LivingDNA Matching Update

While I have seen a handful of people who now have matching on LivingDNA, those are the exception and not the norm. They are rolling the matching update out in small batches (their words) and anticipate it taking until sometime in October before everybody has it. I looked at my three kits on LivingDNA a few minutes ago and none have matching or any indication I was close to get matching. One of the three kits was uploaded back in December 2017 and the other two on August 1st of this year. Would be interesting to see if any of those who ordered the test through FindMyPastDNA or directly through LivingDNA are getting higher priority on receiving matches.

I haven’t seen any word on those who have matches as to how many matches they have. As the newest kid on the genealogical DNA block, I suspect their base will be small to start out, but they do offer free limited transfers and that should widen their initial base as more people take advantage of it.

My suggestion to AncestryDNA and FindMyPastDNA / LivingDNA: offer a better sale. When your major competition is offering sales in the $59 – $69 range and your sale is $89, you aren’t going to get as many people taking you on the deal since they can get better deals at MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA); this is a bigger issue for LivingDNA as AncestryDNA recently ended a decent sale.

While Helix or Geno 2.0 Next Generation by National Geographic (Nat Geo) doesn’t have a matching capability at this time, I won’t be surprised if Helix or a third party vendor doesn’t come up with a way to allow matching on Helix. Considering Geno 2.0 Next is currently on sale for $69.95 and Helix looks at a significant amount of DNA in their test, it’s only a matter of time before some company takes advantage of the potential. The biggest pitfall at the moment is Helix wanting you to spend $499 to get access to your raw data. The amount of raw data that Geno 2.0 Next shows is fairly low as I have downloaded my raw data from Geno 2.0 Next and it’s a small fraction of the DNA raw data processed by Helix.