By MHS Board Member Roberta Estes
Hello everyone,
If you are interested in or have taken the new Relative Finder or Family Finder tests from either 23andMe or Family Tree DNA, please read this entirely to the end. I'm sorry for the length of this article, but it is important information.
I'm very pleased to see that the 23andMe test will have some competition. The prices have already come down. But which test is best and what is to be gained from either or both?
I'd like to chat about both of them, especially since one, 23andMe, is on sale and the other is not quite ready for release, Family Finder from Family Tree DNA, which is of course why 23andMe put theirs on sale when they did.
I'd like to do a comparison about what is tested, what you get and why you might want to test with either or both companies.
Let me say up front, you'll get the most for your money to test at both companies if you can afford it. Your DNA results will be out there fishing your you, day and night, 365 days per year, in both ponds, and indeed, their ponds are very different. That is both the bad and the good news.
When Relative Finder, 23andMe's new product launched, it was the first kid on the block to do this, connect you to your "relatives", cousins of some description, sometimes many generations back, using autosomal DNA. Those of us who participated in the beta test thought it was truly awesome, and some people made great connections to various cousins and found their common ancestor. Some people were not able to connect the dots, as their common ancestor was back on one of their genealogy lines not yet identified. Some of us, me included, did what I'll call "focused testing" where we specifically tested certain individuals to answer questions about whether certain people were related or not. I did this at 23andMe but could have obtained the same result from the Family Finder test, but 23andMe was the first out with the test so I did my focused testing there.
23andMe was smart initially, they approached a small targeted group of people as "ancestry coordinators" and asked us to coordinate beta tests and allowed us a group of discount tests. You remember that. The tests were less than half price and many people participated. When our results came in, we all looked to see who we were related to, and the e-mails flew back and forth.
Those were the good old days. We all watched anxiously as our matches increased, but because those people weren't in the beta test, we could not contact them yet. And then the long awaited day came and they launched Relative Finder to the world, and we all "contacted" those cousins who had been sitting there, teasing us, but unavailable all that time..........and then..........nothing. Nothing at all. Most of those people who were not beta testers never answered our contact inquiries. I've sent dozens (over 200) since the beta program ended, and received 2 replies back, and neither of those folks knew anything about their genealogy nor were they interested in discovering anything more. They had taken the 23andMe test for the medical and health aspects. Nothing wrong with that, BUT, it surely wasn't what us genealogists were anticipating would happen. I mean, after all, how could people NOT be interested in their genealogy:)
In a nutshell, this test is no better than the data base the testing company has available, and even though they allow us to be in touch with everyone who has tested that we match (and for me it's over 400 people), if the other people aren't interested in dancing, you're along on the dance floor.
I've known for months now that Family Tree DNA would have a similar offering, and I wrote them a long letter with a long list of suggestions. In all fairness, I also have repeatedly given this feedback to 23andMe, but it has not only apparently been ignored, they never even acknowledged receiving the feedback. The 23andMe customer service takes days and days as well, just not an easy company to work with.
Family Tree DNA has a data base of over half a million to date between their own direct customers and the Genographic project, and they are all interested in genealogy, or have been sponsored by someone who is. Family Tree DNA has projects and has made it their specialty to offer project management tools to administrators, added value tools for clients, and more. Their new Family Finder tool is no different, and in fact, it's remarkable what they've been able to do. 23andMe could have done much of this, but they didn't, and when combined with their disinterested client data base, which is certainly not their fault, it makes for a very disheartening experience. For example, because there are no projects, I can't help anyone or "see" comparative or match results for anyone, and the 23andMe webpage is not easy to navigate or understand, so people need help that I can't provide to them. At Family Tree DNA, I can log on with someone, me as the admin and them on their account, and I can walk them through things.
So, the net-net of all of this is the following comparison:
1. If you want the medical or health comparison, you'll need to purchase from 23andMe. Family Tree DNA does not have that nor will they be adding it.
2. Both companies will be testing over 500,000 locations on your DNA for comparison purposes, but not the same 500,000. 180,000 of them will overlap, and by inference, Family Tree DNA will be able to completely or partially compare about 280,000 locations of the 500,000 that 23andMe has tested. So, if you test at both companies, you will get a total of about 800,000 locations tested that you will be able to compare with the customers at 23andMe and the customers at Family Tree DNA.
3. Family Tree DNA will (shortly) facilitate an upload of 23andMe raw data for a $40 and they will then compare the 180,000 (280,000 by inference) common locations between their data base participants and your 23andMe data. If you later decide to take the Family Finder FtDNA test, they will credit your $40 to that test. Only the people who ordered the full health traits and ancestry version of the 23andMe product can gain access to their raw data at 23andme. Everyone who participated in the beta can download their raw data.
4. Family Tree DNA does not initially offer the percentages of ethnicity, but that will be added shortly. The 23andMe ethnicity percentages (European, African and Asian) are very, very conservative and I believe so conservative as to be significantly incorrect. Suffice it to say that I have been involved with the new ethnicity percentage information and presentation at Family Tree DNA, and it will blow the socks off of anything out there today. You can read more about the currently available ethnicity tests here... http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~molcgdrg/pubs/nah.htm
5. The 23andMe data base and participant responses have been horribly disappointing. For me...since the beta ended and the "regular customers" were welcomed to the Relative Finder product, it has been less that 1% response and I've sent over 200 contacts. I suspect these people think it's spam from someone trying to steal their identity - after all - they are not genealogists - they just wanted their health info. Of the two people who did contact me, neither knew anything about their genealogy nor were they interested in it. Family Tree DNA on the other hand is a company whose entire client base is genealogists....and pretty much everyone who tested at 23andMe with either retest at FTDNA or will upload their data when that option is available.
6. Right now, if you want to order at 23andMe, you can do so at a 50% discount which brings their $400 ancestry test down to $199 and their $500 ancestry plus health traits down to $250. You have to use this link to get the discount, as it was announced on the Oprah show and is only valid though 3-31-2010. https://www.23andme.com/partner/foa/
The Family Tree DNA Family Finder test is still in beta but will be shortly available to the general public for $249. Like all other tests, you will be able to order from your personal page. I'm sure you could order now by contacting the customer service dept by e-mail or phone and telling them you want to be part of the beta project. I know many people have ordered the products already, so their basis for comparison will be significant shortly.
7. The best of all worlds is to order the tests from both companies. This will give you over 800,000 DNA locations for comparison, cousins to contact in two data bases, all of which are possibilities, your health info, and your raw data from 23andMe to download, and subsequently upload to Family Tree DNA and other locations. For example, one of our comparison projects uses the raw data and so does the Anabaptist project. Please note here, the raw data file is ONLY available from 23and me WITH the FULL Health and Ancestry test, so the $500 version (now on sale for $250), NOT the Ancestry only version of the test. The Family Tree DNA raw data will be available for free with the purchase of their $249 Family Finder product.
I know some of you are wondering what can be gained from this type of genealogy test. Here are three examples.
A. You think you are related to a particular line of people, but you have no Yline subjects to test. You can prove your relationship by testing the appropriate people proven to be descended from that particular person. For example, my father is deceased with no sons. I found a man a few years ago who we believed was my father's child. His Yline DNA not match the Estes ancestral line, but all this proved is that there might have been a nonpaternal event (NPE - also called an undocumented adoption) sometime in the past few generations between this man or my father and an Estes ancestor 4 generations up the tree. In order to prove or disprove this connection, my alleged brother tested, and so did 2nd and third cousins who are not related on my grandmother's side, but only on the Estes side up the tree. I matched with these cousins, but my brother did not, nor did he match me on any chromosomes at all. This proves that my brother is not the child of my father, but I am and there is no nonpaternal event between my father and the ancestral Estes line. To prove this, we actually tested 4 people initially and then a 5th and 6th tested independently whose tests continued to confirm what we had proven. However, to obtain this type of proof, the individuals must be selected very carefully not to share any other ancestry except the line in question.
B. You can connect with cousins that you don't know. By sharing your pedigree charts, you can discover either a common ancestor, a common surname that might mean a common ancestor, or a common geography. What good is the common surname with no known common ancestry? Well, unless it's Smith or Jones, it gives you a starting place. In fact, that could lead to focused genealogy or yline DNA testing to prove or disprove that that specific line is indeed your link. As with all genealogy, sometimes the break in the brick wall comes in the most unexpected of ways. Common geography? People moved in groups.
C. Chromosome mapping. This is new, yet is perhaps the most exciting aspect of this new technology when put into perspective. Both companies are testing the parts of our genome where the most variety occurs. Let's use chromosome 1 for example. Let's say we discover that the first half of chromosome 1 we inherited from our mother and the second half from our father, for purposes of discussion here (and simplicity). So on our personal chromosome map, we can label that as such. Now let's say our mother's cousin tests and we know which of our mother's line we share with the cousin and which we don't. Let's say, for purposes of simplification, that we share the first 25% of chromosome 1 with this cousin of our mother. Looking at the genealogy chart, we know we share 4 ancestors in that generation with that cousin. So now we know that the first 25% of chromosome 1 not only comes from our mother's line, but from one or a combination of those 4 ancestors. Let's say they are Miller, Estes, Bolton and Kirsch. Later someone else from the Miller line tests who is not related on the Kirsch, Miller, or Bolton line, and we match on the first 10% of chromosome 1. We can now label the first 10% of chromosome 1 as "Miller". Now clearly we look at our Miller genealogy, and that "Miller" DNA segment could come from any one of the ancestors upstream of that person, but we know it came from the Miller side one way or another, and comparing the two genealogies, we can perhaps eliminate it or isolate the common ancestral DNA segment even further. Later, another person with the surname of Miller in their tree tests, but can't connect to our genealogy although they are in the right area at the right time. They do match in the first 10% of chromosome 1. That would be pretty compelling evidence that their Miller is our Miller, or they share a common ancestor in one of their lines that is also in our Miller line. Of course, were the situation reversed, we might be the ones matching DNA segments someone else has mapped and named, and that might indeed help us break through our brick walls. If you match someone's DNA segments, there is no question that you are related to them, the only question then becomes when. Who among you doesn't have brick walls that need to fall????
I apologize for the length of this article, but I hope this helps explain what is going on in the industry, why you might want to participate and help you decide where and what test would be the best fit for you.
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