This month sees five new lucky Prize Draw winners, a new representative for us in Francis, Utah and an additional office in Rochester, NY.

Quicker sample turnaround
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Thanks to our new representative in Francis, Utah, results can now be ready in about 3 and a half weeks (often less). Instead of returning samples to our UK office as was needed until recently, customers from all countries can now return samples directly to Francis for sample check-in, from where they are transported to the laboratory in Salt Lake City on a daily basis.

Our European customers are given a choice to return their samples to the UK or to Utah, although we recommend the more direct route as this will be quicker. Regular Airmail from Europe costs less than £1.

As most will appreciate, this timescale compares very favourably with other laboratories.

Our new office
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It makes sense to be close to one’s customers. Ours are mostly from Europe and North America so we have opened a new office in Rochester, New York. This means that we are now on both sides of the Atlantic and gives us a springboard into Canada and the US where we can help grow the numbers of genetic genealogists in these countries too.

DNAOptions
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Our new flexible ordering system is proving a huge success. Many customers still opt for the full 43-marker panel given that it attracts such a large discount, but others have taken the alternative route, ordered just the markers they wanted and now have the option of adding extra markers whenever they want.

A couple of people have asked “which are the best markers to select?” This depends on if you have many cousins tested already or if you are starting a new Surname Project.

With genetic genealogy, it is necessary to compare like with like. If there are people with the same surname tested e.g. through FTDNA on 25 markers, it is sensible to select those same 25 markers so that you have something to compare with.

However, these 25 markers aren’t all very useful to genealogy as some change very little - if they don’t have much variation, there is little difference between you and everyone else. Additionally, those 25 markers only contain 17 single-copy markers.

The testing panels in use were largely chosen on historical grounds i.e. when a new marker was discovered, it was added to the panel even though not all markers are equally as useful.

Whilst we do provide the exact same markers, and testing through us would save you up to $40 for each participant, we don’t recommend them for new Surname Projects.

For these, we recommend the 23 single-copy markers in our default panel as all chosen for their high variability and thus utility in genealogy. With single-copy markers you know that you are comparing the same location in one person as you are in another - and you don’t have the problems of ambiguity that you get with multi-copy markers.

With this default panel, it means your participants receive:
- a high-resolution test for less than $138
- have 23 highly-variable, single-copy markers with which to compare with and
– have the option to upgrade themselves for just $5.99 per marker
and your new Project gets a good start in life!

Prize Draw
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Congratulations to this month's five lucky winners who each receive a full 43-marker test compliments of DNA Heritage.

The growing list of winners can be seen at http://www.dnaheritage.com/prizedrawwinners.asp. Each had entered links on their websites to our home page and submitted their entry to http://www.dnaheritage.com/prizedraw.asp.