No matches in over 30 days. Market saturation?

[MFWare]

...

WHOOP-DEE-DOO! I will not be ordering! I hope that FTDNA takes notice here what these guys are offering me as a price if I don't take their subscription. This is approximately the price that I paid for Family Finder with the generosity of another poster on this forum giving me his coupon code back in June. I was not marketed by FTDNA at that time to get the coupon, despite doing my mtDNA here. They definitely need to come up with better marketing strategies.

By the way they are claiming they test over 700,000 markers of DNA for this test, does anyone know how many does FTDNA use for FF?

I am as critical of Ancestry as anyone on this forum. However, I do not see anything untoward in its pricing. You are comparing Ancestry's regular prices with FT-DNA's sales and discounted prices. I have tested with four separate services. These include FT-DNA's Comprehensive Genome plus its Y-Refine67to111 upgrade.

Neither FT-DNA, Ancestry, 23andMe, nor African Ancestors is cheap. If price is an issue, then I recommend that you test with 23andMe. For $300, 23andMe provides a very accurate autosomal DNA test plus your maternal and paternal haplogroups.

[prairielad]

By the way they are claiming they test over 700,000 markers of DNA for this test, does anyone know how many does FTDNA use for FF?

http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=17#607

Question #7
"As of February 1, 2011, our Family Finder test uses the Illumina OmniExpress microarray chip. It includes about 710,000 pairs of locations called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in your autosomal DNA."

Edit
My raw data files contain 708092 positions

[Táltos]

http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=17#607

Question #7
"As of February 1, 2011, our Family Finder test uses the Illumina OmniExpress microarray chip. It includes about 710,000 pairs of locations called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in your autosomal DNA."

Edit
My raw data files contain 708092 positions

Thank you prairielad

[Táltos]

I am as critical of Ancestry as anyone on this forum. However, I do not see anything untoward in its pricing. You are comparing Ancestry's regular prices with FT-DNA's sales and discounted prices. I have tested with four separate services. These include FT-DNA's Comprehensive Genome plus its Y-Refine67to111 upgrade.

Neither FT-DNA, Ancestry, 23andMe, nor African Ancestors is cheap. If price is an issue, then I recommend that you test with 23andMe. For $300, 23andMe provides a very accurate autosomal DNA test plus your maternal and paternal haplogroups.

That is nice if someone can afford to test with all the separate companies.
Not everyone can. Back before I did Family Finder I had considered 23 & me, but it sounded as if most the testers at that company are notorious for not responding. As they are mostly interested in the health aspects. So what is the point with them if you are serious about your paper trail.

Anyway the whole point of this thread is about matches here at FTDNA slowing down. It seems that Ancestry has been going strong with their by invite only price of $99, but only $99 if you already subscribe, and if you don't want to subscribe to them then you pay more.Almost equivalent to the Family Finder price that was offered with the June coupon sale. It has been discussed somewhere else about there being a "captive" audience. That is clearly what you become if you choose to test with Ancestry. The same can also be said if one only chooses to test here or at 23.

So back to matches slowing down here, FTDNA should consider this in order to generate more business.

[Javelin]

It has been discussed somewhere else about there being a "captive" audience. That is clearly what you become if you choose to test with Ancestry. The same can also be said if one only chooses to test here or at 23.

That seems to be what they are hoping. It is pretty cynical, though, because after subscribing for a month per year over a matter of years, I found that there simply are not enough unique records to sustain a subscription of any more than that. YMMV. (I say "unique" because while they do have a large number of records, many of them are available free or cheaper elsewhere.)

[Taz85]

I can't see how testing with another company, who doesn't even give you raw data would be worth it at all.

[1_mke]

Well, for me access to the databases of those other companies is the point. I already have my raw data.

[MMaddi]

Well, for me access to the databases of those other companies is the point. I already have my raw data.

Taz85 forgot to mention the other problem with Ancestry's autosomal test. They don't provide a chromosome browser so that you can put your matches on a spreadsheet showing chromosome number and start and end locations of shared segments.

While you may already have your raw data from another company, it won't help you to see where the shared segments with matches in Ancestry's database are. You won't be able to see matches in common and investigate with the matches if the segment is from one common ancestor.

Put those two things together (no raw data and no chromosome browser) and Ancestry's autosomal test is a lot less useful than Family Finder or 23andMe.

[1_mke]

Good point, but for the average person that isn't really a factor. If I had the ability to get my mother tested so I could seperate matches into paternal and maternal like I can here and at 23andMe I'd be relatively happy.

It's also the case that Ancestry could add functionality similar to what FTDNA does in regards to showing other matches you have in common with a particular person. Hmm, that is actually different than matching on the same location since you could match person A on chromosome 3 while you match person B on chromosome 14 and person B matches person A on chromosome 20. That may or may not indicate the same shared ancestor between the three people of course but its another case that its nice to have covered.

[Taz85]

The issue is people are getting ripped off. They are taking customers from companies who offer a lot more for the price. Without having your data, and being able few matching segments, really limits you. Basically it's pretty much pointless for many without those features.

[Kasandra]

Please... I have things I'd like to see improved too but what matters is that almost all my matches have trees. The last 3 months of matches here have no trees, no names, mostly small segment matches and frequently misleading or nicknames. I have only contacted 2 people so far at ancestry because I'm quite happily comparing all my cousins to each other. I suppose when I run out of matches to compare I'll start reaching out to those without trees/locked trees. In a few years, assuming I don't' find my family before then (I'm adopted) I might have time to ponder raw data. But so far, by cross referencing where cousins trees overlap, identifying locations at different periods in time etc. I've been able to quite confidently find ancestors for 4 lines along one great grandfather and have hundreds of other potential cross matches to check out.

Ancestry beats FTDNA in the only way that matters, it's effective.

[Yaffa]

The issue is people are getting ripped off. They are taking customers from companies who offer a lot more for the price. Without having your data, and being able few matching segments, really limits you. Basically it's pretty much pointless for many without those features.

Because ancestry is not giving chome browser or raw data, the only real use it may have at the moment is for those who are adopted or have an NPE very close to the living. A good close match may help those people "IF" ancestry reads your DNA correctly.

[Taz85]

Ancestry beats FTDNA in the only way that matters, it's effective.

You mean the only way that matters to you. FTDNA is the top DNA testing company for a reason. Without having your Raw Data, You cannot compare segments. So basically all matches, you have to trust them having it right. That equals false positives and poor quality control.

[Táltos]

That seems to be what they are hoping. It is pretty cynical, though, because after subscribing for a month per year over a matter of years, I found that there simply are not enough unique records to sustain a subscription of any more than that. YMMV. (I say "unique" because while they do have a large number of records, many of them are available free or cheaper elsewhere.)

Javelin excellent point! Also very good points that Taz85, and MMaddi mentioned in other posts as well.

[1_mke]

You mean the only way that matters to you. FTDNA is the top DNA testing company for a reason. Without having your Raw Data, You cannot compare segments. So basically all matches, you have to trust them having it right. That equals false positives and poor quality control.

I've seen no credible evidence that there are significant problems with the ancestry autosomal test.

As for FTDNA being the best, by what authority is that statement being made? Is there a certifying board out there that I'm not aware of that has given that award to FTDNA? What criteria are being used to make that judgent?

Don't get me wrong, while FTDNA has their warts on the operational and marketing side of things they seem to do a great job of getting accurate results and I appreciate that but they are quickly becoming a backwater with the entry of Ancestry into this market.

Odds are good the Ancestry.com tools will be improving in the future too so hopefully FTDNA has some tricks up their sleeves.