Currently, I have seen quite a few emails in regards to DNA testing coming up the pike in the Carlow group. I have been dragging my feet since 2010 deciding what DNA test to take and have watched in several genealogy groups emails related to DNA testing. By watching what members wrote and what I had been sent in personal emails from one of the group members, Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick, a Forensic Genealogist who has done large scale group DNA testing and has experience working with many of the DNA companies, I had it narrowed down to FTDNA Family Finder test and was waiting on a sale. When I saw the note last week by someone in the Carlow group that FTDNA had the sale I was ready to purchase it, but wanted to get Colleen's feedback first to see if she had any new information. I received the following email dated on Jun 15 and decided to buy the 23andme kits per her email. It sounded like a really good deal and provided both medical testing and genealogy related info that I can upload to FTDNA and also have 2 databases to compare my results to. I have the following copied from one of my emails and thought it can help explain what 23andme does and then below that is an easy explanation of the various markers that FTDNA provides for the Y-DNA testing: 1) Email explaining 23andme and its benefits: Note: In brackets is my addition. "There is another company 23andme that offers the same test [as Family Finder FTDNA] for $99. They also give you information on medical tendencies. Because of this, your matches are kept anonymous at first and you have to send them an invitation to share, so you don't get as many replies as with FTDNA, but there is an advantage. Once you test with 23andme you can download your raw data. You can upload the raw data to FTDNA (they take out any medical-related information) for another $99. So if you do it this way, you can find matches at both companies for the same price FTDNA charges to test directly. And although you have fewer people sharing genomes with you at 23andme, their database is about 5 to 6 times larger." Email by Colleen Fitzpatrick sent to Tanya Whitaker on Jun 15, 2013 at 1409 EST "23andme is primarily interested in 'genome-wide association studies'. This means they test people's genomes and also take surveys on health-related topics such as who has heart problems - also physical characteristics such as who has brown hair or who can taste certain flavors. Then they correlate which people have certain genetic markers with which people have certain physical characteristics or ailments. (But they don't test genes.) It's kind of like Google. They gather information on people who do use the Google search engine. A good example is the fact that Google is the first organization to know about an outbreak of the flu. They correlate information about who is searching for information about cold remedies with geography. As part of their product, 23andme checks which of your markers show up in all their data and give you estimates on your likelihood (relative to the general population) of developing.various ailments. The CEO of 23andme is the wife of the man who founded Google. Anyway, ancestry and genealogy is not their first interest but they do offer a good product in this area. Yes you can download your raw data from 23andme and upload it to FTDNA. There have been issues with FTDNA uploading data from 23amdme because 23andme upgraded their system last year. To continue to accept 23andme data, FTDNA had to upgrade too and it took them several months to get that done. It seems like the problem is solved for the moment. There is another upgrade that will be available in August from the companies that manufacture the DNA test. It is not known yet if this will be repeated and 23andme will upgrade and FTDNA will follow suit again. All this being said, 23andme is still the largest database with the lowest price. You get info on medical tendencies along with genealogical information on matches and ancestry. The ancestry predictions of 23andme are not necessarily accurate especially of you have a mixed ancestry. But this is a result of a limitation all the companies face and not just 23andme and not because 23andme doesn't specialize in genealogy. FTDNA's predictions can be worse. The genealogy part of 23andme is great. It has the limitation that your matches are initially anonymous and you have to ask them to share info with you. But their customer database is 5 or so times larger than FTDNA's and you do get info on medical tendencies. 23andme is also much less expensive. You can upload your data to FTDNA. There were delays in seeing it appear on the FTDNA website, and they may happen again when the next version of the DNA test is released, but you are still coming our way ahead by testing at 23andme." Portion of email from Colleen Fitzpatrick to Tanya Whitaker on Jun 16, 2013 at 1116 EST 2) Email about FTDNA markers: "Imagine you are in a room with 1,000 people and you want to find which ones live close to you in Huntington Beach, California. You ask all the people to group themselves according to which state (including the District of Columbia) they live in. You dismiss everyone who is not from California. Although you have ruled out the majority of the people, you still have quite a few remaining. This is equivalent to a 12 marker test. It serves as a rule out to eliminate people who are probably not even remotely related to you, but the remaining pool still includes people that are not “relatives”. In the next step, you ask all the people from California to group themselves according to the county they live in. You dismiss everyone who does not live in Orange Co. You have reduced your pool of candidates, but you still have many people who do not live in Huntington Beach. This is equivalent to upgrading to 25 markers. You ask the remaining people who live in Orange Co. to group themselves according to which city they live in, and dismiss all those who do not live in Huntington Beach. This is equivalent to upgrading to 37 markers. Family Tree DNA offers Y-DNA testing on 67 markers. Testing at this level is analogous to sorting people according to what street they live on, and dismissing everyone who does not live on your street. Family Tree DNA’s 111 marker test is equivalent to asking the few remaining people what address they live at on that street." By Colleen Fitzpatrick from email on 4/28/2013 in Fitzpatrick Clan group Tanya