Kay   I have had Y-DNA testing (FTDNA) but plan to get autosomal testing from 23andme.  23andme has drastically lowered their price.  Further, you can have your results converted to FTDNA's Family Finder and the total is still less than the FTDNA price for Family Finder.   For a comparison of providers see http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_testing_comparison_chart   As to the usefulness of the testing, as usual, it depends.  The critical factor is the willingness of participants to share their family data.  This varies widely, but FTDNA seems to attract more people with a serious interest in genealogy, so it might be worth getting into the Family Finder database.  As I recall, a number of people have reported getting a better response rate through Family Finder than through either Ancestry or 23andme.   -- Roger Ray

23andme.com is now $99 for V3 chip, with ~900,000 SNPs -- best anyone has "commercially" (V4 is available, but no one uses it yet) FTDNA FF is still $289 (they also use V3 chip, but do not do X-chromosome -- 23andme does) You can download raw data from 23andme and upload to FTDNA FF for $89 (this is now available, I had to wait 5 months for my father-in-laws to get uploaded) Additionally, you can download raw data from 23andme and FTDNA-FF and upload to GEDmatch.com** **FTDNA-FF has upgraded to Build 37 (which is now fully compatible with 23andme), however GEDmatch has not finished allowing upgraded Build 37 from FTDNA-FF to work with their database yet... I believe Ancestry.com uses the older V2 chip, and you cannot download the raw data (though we've heard they will add this at some point) Autosomal looks at locations on all 23 pairs of chromosomes, so it is available to both males and females -- it is only really useful for comparisons for 5th to 6th cousins at best -- there is just so little DNA in common beyond this that it is tough to find common ancestry. Another fun part is to realize about 10% of each generation involves an NPE (non-parent event) -- adoption, illegitimate birth, ... the "milk man"... LOL!! -SRJ > -----Original Message----- > From: ilfrankl-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:ilfrankl- > bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Roger Ray > Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 4:10 PM > To: ILFRANKL@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [ILFRANKL] Autosomal DNA question > > Kay > > I have had Y-DNA testing (FTDNA) but plan to get autosomal testing from > 23andme.  23andme has drastically lowered their price.  Further, you can > have your results converted to FTDNA's Family Finder and the total is still less > than the FTDNA price for Family Finder. > > For a comparison of providers see > http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_testing_comparison_chart > > As to the usefulness of the testing, as usual, it depends.  The critical factor is > the willingness of participants to share their family data.  This varies widely, > but FTDNA seems to attract more people with a serious interest > in genealogy, so it might be worth getting into the Family Finder > database.  As I recall, a number of people have reported getting a better > response rate through Family Finder than through either Ancestry or > 23andme. > > -- Roger Ray > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ILFRANKL- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message