Further DNA news

New announcements from Ancestry, Familytree DNA & Gedmatch

Ancestry has decided to discontinue Ancestryhealth in order to focus more on family history and genetic genealogy, it announced on 15 January. Calling the move a ‘strategic but difficult decision’, Ancestry told customers that Ancestryhealth would no longer be available for purchase after 15 January but users would be supported through until July 2021. Ancestryhealth was launched in 2019, following the launch of Ancestrydna seven years earlier. A spokesperson said of the closure: ‘Ancestrydna... remains an important part of our family history success.’ It pledged to ‘continue to innovate across our experience, delivering product improvements and more record collections to help make finding discoveries easier and faster’. Read the full announcement at http://familytr.ee/ancestryhealth In other DNA news, Familytreedna announced that its parent company Gene by Gene has merged with MYDNA, building on a ‘set

of shared beliefs that genetic information has a tremendous potential to give us an understanding about ourselves that we would not otherwise have’.

Familytreedna users were told it is business as usual, but with new resources and capabilities. The company’s head office and laboratory remain in Houston, Texas, and the two companies will continue to operate as Familytreedna and Gene by Gene. Familytree DNA’S new CEO Dr Lior Rachberger is described as ‘a respected physician and leader at the intersection of science and technology’.

And finally, Gedmatch has updated its terms of service and privacy policy ‘to include required disclosures in accordance with applicable privacy laws, to update our payment terms, and to make our policies more transparent and understandable for you’. You can see the new terms at http://familytr.ee/ged