Review: Living DNA

I received my results from Living DNA. There was a problem with my first sample and they sent me a second kit. I bought my original kit when it was on sale last November. It cost $108.95. The good news is they provide results of Y-DNA, mtDNA, as well as atDNA. The results are easy to follow and the maps can be drilled down into showing interesting detail. In my case, I am 98% European, 83% Great Britain and Ireland, and 13% Central England, 12% North Yorkshire, 11% South England, Etc.

Chart showing modern populations sharing my DNA

Living DNA provided my mitochondrial DNA haplogroup of T2b and my paternal (Y-DNA) haplogroup of R-L21 and the subclade R-Z2961. If I hadn’t already known those results learning them would have been invaluable.

The bad news is that Living DNA doesn’t appear to have any connections to potential cousins or provide a way to compare your results with anyone else. However, downloading your results for importing into GEDMatch or other services is easy. Just select Download Raw Data, agree that you are aware of the impact such information can provide and that you take responsibility for the data once you download the raw data. Then you may download the results from the three tests. The atDNA test loaded into GEDMatch easily as a Generic Kit and the results were as I expected.

Sharing your results on Twitter and Facebook is easy, however, doing a nice report for printing isn’t an option.

I don’t recommend Living DNA for family historians who are looking to snare cousins that might have artifacts from their common ancestors. Also, the lack of a nice-quality printed report removes it from being a great “coffee table” service. However, if you want to learn your mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups and use other services for cousin connecting, then Living DNA might be for you.

Hopefully, they will improve the report printing soon.