One Million People Tested by AncestryDNA



One Million People Tested by AncestryDNA Find more genealogy blogs at FamilyTree.comIf you won the lottery and were about to receive one million dollars, you would likely be extremely happy. One million is a big number. AncestryDNA has good reason to be excited about the number one million. They recently reached it!

AncestryDNA is a DNA testing service that utilizes autosomal testing technology. It combines advanced DNA science with the world’s largest online family history resource (Ancestry.com) to predict a person’s genetic ethnicity and to help that person find new family connections. The test can reveal information about your family’s past from 10,000 or 50,000 years ago.

The AncestryDNA test costs $99.00. It requires a person to submit a saliva sample. Send that sample back to AncestryDNA in a pre-paid envelope. Experts will analyze your DNA. This takes somewhere between six and eight weeks. You will then receive an email with a link that will take you to your results.

In June of 2015, AncestryDNA announced that they had hit a milestone. In the three years since they started, they had genetically tested more one million people. They also noted that the AncestryDNA database had more than doubled in the last year.

At the time of their announcement, they had delivered 99 million connections of 4th cousins (or closer). To clarify, they said that this mean that on average, 1 out of every 5,000 people who took the AncestryDNA test are related within 5 generations.

How big is one million? AncestryDNA gave several examples to try and help put that number in perspective. The Statue of Liberty sees 10,000 daily visitors. On any given day, this could potentially mean that 2 of your cousins could be there. If you visited Disney World, you might meet up to 10 of your cousins on the rides. In the course of one day, you could see 39 of your relatives in a long layover at LAX.

AncestryDNA is part of a family of websites. AncestryHealth is to be used in conjunction with Ancestry.com. Genealogists who have an Ancestry.com account can connect it to their AncestryHealth account. It is possible to use AncestryHealth without having an Ancestry.com account. AncestryHealth is free to use. Ancestry.com requires a subscription.

Right now, AncestryHealth and AncestryDNA are not connected to each other. In other words, you cannot easily add your AncestryDNA results to your AncestryHealth account. That being said, AncestryHealth is exploring ways that DNA testing might enhance the AncestryHealth experience. It is possible that this could mean that AncestryDNA might be something a genealogist could connect to AncestryHealth in the future.

Image by Sue Waters on Flickr.

Related Articles at FamilyTree.com:

* AncestryDNA Partners With Calico

* Ancestry.com Launches AncestryHealth

* What Vanessa Williams Learned from AncestryDNA

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