FamilyTreeDNA Blog

Genealogy is detective work. If all of the answers were just given to you, there wouldn't be any interest or excitement left over.

You're sitting on a mountain of discovery and may not even know it. Have you tested with AncestryDNA™, 23andMe©, or MyHeritage™? If the answer is yes, you're eligible to upload your results to FamilyTreeDNA for free!

The Winter holidays, for me, seem like the only time of year when everything feels different. When I feel that cool air, I also sense the nostalgia of winters past.

Genetic genealogy is an anomaly. It combines one of the oldest practices of humanity with one of the newest.

Genetic genealogy is still a brand new thing. We are all unknowingly mapping out a singular story for all of us.

This year, if you find yourself at an awkward Thanksgiving Dinner, it can be helpful to understand how family/friends/loved ones are all connected to you. Family is often about fitting into a complex puzzle, and our differences are more reason to connect even more.

Family Finder is our top-selling DNA kit, ideal for exploring ethnic origins and ancestry. Both males and females can test their autosomal DNA, so this kit is excellent for anyone interested in genetic genealogy—the use of DNA testing to find genetic matches and unlock family history.

A Group Project is a collaborative way for people to work together using their FamilyTreeDNA test results to explore and compare common genetic heritage.

Jeff and his brother both decided to take a DNA test, and that's when Jeff's FamilyTreeDNA story begins to reveal some surprises.

When Ivy was 20 years old, her mother told her that she was conceived through a hospital-run sperm donor program in New York.

Sandy and Joe welcomed a new son into their lives. He was 30 years old and discovered through FamilyTreeDNA that Joe was the father he'd been searching for.

Juliet grew up not knowing anything about her heritage. All she knew was that she was Caucasian.

Ken's children gave him a DNA kit for Father’s Day. He had been searching for his father. When he received the test results, he got the shock of his life.

Patricia always knew that her great-grandmother, Bridget Lohan, had been born in Ireland in the 1800s.  But that was all the information she had.

Because Donna was adopted, she wanted to learn more about her family history. What came back was completely unexpected.

Simmone had the idea to get her father tested to try and find more of his relatives. Perhaps more family members had made it out of North Korea. When she uploaded her father’s results to FamilyTreeDNA, she was surprised

Mikal was searching for her heritage. Little did she know, she would uncover something completely unexpected on her father’s side...and it wasn't her origins.

Read the story of Cindy and her son Christian and their journey with FamilyTreeDNA.

Then, Jim’s daughter Mikal called. Through FamilyTreeDNA, she’d found a sister no one knew about. Jim had another daughter. But she was in Vietnam...

Elyese never felt like she belonged anywhere. She never felt like she really knew who she was...

Donna thought she knew everything about her family but that all changed when she got an email...

Genetic genealogy is the use of DNA testing to determine relationships between individuals, find genetic matches and discover one’s ancestry.

We're not just genetics. We're not even just genetic genealogy. We are a family. We are FamilyTreeDNA...