by Paul Jones

In the February-March 2013 issue of Canada's History, Paul Jones discusses the challenges and advances of DNA testing and how it can provide family historians with greater insight. Inspired by a reader's request for more information on the actual companies doing the testing, he outlines a few choices below.

The DNA-testing company I use, because they focus exclusively on family history matters, is Family Tree DNA. They do a variety of tests, including the Y-chromosome to which you referred. The one I described is the "autosomal" test, which they call "Family Finder." I signed up with this company when its CEO, Bennett Greenspan, spoke in Toronto. He's a family historian himself and I found him absolutely credible, thoughtful, trustworthy. That's his reputation generally and I have had only good experiences with his company.

Their top competitor, preferred by some, is 23andMe (co-founded by the wife of one of the Google gazillionaires). Their original purpose was testing DNA for medical reasons (e.g. predisposition to various diseases) but they soon realized that family historians represented a huge market. Generally their family history offerings are comparable to those of Family Tree DNA. Some claim to detect a mind-set still oriented to medical testing, although many others think they're the best service on the market. Here's their link. I have no personal experience with this company to serve as a guide.

A recent entrant to the market is Ancestry.com, although I don't believe they've yet opened up their testing to Canadian residents. When they do, their game is likely to be volume, i.e., very competitive pricing. There has been quite a bit of controversy about their privacy policy, which seems to grant them intellectual property rights to participants' genomes that many find worrisome. Please note, they are described as being in beta.

This reply would not be complete without a mention of the National Geographic Society's Geno 2.0 project. This is not about family history in any usual sense, but deals with so called "deep ancestry". Here's their mission from their website:

The three components of the project are:

• To gather and analyze research data in collaboration with indigenous and traditional peoples around the world
• To invite the general public to join this real-time scientific project and to learn about their own deep ancestry by purchasing a Genographic Project Participation and DNA Ancestry Kit, Geno 2.0
• To use a portion of the proceeds from Geno 2.0 kit sales to further research and the Genographic Legacy Fund, which in turn supports community-led indigenous conservation and revitalization projects

The Genographic Project is anonymous, nonmedical, and nonprofit, and all results are placed in the public domain following scientific peer publication.

A final word: Both Family Tree DNA and 23andMe offer sales from time to time, usually around New Year, Mother's Day, July 4th, and so on. They just had some big sales over the holidays. If there's no rush, you could save a substantial amount by waiting for a couple of months and monitoring if a sale comes along.