As many of you know, the owners of Family Tree DNA, a Houston company, have committed a percentage of their sales during the month of September for donation to hurricane Harvey disaster relief efforts. A daily running total is displayed at the top of their page.
I think they will top $20,000 today!
I know that with two more hurricanes (Irma an Maria) and two earthquakes in Mexico, Harvey, which ravaged Texas less than 3 weeks ago seems like old news. It’s not to the families whose lives have been upended and who have lost everything, not only due to the winds of the hurricane along the coast, but unprecedented flooding in Houston for the following week. Those families are still cleaning mud out of their homes, ripping off their sheetrock, and so much more. Thousands are displaced and have lost everything.
The best part about the Family Tree DNA fundraiser is that you can contribute to the relief effort without any additional cost to you. In fact, there’s a lot of benefit to everyone – you benefit when you order a test or upgrade, other people whose genealogy may depend on your testing benefit, and the families trying to recover from Harvey benefit as well. You never know, maybe the person you desperately need to knock down a brick wall will test or transfer now!
Everyone wins! But you only have another week, so don’t wait.
Family Tree DNA just sweetened the deal in three ways too.
Deal Sweeteners
MyHeritage Transfer
Family Tree DNA has just added MyHeritage as a transfer partner, meaning if you tested at MyHeritage, you can transfer your results to Family Tree DNA and see matches for free.
The autosomal DNA transfer option for MyHeritage as well as other vendors can be found, here, in the upper left hand corner of the main Family Tree DNA page, under DNA Tests.
Family Tree DNA accepts transfers from:
- Ancestry
- 23andMe V3 and V4
- MyHeritage
Family Finder Just $69
The Family Finder autosomal test is on sale now for $69, a $20 savings. If you haven’t tested yet, or have transferred the 23andMe V4 or Ancestry V2 tests which only provide your closest matches, and not the more distant ones (due to chip incompatibility), now is a great time to order a Family Finder test. I don’t know how long the sale price lasts, so if you’re interested, buy now.
Unlock All Transfer Features Just $10
In addition, Family Tree DNA has dropped the price of unlocking the full suite of autosomal tools available after the free transfer of your results. You receive your matches for free, but by adding the $10 unlock, on sale reduced from the regular $19 until the end of September, you add three features:
- Chromosome Browser
- myOrigins (ethnicity)
- ancientOrigins.
You will need a coupon code, so you can use mine. These codes are NOT limited to one use only, so please feel free to upgrade as many tests as you wish.
Here’s what the unlock gives you access to, in addition to your free matches.
Transferring and Unlocking is Easy…
- Click here to upgrade, unlock (ATUL0917) or transfer your results from another vendor.
- Then sign on to your own account to transfer, unlock or upgrade if you already have an account at Family Tree DNA.
- If you don’t currently have an account at Family Tree DNA, click in the upper left hand corner of the page you’ll see to set up an account and transfer your DNA file from another vendor. Then use the use code (ATUL0917) to unlock all the features for just $10.
It’s that easy and you’ll be helping others too!
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Disclosure
I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.
Thank you so much.
DNA Purchases and Free Transfers
- Family Tree DNA
- MyHeritage DNA only
- MyHeritage DNA plus Health
- MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload
- AncestryDNA
- 23andMe Ancestry
- 23andMe Ancestry Plus Health
- LivingDNA
Genealogy Services
Genealogy Research
- Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research
Roberta, Unfortunately as of about a week ago customers cannot upload raw dna files from Ancestry to FTDNA. I have been trying to help my sister upload her newly tested Ancestry results but Ancestry has changed something that is preventing FTDNA from being able to accept the Ancestry raw data file. No fix will be available for a while apparently (according to FTDNA customer support).
So I wasted time trying to do an upload, there is no current fix, and no warning from FTDNA on their upload page to indicate SOME people won’t be able to accomplish this. Too bad since it is currently free and I had my sister test on Ancestry so we could transfer free to FTDNA.
Just a heads up to update your info.
Thank you. The upload will always be free. I will check with support as well.
Thank you for the correction on the upload being free continuously.
I could upload raw data file to GEDMATCH with no problem.
Thank you Roberta! I’ve a question. I just received my My Heritage DNA results.since our family is from Eastern NC and has roots there back to the 1700’s. How can I transfer my results to the Lost Colony Project? Sincerely, Edward Rose
PS I hope you have a great trip to Scotland😉
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Transfer your results to Family Tree DNA, then join the Lost Colony Family project by clicking on the Projects link at the top left of your personal page, after you transfer.
Roberta, are you saying that, e.g., 2012 Ancestry autosomal test results that we’re transferred to FT in 2013 might not have included results of deeper genealogical findings due to a chip issue? Would that mean I could/should retake the autosomal test (FF) with Family Tree in order to potentially reveal ancestors father out (such as 6th cousin 1x removed) who did not show up in my 2012 transferred results? If so, I surely wasn’t aware one could retest, and this could be truly great news!!
No, the 2012 chip was compatible. It wasn’t until May 2016 that Ancestry changed the chip and the partial incompatibility resulted. So, in your case, no, retesting won’t yield anything more.
Roberta I did the Ancestry.com test years ago and transferred my results to FTDNA in 2015. I was very pleased with the number of matches, which is much more than other Ancestry.com results done with the new chip that I have transferred to FTDNA.
I am wondering if there is any value to doing the familyfinder test on FTDNA to see if it may bring in different results than my ancestry.com upload I did in 2015. Would there be much of a difference in the matches from when ancestry.com’s test used many more markers, like FTDNA still does? I have some distant cousins on paper that don’t show as matches on my uploaded results to FTDNA. They themselves did the familyfinder test on FTDNA so it’s not really an apples to apples comparison. So I am contemplating doing it if it will bring in different matches than my upload did.
Boy I sure hope that this made sense.
Any kit run at Ancestry before May of 2016 is on the same chip as FTDNA. And test run since then and transferred will have fewer matches. So yes, you would be better off to retest someone who tested at Ancestry in May 2016 or after on the Ancestry V2 chip on the current chip at FTDNA to obtain the maximum number of matches.
Hi Roberta –
Thanks for all the great information; however, I’m having trouble understanding how to transfer my DNA from MyHeritage to FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve followed the instructions, but no luck. Has anybody else had trouble with the process – that you’re aware of?
Thanks again for all the info.
Kristy O.
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No, I haven’t heard of any issues. I would download the file again, don’t open it and try the upload again.
One week ago I uploaded my raw data from MyHeritage to FTDNA and get access to myOrigin etc. fo free without any additional cost. It seems to be one more good news 🙂