The following relates to an item that appeared in the Lost Cousins newsletter:
I hope you found my latest newsletter both interesting and useful (I'm already working on the next one).
As promised I'm writing to all those who have indicated on their My Details page that they've taken a DNA test to let you know about the latest offers - after all, once you've been bitten by the DNA bug, you'll almost certainly want your siblings and cousins to test!
At the present time only Ancestry DNA have announced offers. In my newsletter you'll find links to their offers for the US, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand:
http://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/midmar17news.htm
Those offers all end on Sunday 19th March. The discount for researchers in Australia is an amazing 30%, but the normal price is higher (so don't feel aggrieved if you live in the US or Canada).
From Friday 17th March I'll be able to offer members in the UK a discount of 10 pounds on Ancestry DNA tests, and this offer will run until Sunday 26th March. You might receive an email direct from Ancestry publicising the same offer before Friday - just bear in mind that if you take up the offer in the email LostCousins will NOT benefit.
Note: this isn't the only offer in the pipeline so I'm going to be sending out another newsletter on Friday - this will have links to all of the Ancestry DNA offers and lots more besides, so keep an eye on your inbox!
Even at the discounted price Ancestry DNA tests are a bit more expensive than Family Tree DNA once shipping is taken into account, but because Ancestry have by far the largest user base it's probably worth paying a little extra. I think they would also claim that their matching is also more accurate, since they use a 'phasing algorithm', and they could be right, though I have no hard evidence.
By the way, I tested with FTDNA, my brother with Ancestry. We both got lots of matches.
I recommend that you upload a family tree to Ancestry if you test with them, but it should ideally be a private tree (like mine). They imply that you won't get tree matches if your tree is private, but I did! Of course, you'll get DNA matches whether or not you upload a tree.
Whichever company you test with you can download the raw results then upload them to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA to make even more matches. It's a lot easier than it sounds.
Remember that it's the earliest generations that should test, so if either of your parents is still around (or one of their full siblings), they should be the ones to test. The same reasoning applies to your cousins, of course.
As ever I'm here if you have questions or need some advice.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
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