Family Tree DNA Reviews

My Relative in his late 80s, purchased the BIG Y test at about $500.
Pretty much all he was told was he was male and that his ancestors came from Africa originally and people with similar dna are most commonly found tin the are he lives in, which of course we knew anyway.
Nothing about Traits or Health etc.
On their reccommendation, he paid another $100, to get a "raw data" report that could be exported to other services to get the info wanted.
Once that report was received, it turns out that the file is too large to upload to other sites, or in an old format or that other companies do not deal with Family Tree dna.
So he discovered nothing new except that he had £100 dollars less!
Customer Service said he should have checked with the other companies first!
They now recommend paying more for a test aht gives "autosomal info" and seemingly their Family Finder test is currently on sale (but still another £50)! We are not even sure that this would provide the information required. Seems more like the "Family Finder Plus" (currently on sale at $70) MIGHT be of more use, but Customer Service di dnot answer that question.
When we asked for more discount given the large amounts already paid, we were told that they do not do testing for free!
I am guessing that only after we pay the $50 dollars for "Family Finder" will they tell us that we should have bought "Family Finder Plus" and that we now need to buy it etc. ?
Cannot afford to telephone the USA, they do not phone us, thier "Chat" service is usually not working and contacting Customer Service for information takes about a week to get a reply (by which time their sale will be over!).
Think seriously before spending money with this company.
I think perhaps they want out dna to test for their own research purposes but give very little back and keep advising you to pay for more tests!!!

The myOrigins are just ok. Ancestry or 23andMe are better for ethnicity. Go with this company if you want mitochondrial or Y DNA. There will be a lot of matches if your family is European. Africans and Asians are only starting to do these tests now, so they will have only a few matches so far. But know that the Y and mt tests take a long time because this is the only company that does them. And don’t waste your money upgrading a test without joining a group project to get personal advice. You don’t want to misunderstand what you’re ordering and be disappointed with the results. If you did your DNA with another company, you can get a free account here with a DNA transfer so you can see if you like the site.

I purchased the Y111 DNA test because I wanted to get information on my paternal side. After purchasing my kit and obtaining my kit # I tried to log in but couldn't. After contacting technical support, two days later they corrected what they called a bug. About ten days later I received my DNA results and I tried to upload a GED file to their website. Again I couldn't. After contacting support I was told that they have turned my problem over to I.T. and that it would take about two weeks or more to get to the bottom of the problem. It has been over two weeks and crickets! Still can't upload my GED file. If you want DNA testing they are probably pretty good but if you want to tie a GED file to it, FIND ANOTHER COMPANY!

I am giving FamilyTreeDNA a 1-star because they promised around 6-week delivery, and it went to almost 9 weeks. When I checked with support, they were mad at me and wondering why I was frustrated why it was taking longer and longer.

Once I got the results, it showed that I come from a Cambodian line and had no real other information to work on (I obviously knew this was wrong because I'm Filipino-Chinese). Support kept telling me it was a software glitch. After paying almost $200 for this information. I was completely disappointed.

A relative was trying to do research on my family history and knew that this information seemed not to be right, so they offered to pay for my 23andMe DNA test for $100. Not only did this cost about half as much, their delivery was faster, and they gave much more information to work on, and yes, it did show that I had Filipino-Chinese ancestors.

I'm thinking they may lost my sample and probably guessed by looking at my face and assigned a haplogroup for me. I was almost tempted to pay for their higher plan because I was second guessing myself, which would have led to more disappointment. Anyways, I highly UNrecommend FamilyTreeDNA.

I purchased the mtDNA, very expensive, and after several weeks, I received nothing but codes. I already knew where I was born and my mother's and other relatives country of origin. However the results have no meaning or explanation of my blood percentage European?, Indian? American? African? who knows!! this is a complete waste of money.

Ordered an add-on SNP kit to a Y-DNA and so far have waited 109 days to no avail. Company reported that a test had failed quality control, creating a delay, but they could have completed the test twice by now. They won't even tell me when it is likely to be completed, so not at all impressed. Very poor customer service. Very sluggish response.b Still waiting...
Edit - Now another week on, they claim it is another 2-4 weeks and they refuse to refund, so I am considering doing a charge-back on my credit card. What an appalling company.

Excellent mix of tests and info. I have always got good service.

I don't know what probability I can gain from the site. I joined a project group. No activity on the forum since 2018. I guess customers gave up on the group. it is the mtDNA haplogroups with possible new subclades.

The Family Tree DNA website is not very user friendly. It does provide all sorts of great info on DNA and how it works, subclades, variants, and so forth. However, I have no idea after an hour or more of looking, how to download the results so that I can share them with Ancestry.com, or with My Heritage. I am hoping that the Ancestry website will make my new DNA test more available and useful.

Uploaded autosomal DNA results and never got the results uploaded. I was told IT had to fix a glitch. That was several months ago. I was going to but a Y test but if this is the service I get, then it's a hard no for me. I would have given no stars but that's not an option.