Only 140,000 people in FTDNAs database?

[E19463]

...
However, the ethnicity calculation is way better at 23andme and it is probably because they have more people in their database.

So does this mean that if someone is looking for relatives (an adoptee for example), he would be better off with 23andMe due to their larger database?

[Armando]

It is written that there are only about 140,000 people in FTDNAs database but over 900,000 in 23andMe, see link
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_...mparison_chart and attachment below.

Until now I thought that FTDNA is much bigger than the competitors. Was I wrong?

Apples and oranges.

Most of the people at 23andme didn't do it for genealogical or ethnicity reasons. They did it for the medical aspect. FTDNA never offered DNA testing for medical reasons so it was only done for the genealogical or ethnicity reasons and you have to request your autosomal matches to share their genome in order to see which chromosomes they match on and most of those people don't accept. Most don't even share their name before the sharing is requested and accepted.

23andme does not do Y-DNA STR testing, Y-DNA matching, FMS mtDNA testing, or mtDNA matching.

However, the ethnicity calculation is way better at 23andme and it is probably because they have more people in their database.

[Kathleen Carrow]

They can tell somewhat by the Transfer # how many they have.. possibly 140,000 although some transfers are for Y..
the "B" transfer #s still are below 60,000

That "Big" number of testers they quote is for all tests not unduplicated testers.. 12 marker Y tests etc ..which does NOT give an autosomal database to compare against..

[LynCra]

Pure speculation. They have never published how many FF customers they have. Ridiculous attitude to publish those other less interesting statistics but never answer the question that people have been asking for several years. Probably missed a good marketing opportunity from that in the early days of FF too. Watching a steadily growing db would have encouraged more sales in the days before there was major competition.

[nicolam]

I had thought it was more than that. What is the banner on the FTDNA home page referring to by "we have 720,505 records - the largest DNA ancestry database in the world!"

https://www.familytreedna.com/

I thought this was how many people have tested with them, but it must mean something else.

[E19463]

It is written that there are only about 140,000 people in FTDNAs database but over 900,000 in 23andMe, see link
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_...mparison_chart and attachment below.

Until now I thought that FTDNA is much bigger than the competitors. Was I wrong?