Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Neanderthal Genome Project

A video interview with Dr Svante Paabo of the Neanderthal Genome Project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuIRjtZJGmQ

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Relative Finder Beta is open to all 23andMe users

Here are the instructions to join the Relative Finder Beta.
1) Log in to your account and go to www.23andme.com/you/relfinder/
2) Check the box to Highlight your profile in Relative Finder and join the Public Beta.
3) Once you've joined, you will see all of your potential relatives, but you can only contact other relatives who are in the Beta. You will notice them because they have a blue 'make contact' button and a 'talk bubble' icon in their profile.
4) If you don't have any relatives in the Beta, please be patient -more customers are joining the Beta every day.
Chia
Community Manager at 23andMe

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

FTDNA full mtDNA test special

Dear Family Tree DNA customer

I am pleased to make a very special announcement about our Full Mitochondria Sequence test.

As you know, this test has continually dropped in price from its initial introduction at $895 in 2005. These price decreases were related to volume and workflow, translating productivity into economies of scale that allowed us to reduce prices to those customers interested in testing their full mitochondrial sequence.

Now Family Tree DNA is doing it again, but this time we are going to take advantage of new technology that will allow us to run more samples in less time, and the savings are substantial. We expect that this price decrease will hearken a new era of Full Mitochondria Testing for the entire Genealogical community!

We will jumpstart this new era of complete mtDNA testing with an aggressive price in order to build the comparative database to the levels genetic genealogists require to answer precise ancestral and geographic questions.

So now on to the news that you've been waiting for. A new price for the mtFullSequence test will be introduced in November but until then we are offering our current customers a promotional price through October 31st, 2009: $229 (was $439) for first time mtDNA test takers (the order item is mtFullSequence)

To Order:

Log in to you personal page at www.familytreedna.com
Click "Special Offers"
Select "mtFullSequence" from the dropdown order list
Click "Continue" to proceed to the payment screen and complete your order

Orders need to placed and paid for by the end of the day, October 31st, 2009.

Depending upon the time that it takes to process these upgrade orders using our new hardware, we may experience a back order or lag time in November. If this occurs we expect to resolve the backlog in December, so to avoid any delay in attaining your results please place your order early in this sales cycle.

Bennett Greenspan
President
Family Tree DNA