matches disappeared

[mkdexter]

I ordered a kit from Ancestry for my grandfather during their invitation-only period. A few months later when I called to inquire about ordering another test, the person on the other end of the phone was shocked that we had been able to order from Canada, because they're not allowing non-Americans to order. I just checked now, and it looks like they're still not allowing it.

Apparently they allowed an American, from Canada, to order it.

[AlisonT]

I ordered a kit from Ancestry for my grandfather during their invitation-only period. A few months later when I called to inquire about ordering another test, the person on the other end of the phone was shocked that we had been able to order from Canada, because they're not allowing non-Americans to order. I just checked now, and it looks like they're still not allowing it.

[MoberlyDrake]

I have quite a few matches who live in Europe. If Ancestry isn't selling kits outside the US, some Europeans must be getting their American friends or relatives to purchase tests for them.

[SCinGB]

The last I heard Ancestry is still not selling kits outside the US, and I see that as a real negative for those of us trying to find links in Europe.

I just had a match on my Ancestry kit who lives in Stockholm and is 100% Swedish.

[efgen]

...to hundreds of kits sitting at the post office because FTDNA telling people to put the wrong postage on kits. They'll failed at least twice that I know of to raise their postage requirements when the post office raised their rates.

I can't say if this happened at some point in the past or not, but I can definitely tell you that at the last postage increase, FTDNA changed the postage rates on their materials as soon as the new rates went into effect. However, anyone who ordered a kit *before* the postage rates went up certainly would have received materials with the previous postage rate. There's nothing FTDNA can really do about that, other than advise customers to always check the current postage rates.

As for short-paid kits -- this is rarely due to FTDNA telling customers the wrong postage rate. The situation mentioned above where someone orders before the rate increase is one possible cause of short-paid kits. A more common situation is customers who weigh the package and then use letter-rate postage instead of the necessary package-rate postage. Those kits then sit at the post office until the shortage is paid. And guess who has to pay the shortage? Yep, FTDNA.

Yes, FTDNA has had its share of problems lately, but it's not fair to blame them for things that aren't actually their fault

Elise

[Swennilsson]

FTDNA will be forced to reduce their test prices if they want to stay active in the field. They have some strengths their competition do not, but not nearly enough to justify an extra couple hundred dollars. A couple of days ago I showed a woman at the office I work at both FTDNA and Ancestry's tests. She is very much a novice, but immediately chose Ancestry when she saw the price difference. I am guessing that sort of thing is happening across the country. I'm not in the business of giving financial advice, but my gut tells me with the current competition, FTDNA might be able to stay in the game with an autosomal test priced at around $150, but is going to not get much market share with prices above that level. The only thing I can think of that would change this is if FTDNA came up with some sort of breakthrough on the science end that allowed them to offer something significant that the others didn't have. I would love to see that happen.
Ancestry does keep reporting lots of new matches, but (in my other tests anyway) 90% of them are very distant--out to 9th cousin. I suspect Ancestry has more generous definitions of what constitutes a match than FTDNA, which is not necessarily a good thing. The last I heard Ancestry is still not selling kits outside the US, and I see that as a real negative for those of us trying to find links in Europe.

[MoberlyDrake]

What irks me is that every time the company has a big problem it has to cost them a fortune, which makes it less and less likely that they'll ever be able to reduce the price of their Family Finder test enough to compete with Ancestry and 23andMe! Most of my kits are here, and all I want is to see the Family Finder database grow by leaps and bounds. I like the tools here. I just want new matches every week, not 2 or 3 once every 2 or 3 months. I get around 2 dozen twice a week at Ancestry. I don't ever expect that here, but they need to attract a lot more customers than they do.

I'm aggravated with Ancestry because they won't even provide search engines. I spent weeks making links to my matches, along with notes. That worked until last week. Now none of my links work.

A genealogy friend of mine, who is 92, purchased a test at Ancestry because it was on sale for $99. She wants to discover the parents of an ancestress who was born in VA in 1782 and who married a man who lived in Powhatan Co., VA. I know that she has been trying to discover this woman's parentage for many, many years. She wants me to tell her how to do it with DNA when she gets her results. What am I to tell her? If she ends up with 5000 matches and no way to search their ancestral surnames, how is she going to be able to do anything? I tried to get her to test here, but she wouldn't pay the price.

[Swennilsson]

I'm not challenging any of the people who are having problems, as it is obviously frustrating. What the forum may not reflect is how many customers are still having problems.
I handle several tests on FTDNA, and other than a delay in getting any new matches during the Build 37 period, I have not had any real problems with ANY of my tests. The matches were adjusted slightly during the build transition, with a few questionable matches being deleted and a number of new ones showing up. I, for one, do not mourn the loss of some distant "matches" that likely would have done nothing but waste my time pursuing a probably false trail. There was an issue with one of the project administrators being a numbskull, but that was upon further reflection probaby not FTDNA's fault. Some people appear to have had really odd things happen to their match list. I do not know what percent of customers fall into that category. It may be smaller numbers that forum posts would suggest since content customers are less inclined to complain than upset ones. Again, I am NOT saying some people are not justified in being mad at the company; it may, however, that the actual number of them are rather small compared to the number of people in the database.

[Taz85]

I had to wait 16+ weeks for my mtdna. Issues happen.

[Kasandra]

I was counting the time that folks have been waiting for their paid for transfers from 23andMe which stopped happening in November. Also, I didn't get a single new match since October (used to be one a month) until Feb. when all heck broke loose.

You are right that it's been a 'mere' quarter year since everybody's stuff was totally messed up.

ETA: I've been peeved with them for a over a year based on other issues including their inflated cousinhood estimates which have led me down the garden path and wasted oodles of my time chasing 'third' cousins who are not. Nevertheless, their failure isn't going to help me find my family thus my further disappointment now.

BTW, for those that don't know, the head of IT was, and may still be, the son of the owner. Which may explain why it's taken so long for them to admit they need someone else.

[MoberlyDrake]

I purchased my first Family Finder kit here in Mar 2010. I can't even remember what prompted me to do it, as I didn't have the slightest idea what I was getting into!

I've seen so many things go wrong since then from Affy having to be converted to Ilumina, to hundreds of kits sitting at the post office because FTDNA telling people to put the wrong postage on kits. They'll failed at least twice that I know of to raise their postage requirements when the post office raised their rates. Now, this huge problem with build 37.

Is it totally inefficiency? Too many scientists and not enough business expertise? Or has anyone considered that someone on the inside might be purposely sabotaging things?

[Lklundin]

SMH

Six months.... it's been six months since the site worked anywhere close to where it was expected to be (nevermind the clear issues they had before the conversion).

I believe myFTDNA worked with just minor issues up to and including the release of raw data for at least batch 492 which was in week 2, which is a little more than three months.

But the fact that they are as of Friday looking for a new IT project manager is rather telling.

Without a really good one FTDNA could become the Nokia of DNA testing (and like them they are locked in to Microsoft, which limits their freedom to act).

Time will tell.

[Lincoln]

I hope things work out for you and others, dggslf.

[dggslf]

I've only tested with FTDNA.

Up till this point, everything I read about genetic genealogy and what I wanted to do with my research, aligned nicely with the product offered by FTDA. I've been a customer since 2007 and this is the first time that I've had to question their product quality.

I hope they open up and explain these discrepancies.....and soon!

[Kasandra]

Does this mean they finally noticed?

http://www.familytreedna.com/careers.aspx

SMH

Six months.... it's been six months since the site worked anywhere close to where it was expected to be (nevermind the clear issues they had before the conversion).