Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Step Two in the DNA testing procedure


We had a busy holiday and so I finally got both the time and the opportunity to send in the MyHeritage.com DNA testing kit. I had a few email questions about why I choose MyHeritage.com instead of one of the other companies. I thought I had given some good reasons in a previous post, but apparently not. Here are several specific reasons I started with MyHeritage.

  1. I have a long-standing relationship with the company and many of the staff are friends. I have always received the best possible help and responsive service from the company and I admire them for pushing the genealogical technology. I knew if they did a DNA testing program there would be the best possible technologically advanced matches.
  2. MyHeritage.com has found over 100,000 Smart Matches from my personal family tree. This means that they have already identified this huge number of potential relatives and so a DNA test from MyHertiage could already take advantage of this pool of potential DNA contributors. 
  3. I will be doing a presentation at RootsTech 2017 for MyHeritage about their DNA program. 
  4. I felt it was time to do a DNA test, simply for the reason that I intended to write about the test and I like writing about MyHeritage.com.
  5. Having a DNA test done by MyHeritage does not rule out using another company to do another test. 
  6. I have spent a considerable amount of time researching and learning about DNA testing and I feel I am prepared to have specific opinions on the subject. 
MyHeritage also has implemented their Founders Population Project. Here is the explanation of the Project:
MyHeritage DNA results include fascinating ethnicity reports, showing the percentage of the user's DNA that come from different populations around the world. The initial reports currently include 25 ethnicities, but this will improve dramatically thanks to MyHeritage’s unique Founder Population project unveiled today — the largest of its kind ever conducted. More than 5000 participants have been handpicked for this project by MyHeritage from its 85 million members, by virtue of their family trees exemplifying consistent ancestry from the same region or ethnicity for many generations. In the next few months, the project will be completed, resulting in a rich DNA data set of more than 100 ethnicities that will enable MyHeritage to show users their ancestral roots with far greater resolution than other services. To this end, the company has been sending its DNA kits to project participants far and wide, from Uzbekistan to Fiji, from Greenland to South Africa, and every corner of the globe. Standard ethnicity reports are currently available, with the expert reports to be released at no additional cost to users following the completion of the Founder Population project.
I am interested to see how this develops. Since I already have a documented family tree on every ancestral line back at least seven generations, I am really not expecting any surprises. But you never know.

1 comment:

  1. As CeCe Moore said in a Roots Tech 2015 interview: “People who might not think they going to find anything will be very surprised.”

    ReplyDelete