RECENT ANCESTRAL ORIGINS (RAO) database

[Zaru]

"They charged me 12 months up front, with no option to pay monthly. I'm going to let it expire in a month or so when it runs out, since few of the matches there (< 10%) ever responded. By then, the FF import should be available, and my dad's data will be in a useful database."

Wow! That's not the current practice as of the time of my order, but I could understand where that would put someone off.

"It's basically the equivalent of FF, plus a few hundred SNPs tested to determine your paternal and maternal haplogroups. They test no STRs at all, and enough SNPs to determine your subclade according to outdated Y-DNA and mtDNA phylogenetic trees. If you want Y-DNA or mtDNA matches, you'd need to purchase traditional tests for those, in addition to an autosomal test."

Since I have not ordered FF yet, or MtDNA, this presents a good value for me. I have pretty much exhausted my Y DNA endeavors for my purposes at this point.


"Although FTDNA strips some medically relevant SNPs from the FF raw data, there's still plenty left in there. You can use your FF data with Promethease (free software) to get much of the same information as 23andMe gives you."

Or, get a great value as I have, and let someone else do the work!

[Zaru]

Three years from now after you've paid over $324 more than the $99 then its not such a good deal compared to $189.00.. Its not a savings of $90.00, its a lose of much more.

That's if you plan on staying with them for three years, for which I do not. One will be able to upload their results to FtDNA for $50 in the coming months. It's still a good value (perhaps even a better one now.)

[mkdexter]

Yes uploading to FTDNA will be offered soon.

There will always be an advantage to starting first with FTDNA of course.

[Zaru]

Yes uploading to FTDNA will be offered soon.

There will always be an advantage to starting first with FTDNA of course.

I would agree with that if it were not for one exception: cost. Had FtDNA offered the same platform say FF+MtDNA for $99 I would have opted for them. I have had a variety of DNA tests run with different companies, and FtDNA is the most coherent. I think the testing platforms for many, are cost prohibitive.

[mkdexter]

Hopefully you will be able to take advantage of the upload option when it comes out.

[dello]

23 and Me

Please can you tell me what 23 and me involves, I am very new, am in a delemma at the moment, cannot find anything written anywhere regarding this particular test. Thank you.