FamilyTreeDNA

FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA. FamilyTreeDNA as a division of Gene by Gene were acquired by MYDNA, Inc., an Australian company, in January 2021.

FamilyTreeDNA was founded based on an idea conceived by Bennett Greenspan, a lifelong entrepreneur and genealogy enthusiast. In 1999, Greenspan had entered semi-retirement and was working on his family history. He began work on his mother's Nitz lineage. When faced with a roadblock in his work, he remembered two cases of genetics being used to prove ancestry that had recently been covered by the media. These were a study by University of Arizona researchers showing that many Cohen men from both Ashkenazic and Sephardic groups share the same Y-chromosome and a study that showed that male descendants of a paternal uncle of US President Thomas Jefferson (who presumably shared his Y-chromosome) and male-line descendants of his freed slave Sally Hemings shared the same Y-chromosome and a recent common ancestry.

Greenspan had both Nitz cousins in California and had discovered someone in Argentina with the same ancestral surname and the same ancestral location in Eastern Europe. Wishing to use the same method of DNA comparison for his own genealogy, he contacted Dr. Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona. Greenspan discovered that academic labs did not offer testing directly to the public and that in general direct to consumer testing for genealogy was not commercially available either. Their conversation inspired him to start a company dedicated to using genetics to help solve genealogy mysteries.

It was early 2000 when Greenspan with his business partners Max Blankfeld and Jim Warren officially launched FamilyTreeDNA. Initially, the Arizona Research Labs at the University of Arizona performed all testing for FamilyTreeDNA. FamilyTreeDNA includes among its scientific staff, Dr. Michael Hammer (PhD), one of a team of scientists that first published on the Cohen Modal Haplotype in 1997 in the journal Nature.

FamilyTreeDNA began with a proof in concept group of twenty-four tests that returned results in January. The company began by offering 12 STR marker Y-chromosome tests much like those used in many scientific publications of the time in March 2000. FamilyTreeDNA became widely known for its Y-chromosome STR testing for the Cohen Modal Haplotype.

They added an interface by which genealogists could run surname research studies. The first person to create such a project through the FamilyTreeDNA site was Doug Mumma, who founded the Mumma project. Such projects can also focus on specific regions and niche populations.

The first tests offered by FamilyTreeDNA were Y-chromosome STR and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) tests like those used by published academic studies at the time.

FamilyTreeDNA's initial Y-chromosome tests were described as 11 marker tests. They eventually began to call this a 12 STR marker test as one of the STRS (DYS385) almost always had two copies. This they billed as a method to affirm or disprove a genealogical connection on the direct paternal line.^{[citation needed]}