Too good to wait til Sunday
The Legal Genealogist usually reserves DNA discussions to Sunday’s blog.
But this is too good to wait.
Family Tree DNA announced its summer sale yesterday and anybody who’s even thinking about DNA testing for genealogy is going to want to take advantage of this sale.
The best part of the sale is the $99 price tag on the Family Finder autosomal DNA test. That’s the test that works across genders and helps you find cousins out to about the fourth and fifth cousin level to help with your paper trail research. And the best part is the teaser — that if enough kits are sold at this $99 price level, the company may be able to keep the price that low.
That would put Family Tree DNA — with its superior tools for genealogists — in a position to compete dollar-for-dollar and head-to-head with 23andMe and AncestryDNA which both offer a similarly priced test but with fewer useful tools. And it would also make it possible for many more genealogists to test with all three companies — fishing for cousins in all three pools.
Here’s the line-up of prices (good through July 26 for kits bought and paid for by then):
|
Test |
Regular Price |
Sale Price |
|
Family Finder |
$289 |
$99 |
|
mtDNA Full Sequence |
$289 |
$189 |
|
Y-DNA37 |
$169 |
$129 |
|
Y-DNA67 |
$169 |
$208 |
|
Y-DNA111 |
$359 |
$308 |
|
Family Finder + Y-DNA37 |
$368 |
$228 |
|
Family Finder + Y-DNA67 |
$467 |
$307 |
|
Family Finder + mtDNAFullSequence |
$398 |
$288 |
|
Comprehensive Genome (Y-DNA67, FMS & FF) |
$666 |
$496 |
Hmmm… let’s see now… I need to get my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Trisha tested… maybe my sister Diana wants to test… there are those Johnson and Shew cousins… and…
Yep. Gotta love a sale.
I am trying to decide whether to get my elderly relatives’ autosomal testing done at FamilyTreeDNA or 23andMe. Are the tools at FTDNA good enough to outweigh 23andme’s larger database?
There are a couple of issues here. First, consider whether your relatives are elderly enough that getting a big enough saliva sample will be an issue. If it is, then Family Tree DNA is the only game in town. Second, make sure when comparing database size that you’re really comparing apples with apples and not oranges. You get match information on EVERYBODY you match with Family Tree DNA. You only get match information on people who agree, after you contact them in the internal system, to exchange info at 23andMe. Remember that many people who test with 23andMe do so for health, not for genealogy.