Sometime in December 2019 or earlier, the DNATribes website went down and the domain was available to purchase. I stopped checked monthly for a while, around July 2019. As of the Wayback Machine, it was still around July 16, 2019. The next time it was saved was December 13, 2019 and the domain name was for sale; same on December 18, 2019. When I checked today, it was still for sale.
The biggest problem with DNATribes was the price was too high for what little they offered. It didn’t help when one of the founders died and the company was shut down for a prolonged period. At best, you could purchase 27 autosomal STRs for $299.99 with a free add-on report worth $24.99. Once they re-opened, you could purchase 26 autosomal STRs for $119.
These STRs include 13 STRs used for CODIS; some CODIS tests use more than 13 STRs. Early on, the prices were reasonable compared to the market. However, as the prices went down in the market, prices didn’t go much at DNATribes. For a while, you have been able to purchase a DNA test at many retail outlets for $13.99 – 25.00. If you need the results that meet the requirements for court-ordered paternity testing, those tend to skyrocket to $300 – 500 in many labs. It’s hard to compete when your kit is priced at $119 and there are so many retail outlets selling comparable DNA kits so much cheaper.
DNATribes offered SNP comparisons if you tested elsewhere, but the comparison pricing was $49. Initially that was comparable to sites like FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA) and MyHeritageDNA, but eventually those companies offered free limited transfers which made it harder for DNATribes to compete.
Here’s the Wayback Machine for DNATribes: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.dnatribes.com.
From my earlier post – DNATribes Website Update – April 5, 2019, ignore the part about the site still being around as it’s up for sale:
The DNATribes website, http://dnatribes.com/, is still around as of mid-afternoon (U. S. Central Time) April 5, 2019. I hadn’t planned on checking it out, but when I ran a search on an unrelated item, I came across http://www.kerchner.com/cgi-bin/dnatribes.cgi. This link is also saved on the Wayback Machine – https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.kerchner.com/cgi-bin/dnatribes.cgi.If you have DNATribes results and they aren’t attached to the Kerchner site, it’s a good time to do so if you are so inclined. If you do, then you may want to later save the updated version of the Kerchner site to the Wayback Machine.
This is a word of caution for other DNA testing companies who won’t price match their competition. If you charge less than your competition, it’s not as big an issue or if you do sales.
Previous DNA Saturdays posts: https://upsdownsfamilyhistory.wordpress.com/tag/DNA-Saturdays/
Ups Downs Family History 