23andMe: Good News?

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From 23andMe email last week

Recently in genealogy DNA circles there has been a lot of worry about the future of 23andMe, the second-largest DNA database. There is reason for worry, as Kitty Cooper said in a September blog post: "23andme has been in the news this week because its entire board, except its founder, Anne Wojcicki, resigned over her plan to take it private again. It went public in 2021 but has yet to turn a profit and the WSJ reports that it will run out of cash next year." 

Cooper asks, "Why is 23andme not profitable? ...Discovering what health issues you might be susceptible to because of your DNA is not a big motivator for getting tested. Many Americans want to know their ethnic roots, for example, do they really have a native American ancestor? Genealogists may be the largest group who are interested in these tests in order to better understand their family history and find new relatives. Therefore once Ancestry.com started selling DNA tests, within a few years its market share exceeded 23andme’s by more than double." Now the Ancestry DNA database is as large as all the other sites, combined [1].

As Cooper notes, a DNA test is a one-time purchase. The other genealogy DNA sites bring in sustainable income in other ways, but 23andMe has only recently started to do that, with "23andMe+ Premium." I paid for this service to get access to their ancient DNA matches, which they call Historical Matches. Read more about this on their blog.

My largest match there is tiny (0.11%) to "Late Antique Period Roman R31." Here are some of the other top matches:


One drawback of Historical Matches is that there is no way to download the information besides screenshots or saving the pages as PDFs. 

Records & Archives

I tested out Records & Archives™ immediately. So far, it provides only SSDI (Social Security Death Index) and 1950 US Census hints. In my mother's image in the tree you can see that there is a hint. Once accepted though, the profile shows no difference, and the record can't be downloaded or even seen from the profile.

The hint search is not robust and there are no actual records, just indices. However,I was heartened to see that 23andMe are taking notice of us, the genealogy community again. 

The last time we got a new genealogy feature was four years ago, with the genetic family tree. Adding record hints to the tree shows that 23andMe are paying attention to those who actually use their website.


23andMe: Pioneers in Consumer Autosomal DNA Testing

I had forgotten that 23andMe was not just an early leader in autosomal DNA testing, but were the pioneers. They were first to gamble on the consumer market, offering some health testing along with relative matching, continent-level ancestry, and excellent tools for comparing DNA segments with matches. 

Recently Bennett Greenspan was interviewed by Tim Jantzen at an Advanced DNA SIG meeting, where he described meeting with the 23andMe founders (30:55) and being impressed by their tech, then trying to recreate it with a slightly different process. FamilyTreeDNA ended up retesting all those early autosomal customers on the Illumina chip, which is what 23andMe had settled on. FamilyTreeDNA's FamilyFinder test was a game-changer in my DNA testing journey. The first DNA test I ever bought was a Y-DNA test for my daddy's Father's Day gift. When he was unable to spit into a tube near the end of his life, FTDNA were able add the autosomal test without resampling, and after my dad's death, upgrade him to Big Y.


Looking Ahead

The first test I took was with 23andMe, and those results have been a gift which continues to give me new matches every week for many years. The security breach changes in the site have diminished both the ease of use and the value of testing, but I remain thankful to the DNA pioneers. They led the way to an increasingly valuable genealogy record set. 

Those who are worried about a possible sale of the company or even sale of our DNA data might follow Roberta Estes' advice: 23andMe Trouble – Step-by-Step Instructions to Preserve Your Data and Matches. 

Best practice is backing up our data from every online site.

My advice to those who want to test, and have limited funds is  go with Ancestry.com. They have the largest database and very good analysis tools. Then upload your DNA data elsewhere as time and funds allow. Testing with 23andMe, especially now that they have a sale running, is a good value. They do not accept uploads, and are still the second-largest database.

1. https://thednageek.com/dna-tests/, https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/About-AncestryDNA


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Share your story with us! send to m.strickland@skcgs.org


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Valorie Zimmerman


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