Monday, May 21, 2012

Mocavo is Wrong: 23andMe is not Partnering with AncestryDNA

On Sunday Mocavo sent out their email newsletter featuring an article, Ancestry.com Announces New AncestryDNA Service by Michael J. Leclerc, which contains a serious error. The first sentence of the second paragraph reads, "Partnering with 23andMe, AncestryDNA offers testing on all of your chromosomes, including the autosomal." On the heels of AncestryDNA's acquisition of Sorenson's DNA database, it is not surprising that this inaccuracy has resulted in much consternation among the genetic genealogy community today.

Public Relations Manager at 23andMe, Catherine Afarian sets the record straight, "While we have worked with Ancestry.com in the past, our partnership officially ended in 2010 and 23andMe is not affiliated or associated with AncestryDNA's current service offerings in any way." She goes on to reassure, "23andMe holds the trust of our community in the highest regard. 23andMe does not share an individual's data without their explicit consent." 

This press release from 2008 references the former relationship between the two companies. In practice, it amounted to little more than a free 23andMe demo account offered to Ancestry.com DNA customers.

Hopefully, Mocavo will issue a clarification to its subscribers on Monday, but in the meantime, I wanted to set the record straight to alleviate the understandable concern of many 23andMe customers and the community in general . 

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