If Mybrother Has a Family Tree on Ancestry and I Signup, How Willi Build My Tree
Making the almost of your 2014 Deoxyribonucleic acid testing dollars
(NOTE: There'due south an update for 2015 here!)
In 2012, The Legal Genealogist led off a Sunday DNA web log by asking "how do y'all become the most bang for the DNA buck?"1
And so followed that up concluding twelvemonth with an update after prices tumbled for autosomal DNA tests.2
And it'southward time now for some other update. Because the technological changes particularly at 23andMe mean the onetime recommendations don't work whatsoever more.
We're talking hither principally about autosomal DNA tests. (Autosomal DNA testing, remember, is the kind of examination that works across genders to locate relatives — cousins — from all parts of your family tree.3 That'due south in contrast to YDNA testing, which only men tin do and which looks at the directly paternal line,4 or mitochondrial DNA testing, which looks at the direct maternal line.5)
There are four possible autosomal Dna tests you can take — from Family Tree DNA, from 23andMe, from Ancestry DNA and even from National Geographic in its Geno two.0 test with its scientific (rather than genealogical) accent.
All of which I have taken. Admittedly, I'yard a DNA junkie. I've never met a DNA test I wouldn't take. There are real advantages to testing as widely as possible: you're looking to notice people who friction match you, and the key person who can help you break downwards your brick wall may have simply tested with one company.
But since nobody is handing out Dna kits for free, the question remains… how do yous go the most blindside for the DNA buck? And the answer depends in part on what it is you want to find out through your Dna testing.
Every one of the genetic genealogy companies has its pros and its cons. A comparison chart explaining what features the companies exercise and don't take is bachelor in the Wiki for the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG). Prepared by Tim Janzen, a medical dr. with a deep agreement of autosomal Deoxyribonucleic acid testing, the Autosomal DNA testing comparison chart provides a good overview.
Here's my own take.
If you tin can just afford to test with i visitor (no change from 2013): If you're serious about using Deoxyribonucleic acid as a tool in your genealogy toolkit and you tin but beget to test with one visitor, then the visitor to test with is Family Tree Dna. It has more to offer the genealogist than anybody else in terms of the number of serious genealogists who use it and the features and ease of utilise it offers. Contacting matches is like shooting fish in a barrel and the corporeality of information provided about matches is the all-time in the business.
If your primary involvement is in medical information (updated for 2014): If you really desire to know about the medical secrets hidden in your Dna, yous take to go to a 3rd party utility right at present. The dust-up between 23andMe and the federal Food and Drug Administration over the representations 23andMe was making about what autosomal results meant for health issues has brought those reports to a halt.6 So if this is what y'all want, your best bet is to test with any visitor yous prefer for genealogy, and and then run your raw information though a reporting system like Promethease.
If your primary interest is in the admixture data (updated for 2014): If your chief involvement is in the numbers — what percentage European or African you are, the two most updated reports are the Ancestry Composition report from 23andMe and the Ethnicity Estimate from Ancestry DNA. Family Tree DNA is still lagging behind on this merely is in the process of updating its admixture analyses. But recall that the numbers are really just a guess. If you want to assist everybody understand admixtures amend for the hereafter, and you can afford it, consider testing with National Geographic's Geno 2.0. That's where the real scientific work is being washed and, if enough people examination, the information nosotros all get about deep ancestry should vastly meliorate. It'south not cheap — $199 for the examination — and at that place's not much useful genealogical information, so this is a commitment to science for tomorrow, not a test to practice for genealogy today.
If the person you desire to test is very sometime or very young (no alter from 2013): Most of the fourth dimension, how you test doesn't affair. But if the person you want to test is older or younger, you may need to avoid a test that requires saliva, such as the tests from AncestryDNA and 23andMe. Older people sometimes tin can't produce enough saliva to test and information technology's impossible to tell a babe how to produce the kind of saliva needed. Family Tree DNA uses swabs rubbed on the inside of the cheek and that avoids this problem.
If y'all want to link your Dna results to your family tree (no change from 2013): The only visitor correct now that links Deoxyribonucleic acid results to your family tree and compares information technology to others' family unit trees is AncestryDNA. When the tree information is right, information technology's a wonderfully useful tool. It'southward considerably less so when — every bit is common — the tree information is incorrect, or your match doesn't accept a tree at Ancestry, or your lucifer's tree is private. There are as nonetheless no tools at AncestryDNA to compare DNA when there is no tree match.
If you want to fish in all the ponds for the everyman toll (updated for 2014): Of grade, the best way to get all the matches you can perhaps get it to exam with all 3 major companies. These days, testing with all three is less expensive than it used to exist to exam with just one. But you can save yourself a little bit of money and get your results into all three databases this way:
Step i. Test with AncestryDNA first. It'll price yous $99. (The big modify for 2014 is that you tin no longer use 23andMe for this first step because its raw data today using its new V4 testing bit isn't compatible with the Family Tree DNA arrangement.)
Step 2. The minute you lot get your results from the first test, transfer your raw data to Family Tree Deoxyribonucleic acid for $69. When I say "transfer," that doesn't end your matches at the other visitor, it but gets you into the Family Tree DNA system with all of its benefits.
Stride iii. When you can afford it, test with 23andMe for another $99.
That puts y'all into all three pools for a full of $267 — less than what you used to pay for one such test in the by.
SOURCES
Source: https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2014/04/06/2014-most-bang-for-dna-bucks/