[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] DNA Testing

[Earl Schultz]

Just an update to the comment that you can transfer your results from 23andMe to FTDNA for a fee.  Technically correct but FTDNA can only accept version 3 and 23andMe is now using version 4 which is not significantly different but all attempts to transfer recent results from 23andMe to FTDNA have failed.  If you tested a couple of years ago you may still be OK but new results won't be accepted.

I've also learned one more thing just recently.  While the autosomal test at 23andMe provides your haplogroups, the autosomal test (Family Finder) at FTDNA does not.  To obtain your haplogroups you must do the y-DNA and mtDNA tests which are much more expensive.  For this reason alone, it may be worthwhile to ALSO do the $99 test at 23andMe, unless you intend to do these other tests anyway.

See...it is a bit complicated, but your DNA is you and once you or your parents have passed on you'll never be able to obtain that information.  We know paper records can be destroyed but they can also survive 100s of years.  DNA, except in unusual situations, is gone when we pass on.  Interestingly, FTDNA has a place where you can Will your DNA to someone whereas I haven't seen that ability at 23andMe.

Earl
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:55:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sigrid Pohl Perry <perry1121 at aol.com>
To: ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] DNA Testing
Message-ID: <8D18F7ED6B7ABA7-2B78-30397 at webmail-vm087.sysops.aol.com>
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 Family Tree DNA has a relationship with Igenea.com in Germany. They also have testing partnerships with other companies world-wide and for a fee will also transfer dna results from 23andme and Ancestry to www.familytreedna.com. Many of us in SGGEE have tested with them and I have had emails from 4th to 5th cousin autosomal matches who live in Germany. Of course, now we have to figure out which surname family includes our relationship. Sometimes finding that common surname is not easy, but at least we know where to begin looking. FTDNA also has a new project, Vistula River Settlement Project, which is appropriate for those of us whose German ancestors migrated through Poland.

Sigrid Pohl Perry