Hi Garry, I'm speaking as someone who's tested (my parents) through FTDNA but not through Ancestry. I'm also speaking as someone who has lived through a couple of rounds of watching Ancestry dip their toes in the genetic genealogy market, then surreptitiously bailing out, leaving their customers in the lurch to at least some extent. That said, I think there IS something to be gained by testing through Ancestry at this point. First, their current autosomal test is somewhat superior to FTDNA's, in technical terms -- if you're going to upload the results from one test or the other to GEDMatch, then upload the Ancestry results. Second, there will always be people who test through Ancestry but DON'T upload to GEDMatch, and the only way to include those people in your comparison pool is to test directly through Ancestry. Third, I think Ancestry have (or in American English, "has") finally found their niche -- they've finally found a profitable line of genetic genealogy business and I think it's going to be around for awhile. I'll let others speak to the merits (or lack thereof) of Ancestry's matching algorithms. I haven't tested through Ancestry yet, but if they keep on their current track it's proabably only a matter of time before I do. -Mark Bunch (GOONS #6223) > Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:08:06 +1200 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [G] FTDNA vs Ancestry > From: [email protected] > > Hi Folks > > I's sorry if this has been discussed before. > > I have tested with FTDNA Family Finder (and Y-111). Am I going to gain > anything if I now test with Ancestry; i.e. more matches etc? Or will > something like GedMatch be the way to go? > > With thanks > Garry > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Garry You would probably benefit from testing at AncestryDNA as well as Family Tree DNA. AncestryDNA now have the largest autosomal DNA database, and they've tested nearly two million people. The downside is that their database is very US-oriented as their test was sold exclusively in the US for three years before being made available in selected other countries. Their test only became available in the UK in January 2015, and was rolled out to Australia, New Zealand and Canada later in the year. However, sales seem to be going well and they were doing a roaring trade at Who Do You Think You Are? Live this year. Ancestry have done a good job of integrating the DNA results with the family trees, and they also have a very good DNA Circles feature. They've invested more in the science than the other companies, and produce more accurate matches. However, they don't provide a lot of features that many of us like to use to analyse our results such as a chromosome browser which gives you a visual representation of your matches. The other downside of Ancestry is that you need to maintain an Ancestry subscription to access many of the features which can become an expensive proposition. GedMatch is a useful website for comparing results from all three testing companies (23andMe, AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA) but only a small proportion of testers upload their results on GedMatch. They haven't recently published the size of their database but were quoting a figure of 110,000 back in November 2015. AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA both use the same Illumina chip so it makes little difference which test you upload to GedMatch. There's also a new free website called DNA.Land where you can upload your raw data and contribute to science at the same time: https://dna.land/ DNA.Land provide free admixture reports and they also have a relative finder feature, but it's only been going a few months so it will take time for their database to reach critical mass. DNA.Land have a blog with further information: https://medium.com/@dl1dl1 Best wishes Debbie Kennett