AncestryDNA available to subscribers online.

[rivergirl]

I just tried to order a AncestryDNA from ancestry.com
I'm a subscriber but it will not accept orders from Australia.
Ive tried to contact ancestry.com to ask why, as it certainly likes my money for the other ancestry.com areas.
I cant find an answer to my question in their "contact us" page, and they only have a telephone number.
I'm not paying for a phone call to america from Australia.

Anyone have any ideas why they wont accept orders for kits in Australia.

[rivergirl]

Found the answer, in the small print at the bottom of the page.

The AncestryDNA test is not yet available for purchase outside of the United States

[djknox]

I just tried to order a AncestryDNA from ancestry.com
I'm a subscriber but it will not accept orders from Australia.
Ive tried to contact ancestry.com to ask why, as it certainly likes my money for the other ancestry.com areas.
I cant find an answer to my question in their "contact us" page, and they only have a telephone number.
I'm not paying for a phone call to america from Australia.

Anyone have any ideas why they wont accept orders for kits in Australia.

They claim it is for complicated customs reasons wrt Australia, Canada, UK etc.. but I suspect the real reason is legal complications wrt privacy and dna testing. Please understand also that when it comes to commerce, American internet companies still struggle with postal codes and tax implications that do not match their own. Your ancestry subscription was easy because it was virtually borderless...

I suspect they'll sort this out in a few months... without internationally sourced dna in the database, their relative finder has very limited application. Most Americans can find ancestral papertrail within the US... but fining ancestors overseas and back several generations really does need some help.

[rivergirl]

FTDNA didnt have any issues with sending many test kits to Australia and the UK for my relatives and we had no issues sending them back. The only thing I needed for customs was a simple declaration of what was in the sample and the usual ID for sending a parcel overseas.
SMGF also sent me a few kits and had no issues.

I have never had an issues with an Internet company sending items form the US, the process for picking Australia or any other country is very easy.
There are no tax issues, we pay the same as the US customers, its all taken in US dollars.

[djknox]

Exactly... so I proport the customs reason they provided is likely bogus ( I have a direct email response from them as I tried to ship a kit to a relative living in Canada)

If you deal with Amazon or Ebay then yes there's no issues as they've got it all sorted out... but try dealing with smaller companies and its a different story at times. My work takes me to many countries and I often try to buy something online only to be refused due to the shipping destination. And by the way, even the BIG companies have only sorted things out in recent years.

Anyway, I think Ancestry are worried about legal issues... as the privacy laws are much stronger in some countries.

Or what do you think the reason is? Possibly they just FORGOT that they had affiliated websites running in several other countries that by the way ADVERTISE dna.ancestry? Maybe they're just a little slow on the uptake... you know like they just didn't think of it at the time? lol

[Solothurn]

I too never had an issue with a kit sent overseas to the UK. It is probably a question of time before this test it is released worldwide!

BTW I don't know if Ancestry have a free number where you live, but from the UK I phone their free number and they then put me through to Ancestry.com in the U.S. with no charge

hth

S.

FTDNA didnt have any issues with sending many test kits to Australia and the UK for my relatives and we had no issues sending them back. The only thing I needed for customs was a simple declaration of what was in the sample and the usual ID for sending a parcel overseas.
SMGF also sent me a few kits and had no issues.

I have never had an issues with an Internet company sending items form the US, the process for picking Australia or any other country is very easy.
There are no tax issues, we pay the same as the US customers, its all taken in US dollars.

[1_mke]

They are still greatly restricting access to the test even in the US so another factor may be their desire to keep volumes at a certain level for now.

[rivergirl]

Exactly... so I proport the customs reason they provided is likely bogus ( I have a direct email response from them as I tried to ship a kit to a relative living in Canada)

If you deal with Amazon or Ebay then yes there's no issues as they've got it all sorted out... but try dealing with smaller companies and its a different story at times. My work takes me to many countries and I often try to buy something online only to be refused due to the shipping destination. And by the way, even the BIG companies have only sorted things out in recent years.

Anyway, I think Ancestry are worried about legal issues... as the privacy laws are much stronger in some countries.

Or what do you think the reason is? Possibly they just FORGOT that they had affiliated websites running in several other countries that by the way ADVERTISE dna.ancestry? Maybe they're just a little slow on the uptake... you know like they just didn't think of it at the time? lol

I'm not sure what your problem is Knox, Ive been using the internet to shop for items from the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, NZ, and Asia for years Big and small companies. Ive not had any problems.
(I find it quite amazing that your telling me US companies are so behind in global Internet shopping/shipping.)

Ancestry worried about legal isssues and privacy in other countries, please, what a joke....
Ancestry is not a small company. They are certainly advertising and selling globally.

I tried going through ancestry UK to the dna section, and guess what, you get back to dna.ancesty.com the US website....

I did get through the stages of entering my address and what I wanted to order. It was only at the payment stage that they stated the item could not go through, but did not say why. It took me a while to go back and go through all the small print to see that it was only valid for US customers.

Maybe one day soon they will open that to other countries.
But by then I doubt I will be interested, especially if the price goes up.
Such a pity, as I know the UK/European origins of all my immigrant ancestors and that might just help a few Americans in their search.

[rivergirl]

I too never had an issue with a kit sent overseas to the UK. It is probably a question of time before this test it is released worldwide!

BTW I don't know if Ancestry have a free number where you live, but from the UK I phone their free number and they then put me through to Ancestry.com in the U.S. with no charge

hth

S.

Solothurn, Its hard enough for me to work out the best time to phone relatives back in the UK, I'm not interested in working out the best time for phoning the US. I doubt I could understand the accents or they mine, have they ever heard a real aussie accent....
They should have an explanation on the website, and a contact email available.

[Javelin]

They are still greatly restricting access to the test even in the US so another factor may be their desire to keep volumes at a certain level for now.

Well, if there is a restriction it is likely because the price is less than their final cost will be and they are testing to see what the market will bear.

But isn't it quite possible that they will end up charging the same as Family Tree DNA or 23andme, and still not allow international users to join? What value is that? With no chromosome browser, In Common With filters, raw data downloads, search function, or upload capability from other companies, their offering will be relatively poor value.

And if they persist on blocking customers from Europe and to a lesser extent the rest of the world, all that most Americans will be able to do is match their American records to colonial American DNA, and that will be as suspect as many of the current online trees on Ancestry are.

Real value would come from Americans making connections in places like Ireland, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where records are mainly quite poor.

[tomcat]

It seems incongruent that Ancestry, a world-wide presence, that has integrated Sorenson and its global DNA records, would not offer their DNA test outside of the US. I am inclined to believe it is just a matter of time, whether due to work load, pricing, and/or data integration and the move out of Beta stage.

Just order the test through family members or confederates in the US - they get the shipment, they ship to you, you ship back to them and they ship to Ancestry.

[Solothurn]

:-)

To be honest, I got a free entry to this club. Until they open international doors my matches are likely to be very distant!

Solothurn, Its hard enough for me to work out the best time to phone relatives back in the UK, I'm not interested in working out the best time for phoning the US. I doubt I could understand the accents or they mine, have they ever heard a real aussie accent....
They should have an explanation on the website, and a contact email available.

[djknox]

I'm not sure what your problem is Knox, Ive been using the internet to shop for items from the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, NZ, and Asia for years Big and small companies. Ive not had any problems.
(I find it quite amazing that your telling me US companies are so behind in global Internet shopping/shipping.)

Ancestry worried about legal isssues and privacy in other countries, please, what a joke....
Ancestry is not a small company. They are certainly advertising and selling globally.

I tried going through ancestry UK to the dna section, and guess what, you get back to dna.ancesty.com the US website....

I did get through the stages of entering my address and what I wanted to order. It was only at the payment stage that they stated the item could not go through, but did not say why. It took me a while to go back and go through all the small print to see that it was only valid for US customers.

Maybe one day soon they will open that to other countries.
But by then I doubt I will be interested, especially if the price goes up.
Such a pity, as I know the UK/European origins of all my immigrant ancestors and that might just help a few Americans in their search.

hmmm you ask for an explanation and then you say the explanation is a joke. Just because your perception down under is that American companies are better than average at shipping internationally (and on the whole they are by the way), doesn't mean they're all necessarily good at doing it. I could make a long list of examples where I could not order something from a normal website company and have it delivered out of the continental USA - it is a fact and not disputable.

As I said, I have a direct explanation from Ancestry that says its because of Custom's problems...which we all know should not be a real reason as it is not so tough to overcome (especially considering how big they are... in your own words). So I offer an alternative viable explanation - dna testing is cutting edge when it comes to privacy matters... and if you think just because Ancestry opens a website that says .ca or .uk that they have fully investigated legal issues in those countries, then i'm afraid you might want to stay down under as the rest of the world may just be a little too challenging. Hey you've already expressed difficulty in dealing with time zones for phone calls!

Anyway, the point is that it is very disappointing that they're not properly prepared to fully support their paying customer base... like you or my Canadian relative - which I thought was your complaint in the first place?

[djknox]

It seems incongruent that Ancestry, a world-wide presence, that has integrated Sorenson and its global DNA records, would not offer their DNA test outside of the US. I am inclined to believe it is just a matter of time, whether due to work load, pricing, and/or data integration and the move out of Beta stage.

Just order the test through family members or confederates in the US - they get the shipment, they ship to you, you ship back to them and they ship to Ancestry.

Of course its incongruent - and of course they will eventually offer it internationally... it's just annoying that they can't do their homework before bringing a product to market. Not everyone wants to spend the extra money and time having products muled through friends and family state-side. Its 2012 and such incompetency should not be excused. Chalk one up for FTDNA I suppose.

[rivergirl]

It seems incongruent that Ancestry, a world-wide presence, that has integrated Sorenson and its global DNA records, would not offer their DNA test outside of the US. I am inclined to believe it is just a matter of time, whether due to work load, pricing, and/or data integration and the move out of Beta stage.

Just order the test through family members or confederates in the US - they get the shipment, they ship to you, you ship back to them and they ship to Ancestry.

Unfortuantely if I'm only matching against Americans, the test is of little use to me. It would be a waste of money.
Here at FTDNA I have lots of matches with Americans, but very few can jump the water back to Europe. The matches are distant.
I have much better luck with those living in europe or with recent links to Europe.