Geneanet | DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy

Today, Geneanet announced that they are discontinuing all DNA features on their platform.

Geneanet was purchased by Ancestry more than three years ago and offered DNA uploads and matching, with a chromosome browser, beginning in 2020. They did not offer DNA testing, so anyone who uploaded has to have tested elsewhere, meaning they are in another database somewhere.

Geneanet announced that:

As of today, DNA uploads will no longer be accepted.
On December 20^th, in exactly 30 days, the entire DNA section will be permanently deleted, including your DNA file that you uploaded.

They don’t give any reason other than the DNA program didn’t meet their expectations, and they will focus on other customer-requested features now.

My initial reaction was that this might be due to the 23andMe data exposure issue that I wrote about here, here, and here. However, given the 7-week delay, I think that’s unlikely. Additionally, Geneanet is encouraging people to download their matches now, before the deletion. During this same time, other genealogy DNA companies have removed or restricted match downloads, which makes the 23andMe issue seem like an unlikely catalyst for their decision.

Geneanet states that none of its premium member features will be affected by this decision.

If Geneanet’s pending DNA exit affects you, you might want to take whatever action you deem appropriate, now, before the holidays distract you and you forget about it altogether.

Many people used Geneanet for its European focus to connect with European DNA matches. If this applies to you, I suggest that you upload your DNA files to both MyHeritage (here) and FamilyTreeDNA (here) if you haven’t already done so. MyHeritage has a significant European customer base, thanks to their abundant genealogy research records, and FamilyTreeDNA has many European testers with its 23-year history and European project offerings.

While the Geneanet exit from DNA may be inconvenient, it’s not a disastrous loss. You can find those Geneanet DNA matches elsewhere because they didn’t test at Geneanet.

You can read Geneanet’s blog posting, here.

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