23 & Me and other genetic/ancestry services

I thought it would be nice to start a thread pertaining to these sort of services. Have any of our forum members used them? If so, please share your experience and results! Were there any surprises about your ancestry that you learned of?

Personally, I purchased a 23 & Me kit late last year (right before they discontinued doing their health related services in addition to ancestry reports, luckily). When it comes to my family history, much was lost in time about my father's side of the family. All I really knew was that my mother's last name was German and it ended there. For a long time I was even half convinced I was Lebanese via my father's side! This was apparently something started by my father's father, and purely speculative. My father never really questioned it until I received my 23 & Me results.

When viewing the results, I was only slightly surprised to see there was absolutely nothing Middle Eastern to be found and that my results were 100% European. Ironically, my charts are even more thoroughly European than most of the other ethnically Europeans on the website.  The ancestral breakdown showed mostly Celtic, Iberian, Germanic and a bit of Scandinavian (my maternal haplogroup, T2b, which I also learned of using the service, is modernly found in high concentrations in Scandinavian countries). Finding out about the Iberian led me to do more research into my last name, which I actually found out after a year of searching was a modernized version of a Basque surname (for 'House by the River'), thanks to the head of the local Basque society in my home state. I also found many other Basque family names, as well as Galician, which along with Asturias in Northern Spain is considered one of the 8 Celtic Nations.

Since I have been so enlightened by all of these discoveries, you will notice the twin flags at the bottom of my page are the Irish and Basque flags. It is also worth noting that the main locations of my family's ancestry have all been areas heavily involved in separatist/leftist movements throughout history (Basque Country, Ireland, Catalonia, Galicia... Che Guevara was also a Basque), this knowledge serving to enliven my spirits as of late as well as further strengthen my leftist views.

Do any of you have roots in areas that have historically been leftist or autonomy oriented, and has this served you well in terms of your political views? I certainly feel I have benefited from this information!

I'm an American with Syrian ancestry, though I have no identity with Syria. So honestly, I don't really have any connections with countries that are especially connected to leftism, but America was the spark of revolution in the Modern era. And, you can say that it did form from a leftish, for the time period, revolution against an imperial power. Aside from that, I guess I have to make my own history if mine isn't interesting yet.