Ancestry.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]Ancestry.com is shutting down a number of their services. Of course, they put a positive spin on it by saying "Ancestry.com focuses on core offerings." So it's half-full versus half-empty. Either way, if you're fond of any of these services, it's time to plan!
Here's a link to the full story right from the horse's mouth: Ancestry.com Focuses on Core Products
Long ago I was a subscriber to MyFamily and I was fairly active. If I remember, at the time it wasn't an Ancestry product. I "almost" used MyCanvas but never completed the one project I started.
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English: Paintbrush drawn Icon for Portal Mol Anthro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]Interestingly, what is not in the headline is that the only DNA testing they will continue is autosomal. They've discontinued Y-DNA and mtDNA testing. I wonder what the back-story is on that!!
Read their article to get the low-down. In my opinion, other than the Y- and mt- DNA tests, I don't think the other products will be sorely missed. We'll have to wait to see to what extent the wailing and gnashing of teeth goes!
In wordpress reader under the tag DNA your post showed up first and then the post linked below was next - could that be the answer to why Ancestry (owned by LDS) stopped offering Y and mt testing?
ReplyDeletehttp://buildingmyfaith.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/dna-disproves-mormonism/
First thought is that LDS does not own Ancestry.com. Ancestry was sold to a European private equity group named Permira for $1.6 billion and retained a majority interest with Spectrum Equity, a privately held venture capital firm. it was announced in the fall of 2012. What might be confusing is the Ancestry is collaberating with LDS, a far cry form ownership.
ReplyDeleteAs to why they're focusing on autosomal, I believe it is because it offers a broader spectrum of potential matches whereas mtDNA focuses primarily a straight, single maternal line and Y-DNA the paternal. That may be an oversimplification, but remember that Ancestry was the latest "big player" in the DNA testing world,with FamilyTreeDNA being the "grand-daddy" (excuse the pun) of them all followed by a few others. Also, these tests go away along with other redundant services such as MyFamily and Genealogy.com.
These are my opinions and are certainly not from studying the large scale move of these organizations. Genealogy.com was probably the first genealogical oriented website I used. MyFamily was my way of trying to connect to and collaborate with cousins around the country. These services paled and fell by the wayside for me and, I imagine, thousands of others.
Again, just my opinion!