Christmas in August again!
Yes, this is a DNA post.
Nope, it’s not Sunday.
Your calendar is just fine. But hey… it’s a sale. And every day counts when it comes to saving money on DNA tests, right?
So… it’s Christmas in August again, with the summer sale on all kinds of tests from Family Tree DNA.
Every key test we might want to use for genealogical research is on sale right now.
The autosomal test, called Family Finder at Family Tree DNA, looks at the kind of DNA we all inherit from both parents and that helps us find cousins to work with on our genealogical research.1 The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test examines the kind of DNA we all inherit from our mothers, but only females can pass to the next generation, so this test helps us research our mother’s mother’s mother’s line.2 And the YDNA test looks at the Y chromosome that only males have so it looks at our direct paternal line — our father’s father’s father’s line.3
And the sale prices:
• The Family Finder test is on sale for $69, plus shipping, down from the usual $89. Anyone, male or female, can do this testing.
• The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Full Sequence test is on sale for $159, down from the regular $199. Again, anyone, male or female, can do this testing.
• The YDNA Y-37 test is on sale for $139, down from the regular $169. Because only males have the Y chromosome, only males can take this test (ladies: recruit your brothers, uncles, male cousins!), and this one is an excellent entry-level test.
There are bundles available too, where you can combine more that one of these tests:
• Family Finder + Y-37: $198 (down from $258)
• Family Finder + mtDNA Full Sequence: $218 (down from $288)
• Family Finder + Y-67 + mtDNA Full Sequence: $430 (down from $556)
And you can even get a big discount on the Big Y — a YDNA sequencing that’s the Big Daddy of YDNA tests. The usual price is $575, but it’s on sale this summer for $395. Want to know more about whether this might be worth it? See Blaine Bettinger’s “Thinking About a BigY Test at Family Tree DNA?”4
Some of these tests — the YDNA and mtDNA tests — are only available at Family Tree DNA if you want to be able to use the results in a meaningful way for genealogy. The autosomal test, Family Finder at Family Tree DNA, is the same kind of test that’s offered by AncestryDNA, 23andMe and others, but it has some real advantages in the DNA testing world. One key feature is the ability to separate matches into the paternal and maternal sides solely on the basis of the DNA results. Other testing companies won’t do this without having a parent tested in the database — an insurmountable hurdle for those of us whose parents have passed on. Family Tree DNA, however, will divide the matches based on siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles and more. This new matching system alone makes it well worth being in the Family Tree DNA system, even if you’ve already tested elsewhere.
Besides… if you buy it now, it’s cheap!
You gotta love these sales.
Christmas in August.
SOURCES
- ISOGG Wiki (http://www.isogg.org/wiki), “Autosomal DNA,” rev. 1 Aug 2017. ↩
- Ibid., “Mitochondrial DNA tests,” rev. 1 Aug 2017. ↩
- See ibid., “Y chromosome DNA tests,” rev. 4 Dec 2016. ↩
- Blaine T. Bettinger, “Thinking About a BigY Test at Family Tree DNA?”, The Genetic Genealogist, posted 1 Aug 2017 (http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/ : accessed 2 Aug 2017). ↩
