MyHeritage Now Accepts Living DNA and 23andMe V5 Transfer Results and Partners with European Retailer

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MyHeritage has been busy – making two major announcements this week.

European Retail Market Penetration

I was very encouraged a few days ago when I received an email from MyHeritage stating that they have partnered with British Retailer WHSmith to sell their tests in retail stores in Europe. The new in-store products will be called the MyHeritage Family History Discovery Kit which will bundle the DNA test with a 3 month subscription of the Complete MyHeritage plan which combines Premium Plus, Data Subscription including historical records and DNA integration.

MyHeritage has not yet released the price, but I expect it will be competitive. I’m very grateful for the MyHeritage push into Europe and look forward to new European matches. My mother carries a very high percentage of both German and Dutch and matches from those countries have been slim. Retail marketing and an in-store presence may signal the end of that problem – at least I hope so.

The great news is that MyHeritage DNA matching supports filtering DNA matches by location.

MyHeritage Accepts Illumina GSA Chip Transfers

I’ve written before about the Illumina GSA chip and compatibility issues between the that chip and existing data produced on the other Illumina chips, including the chip utilized by both MyHeritage and Family Tree DNA.  However, MyHeritage also just announced that they are accepting GSA file transfers, which means that people who have tested at the following vendors can now transfer their raw autosomal data results to MyHeritage for free.

  • 23andMe began utilizing the Illumina GSA V5 chip in August 2017, so if you have tested since that time, you haven’t been able, until now, to upload to MyHeritage.
  • LivingDNA launched with the Illumina GSA chip, so if you have ever tested at LivingDNA, you haven’t been able to upload your raw data files. Now you can!

The good news is that the upload to MyHeritage, along with the MyHeritage DNA tools are free until December 1st, and will remain free for those who upload before that date. After that, MyHeritage will begin charging a fee or subscription for advanced features such as ethnicity estimates, the chromosome browser and other features. The $$ amount will be announced closer to December.

Of course, you can also upload results from Family Tree DNA, Ancestry and earlier versions of the 23andMe test.

So, don’t wait, click here to upload now, while the upload is totally free.

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11 thoughts on “MyHeritage Now Accepts Living DNA and 23andMe V5 Transfer Results and Partners with European Retailer”

  2. I much prefer the MyHeritage DNA match results format BUT I have never, in my memory, searched for a female ancestor by any of their married names. I have searched for their birth/baptism/marriage by the name their parents gave them, not one acquired by having been assigned to them by someone else. Until MyHeritage makes it easier to search by maiden name, NOT Jones (born Smith), I will leave searching there to others. Women have walked 10 paces behind men since the world was created and MyHeritage sees no reason to change how they’ve always done it.

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  3. A couple of things:

    First, if you upload multiple kits to myHeritage, you might want to make different user names for them, if the trees are substantially different. My husband and I uploaded our kits to my username, and myHeritage now finds “matches” in my DNA matches to people in his tree (and vice versa)!! Annoying! There seems to be no way to assign a tree to a person. I’m personally not that crazy about the myHeritage format, BUT I do like that filter where you can find people in Germany, where lots of my ancestors lived as well.

    Second, LivingDNA is also accepting uploads of raw DNA from other companies (for free – through findmypast). Not sure if you knew that before–I just found out today. They plan to roll out a complex matching program later in 2018, so I’ve uploaded my dad’s results there. He is deceased, so I can’t have him test and get the more detailed LivingDNA info, but at least I should be able to compare matches when I get them and know if they’re paternal or maternal that way.

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    • I uploaded my AncestryDNA tests to MyHeritage also and could not assign to a person in my tree. I found out that you can do it the other way though. Have a tree (uploaded via GEDCOM) and then go into a person’s profile and in the updating the profile you will see a link to either purchase a DNA test and right below that “Upload DNA Data” – click that link and then upload your data. If you have already uploaded a kit and can’t assign to a person, delete those kits and do it the way I describedl

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  4. I was in London last week and saw the MyHeritage kits advertised outside a WHSmith store near Chancery Lane tube station. I was there to buy pencils and paper for my visit to LMA (London Metropolitan Archives)

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  5. It’s not clear to me from your post if MyHeritage will begin charging for using their tools after December even if one uploads now for free. Can you clear that up?

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  6. Has there been any word about exactly WHEN LivingDNA https://www.livingdna.com will start doing DNA matching? I am interested in the test for their analysis of specific origins in the British Isles. But I keep waiting for them to add the matching service.

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