Ancestry.com Discontinues Y-DNA and mtDNA testing services

Ancestry.com made some very big announcements on their blog this week: 

1. Ancestry.com will no longer sell the Y-DNA and mtDNA kits –  deciding to focus on their autosomal DNA test only
2. Ancestry.com will no longer keep Y-DNA and mtDNA samples in storage – all samples will be destroyed and cannot be used to upgrade to an autosomal DNA test
3. Ancestry.com will no longer offer access to your Y-DNA and mtDNA results – all results must be downloaded before September 5th, 2014 when they will be permanently removed from their servers

WHAT TO DO?

1. Contact your matches! 
2. Download your results to a CSV file. 
3. Transfer your Y-DNA results to Family Tree DNA (ftDNA). They are offering the low price of $19 for the transfer of both the Ancestry.com 33 and 46 marker tests. Upgrades are available to ftDNA’s standard 25 and 37 marker tests for an additional fee of $39. See ftDNA FAQs Why upgrade to more markers? 
• The $19 fee allows you to transfer your results to ftDNA and to join projects; however, you will not receive matches or a haplogroup prediction. Your results will be available to your project administrator and will be displayed in your project's public page. 
4. Once your results are transferred, join the appropriate surname project in ftDNA
5. Join the appropriate Y-Haplogroup project and geographic projects to learn more about your Y-DNA results and ancestry. 
6. Upload your Y-DNA results to Ysearch.org. This database is free and searchable by surname, results, or user ID. It is FREE!

What about my mtDNA?

There currently is no company offering transfer of your mtDNA results. I recommend that you upload your results to mitosearch.org for FREE.

Other Ancestry.com Discontinued Services and Products:

A number of other recently acquired products will no longer be supported or made available to users:

• Genealogy.com service, including the message boards
• The MyFamily website. All content can be downloaded and zipped up but must be downloaded by September 5th, 2014
• MyCanvas story creation and printing service
• Mundia

For more information, check out CeCe Moore's full report and Ancestry.com's LegacyDNA FAQs. 

SNGF - Matrilinial Madness

Randy Seaver has given us another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun mission and it goes like so:

1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
3) Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?

Here is mine:

1) My Matrilinial Line - I can only go back 6 generations including myself. The oldest direct female ancestor is Lucendy "Cindy" Gentry who was born April 12, 1868 in Tennessee and died February 19, 1905 in Lamar County, Texas.

1. Ginger R. Smith
2. Marilyn Godwin Smith
3. Sue C. Lasiter
4. Thelma Louise Benson
5. Eva Mae Dennis
6. Lucendy Gentry

2) I have had my mitochondrial DNA tested and I am in haplogroup H

3) Although I seem to have a good handle on what to do with my Family Finder autosomal DNA results, I have no clue what to do with my mtDNA results. Most of my autosomal matches have been for my Father's side of the family. I haven't been able to find any connections to my Mother's side of the family as of yet. I don't think this is very uncommon however because researching the females lines can oftentimes be very difficult.

SNGF - Matrilineal Line / Treasure Chest Thursday !

I know I'm a few days late to participate in Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from May 8th, 2010, but thought I would post my reply to his latest topic:  Matrilineal Lines...upon further evaluation and discovery, I thought this would be an excellent candidate to include in the Treasure Chest Thursday blog prompt today.

Your matrilineal line consists of your mother, your mother's mother, her mother, etc, as far back as you can go. This is important because this is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you.

 Here is my Matrilineal Line:

1. Ginger R. Smith, b. 1976 Ft. Smith, AR
2. Marilyn Godwin married Timothy Smith
3. Sue Carolyn Lasiter (1936 OK - 2003 Sebastian Co., AR) married Lawrence O. Godwin
4. Thelma Louise Benson (1912 Osage Co., OK - 1996 Sebastian Co., AR) married James Putman Lasiter (1908 OK - 1974 Sebastian Co., AR)
5. Eva Mae Dennis (1889 Lamar Co., TX - 1983 Stephens Co., OK) married Barney Sharon Benson (1884 Sebastian Co., AR - 1952 CA)
6. Lucendy Gentry (1868 TN - 1905 Lamar Co., TX) married Reuben Dennis (1867 TX - 1941 Lamar Co., TX)

To top things off, I just so happen to have a 5-generation picture of my matrilineal lines!!! 

5 Generation Picture, Fort Smith, Arkansas, March 1976, digitized and privately held by Ginger R. Smith, Durham, North Carolina. This photo was retrieved from Louise Benson Lasiter's house upon her death in 1996 by her daughter Sue Smith. Photo was subsequently passed to Sue's daughter, Marilyn Smith upon Sue's death in 2003, then passed to Marilyn's daughter, Ginger R. Smith in 2009. 

My parents were young when I was born. My father was 17 and my mother had just turned 19 years of age 5 days before I was born. So I was lucky to still have a couple sets of great-great grand parents living. This picture is testament to that. I believe the picture was taken at my great-grandmother's house, Louise Benson Lasiter, on Park Avenue, Fort Smith, AR.

In the chair I [Ginger R. Smith] am being held by my mother, Marilyn Godwin. Standing behind her from left to right is my grandmother, Sue Carolyn Lasiter Godwin, then my great grandmother Thelma Louise Benson Lasiter, then my great-great grandmother, Eva Mae Dennis Benson.