FamilyBuilder.com Review: Genealogy Sites

	Sign up for FamilyBuilder.com
Rating:
Bottom Line:	Expensive service returns highly general and abstract results that shed no real light on the specificity of one's origins
Full Review:	Familybuilder is a little different than other services we've reviewed. In many ways it involves the least amount of work. Beyond swabbing your inner cheek (think of all those episodes of CSI you've seen, and you'll have an idea) and sending the swab off to be analyzed, there's not a lot for you to do (except wait, but more on that later). Familybuilder's DNA analysis does the rest. Of course the results are quite a bit different from what you get from an Ancestry.com or Onegreatfamily.com. Men have a choice between the $59.95 YDNA Test Kit or the $89.95 mtDNA Test Kit, while women can only choose the latter. What's the difference? YDNA looks at the Y chromosome (which is why only men can use it) to determine the patrilineal (father's) line. mtDNA looks at the mitochondria to determine the matrilineal (mother's) line. Our brave reviewer sacrificed his cheek cells and sent the testing kit in, but getting the results back took nearly twice as long as the site promised (nearly two months). We had entered a support ticket and did not receive a response. However, a week later we were notified our results were in. Full of anticipation, we logged in to the site to see what mysteries were intertwined with our DNA. Unfortunately, there wasn't much. At least nothing specific. There's a rather meticulous and poetic account of the testing process. The actual results, however, are far from satisfying. It's clear that FamilyBuilder plugs your results into a bunch of static content they've written for the various genetic groups. Beyond the info on your haplogroup (your genetic family) and your genetic markers, the rest is rather general, and disappointingly speculative. The migration map isn't annotated, and wasn't really specific to our reviewer. There's a lot of information on subhaplogroups (genetic subfamilies marked by mutations), but we weren't provided with a subhaplogroup. That our reviewer's haplogroup "possibly" originated in the Fertile Crescent (the so-called birthplace of modern civilization) and then migrated up to southern Europe was hardly a surprise. And it wasn't worth $75.00 to find out. Sure, there are other things FamilyBuilder can do. The service can tell you if you have any genetic connections to others in the FamilyBuilder database. Our reviewer didn't. There's also a "modern migration report" which is rather like a Wikipedia article on European migration. You can publish your results on Facebook too, in case you just don't feel like you overshare enough. Really, we expected much more from this service and ultimately we felt rather cheated. The site waxes poetic on the human journey and the wonders of science, but it doesn't deliver anything close to it. Nor does it deliver on time. Sign up for FamilyBuilder.com \| Compare to Other Genealogy Services

Card Details:

Price:	$59.95-$149.90 for individual DNA test kits
Features:	Paternal and maternal DNA tests; migration maps; full history report
Resources:	Ancestor migration map; unique DNA markers; haplogroup
Customer Support:	Email; chat

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FamilyBuilder.com Review: Genealogy Sites

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