largely inhabited by Indigenous nations. Curtis's ancestor Nampawara joined a Native American delegation meeting President James Monroe in Washington in 1821 and subsequently signed a treaty surrendering Kaw territory to the United States.

“most of the land was not actually controlled by the french”

• Curtis's family history was directly connected to the forced displacement of Native Americans. His relative Joe Jim Sr. guided missionary Isaac McCoy, an advocate of Indian Removal, while the Potawatomi, Kaw, and Osage were eventually relocated to Oklahoma; the presenter associates the broader removals with approximately 15,000 Indigenous deaths.

• Curtis grew up speaking French and Kansa before entering mainstream American political life. After his mother's death in 1863, he lived with his maternal grandparents on a Kaw reservation, escaped an attack at age eight, moved to Topeka, became a lawyer, and maintained membership in the Kaw Nation.

• Charles Curtis introduced legislation that ultimately damaged the sovereignty and culture of Native American nations. The Curtis Act extended federal land-allotment policies, but Curtis said its final version had been substantially revised against his wishes; the presenter also credits him with advocating Indigenous rights, particularly those of women.

“curtis himself said in his autobiography that he was unhappy with the final version”

• Curtis rose from Republican congressman in 1893 to Senate majority leader and eventually vice president. After losing the 1928 Republican presidential nomination to Herbert Hoover, he joined Hoover's winning ticket, served from 1929 to 1933, and retired following their decisive defeat by Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Garner.

• The Iron Crown of Lombardy, dating to around 628 CE, is presented as Europe’s oldest surviving crown and the only surviving crown believed to have been worn by Charlemagne. Its name comes from a legend involving a nail from Jesus’s crucifixion, but scientific testing found that its inner band is silver, not iron.

• The famous French Crown of Charlemagne was not actually made for Charlemagne. It probably originated around 875 for his grandson Charles the Bald, became the coronation crown of successive French kings, and was likely dismantled and melted down during the French Revolution.

• The Holy Roman Empire’s imperial crown dates to approximately Otto the Great’s coronation in 962 and survives in Vienna. Made from eight hinged gold plates rather than a circular band, it represents an imperial tradition in which popes crowned emperors until Charles V, after whom election conferred imperial authority.

• Hungary’s Holy Crown originated as a Byzantine imperial gift around 1075. Emperor Michael VII presented its original Greek section to King Géza I, while the upper Latin arches were added under Béla III; the crown still displays both rulers’ portraits and its famously crooked cross.

• Britain’s Imperial State Crown is not its coronation crown, despite being the more familiar royal symbol. Created in 1838 and later modified, it contains 2,868 diamonds, including the 317-carat Cullinan II, cut from the enormous diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.

• Spain and modern Sweden preserve royal crowns without physically crowning their monarchs. Spain’s relatively simple, gold-plated silver crown was originally made for Elisabeth Farnese’s funeral, and King Felipe VI was proclaimed king with the crown displayed beside him rather than placed on his head.

“it never once was put on his head” — UsefulCharts presenter, describing Felipe VI’s accession.

• Russia’s surviving Imperial Crown was created for Catherine the Great’s coronation in 1762 and contains 4,936 diamonds. Its distinctive bishop-like mitre shape contrasts with conventional European crowns, while its enormous red spinel is described as the world’s second-largest, after the Black Prince’s Ruby.

• Bohemia’s Crown of Saint Wenceslas, created in 1346, remains protected by an unusual seven-key security system. Kept inside Prague’s Saint Vitus Cathedral, it contains 45 red gemstones, only one of which is a ruby; the remaining 44 are spinels.

• The House of Borjigin, descendants of Genghis Khan, ranks first among Asia’s ten greatest medieval and modern royal houses. The presenter evaluates dynasties by longevity, maximum territorial extent, and historical influence, with eight history YouTubers helping judge the third criterion.

• The Mongol Empire became history’s largest contiguous land empire, exceeding 24 million square kilometers. It divided into the Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, Chagatai Khanate, and Great Khanate (Yuan dynasty), whose rulers continued governing Mongolia for centuries after losing China to the Ming.

• The presenter groups the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates under Quraysh, ranking their shared lineage second. Both trace paternal ancestry to Fihr ibn Malik; the combined dynasty receives 626 years and 11 million square kilometers, while the claimed connections of Jordan’s and Morocco’s royal families are excluded as unverifiable.

• Japan’s House of Yamato ranks third despite having the longest continuous royal lineage in recorded history. The presenter counts 1,481 historically supported years rather than 2,700 legendary years, while acknowledging that shoguns exercised real political authority during much of the emperors’ reign.

“i'm not going to go by legend i'm going by historical dates only”

• The Tang dynasty ranks fourth as China’s most influential imperial dynasty, ahead of the territorially larger Qing dynasty in seventh. Tang institutions influenced later Asian empires, while the Qing was founded by Manchus; the earlier Han dynasty is excluded because the ranking covers only medieval and modern periods.

• Timur’s descendants established two major imperial traditions, explaining their combined sixth-place ranking. Timur conquered Persia, while his descendant Babur founded India’s Mughal Empire, whose rulers accumulated extraordinary wealth and commissioned the Taj Mahal before becoming largely symbolic under expanding British control.

• The Ottoman House of Osman ranks fifth after ruling for 623 years and controlling over five million square kilometers. Its conquest of Constantinople ended the Eastern Roman Empire, and its centuries of European territorial control make its classification as an Asian dynasty a deliberate geographical choice.

• The remaining houses illustrate three different forms of historical achievement: Korean cultural influence, South Indian expansion, and Thai independence. Korea’s Yi dynasty ruled 518 years and produced King Sejong, credited with Hangul; the Cholas expanded into Southeast Asia, while Thailand’s Chakri monarchy survived without European colonization.

• The presenter makes the striking claim that roughly 10% of men in formerly Mongol-controlled Asian regions descend from Genghis Khan through an uninterrupted paternal line. He argues that including female lines would raise the proportion toward 100%, although the episode provides no independent genetic evidence for these estimates.

• Croatia became a kingdom in 925, nearly three centuries before Serbia established its medieval kingdom in 1217. Tomislav's royal title may have originated with papal recognition, while Croatia later entered a centuries-long union with Hungary before passing under Habsburg rule.

• Croatia developed a Catholic identity while medieval Serbia established an independent Orthodox church. The presenter credits Krešimir IV and Demetrius Zvonimir with strengthening Croatian Catholicism, while Serbia's Saint Sava secured ecclesiastical independence from Constantinople under Stefan the First-Crowned.

• Stefan Dušan transformed medieval Serbia into an empire, but it disintegrated under his successor, Uroš V. Dušan conquered territories extending into southern Greece, while the subsequent fragmentation produced smaller states that largely fell to Ottoman conquest, with Montenegro retaining a distinct political existence.

• Serbia's first independence uprising began as a rebellion against rogue Ottoman Janissaries rather than the sultan. Led by Karađorđe, the movement established nearly a decade of self-government before Ottoman opposition, internal divisions, and Russia's withdrawal of military support enabled reconquest.

Jack Rackham: “the revolutionaries were actually fighting on behalf of the Sultan”

• Miloš Obrenović led a second uprising two years later and secured Serbian autonomy without achieving complete independence. Serbia remained formally within the Ottoman Empire, but Miloš became its prince, establishing a rival dynasty to the Karađorđević family descended from the first uprising's leader.

• Serbia gained internationally recognized independence in 1878 and became a kingdom under Milan Obrenović in 1882. Repeated dynastic struggles ended after King Alexander Obrenović was assassinated without legitimate children, prompting the National Assembly to select Peter Karađorđević, grandson of the first uprising's leader.

• Peter I's Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which his son Alexander renamed Yugoslavia. Alexander subsequently abolished the existing constitution, suspended Parliament, dismissed nearly one-third of civil servants, and introduced elections without secret ballots before being assassinated in 1934.

• Yugoslavia's monarchy collapsed following a wartime coup, German invasion, and communist takeover. A pro-British coup overturned the regency's Axis alignment and installed the young Peter II as ruling king, but postwar Yugoslavia abolished the monarchy under Josip Broz Tito, preventing Peter's son Alexander from succeeding him in 1970.