I can only describe Debbie Kennett’s article LivingDNA review in WDYTYA magazine as kind.
At £99 ($158 Cdn), the Living DNA test is substantially more costly than the competition.
For the price, in addition to an autosomal DNA test, it does provide basic paternal (males only) and maternal lines haplogroup reports. But there is no capability to use those to find matches, and as the autosomal database has 300,000 people, compared with 21 million at AncestryDNA, you are 70 times more likely to see an autosomal match with Ancestry.
LivingDNA breaks British Isles ancestry down into 21 regions, although none of those are for Ireland. There is also no Jewish category. Debbie comments that “the reports have generally matched my known ancestry reasonably well.” That is not my experience. LivingDNA suggests; that after Ireland (much less than other companies), North and South Yorkshire are my top regions, but I don’t have known ancestry in either of those!
If you have a test from another company there’s another option. You can upload your basic data to Living DNA for free. It will be included in the matching database, and you will receive a basic continental-level ancestry breakdown (something you;ll have from the company youi tested with.) You can get Living DNA’s more detailed analysis for £29 ($46 Cdn.)
Debbie claims, without giving details, that as the only major genetic genealogy company that keeps all of your data in Europe, Living DNA better protects privacy and data security.
The review points out the various cons of the Living DNA test; after six years in business, it’s hard to recommend the company test compared to the competition, something Debbie’s article does not say explicitly.
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