Three and a half years since the launch of Geneanet DNA, it’s time to take stock. We have made the difficult decision to end this feature set which unfortunately hasn’t had the success we had hoped for.
Backup your data before the DNA service disappears! Read our tutorial here.
Geneanet DNA was launched in February 2020, ahead of its time, with a strong ambition: to build a free, universal DNA database, enriched with family trees.
Free, in order to facilitate for all the search for one’s origins, in accordance with Geneanet’s mission.
Universal, by offering the possibility to upload DNA from multiple companies so you could find even more genetic cousins.
Enriched with extended family trees to help Geneanet members identify their common ancestors, a key differentiator compared to other market players.
A number of innovative features were developed with these goals in mind (haplogroup identification, a chromosome browser, triangulation, etc.).
However, over the last several years, we have not seen the success we had hoped for and we have therefore made the difficult decision to stop Geneanet DNA in order to concentrate on more promising Geneanet features and services, better aligned with requests from our members. Despite this, we are proud to have helped you, over nearly four years, to find cousins around the world with the many features we offered.
And now? Two dates to keep in mind:
- November 20, 2023: from this date forward, it will no longer be possible to upload a third-party DNA file to Geneanet. You will however continue to benefit from Geneanet DNA features, such as cousins in common. We invite you to download your cousins list to your computer before the removal of the service. For more details, see this explainer article.
- December 20, 2023: The Geneanet DNA section, the features and the associated data (DNA cousins list, raw data from your DNA provider) will be permanently deleted.
We are sad at the closing of this chapter of the history of Geneanet. But we are enthusiastic as we write new chapters to come, overflowing with discoveries, with new collections and services, with sharing and mutual assistance. Chapters written with you and for you.
We understand and share your disappointment. As there are a number of similar comments, we will be closing comments on this post. Thank you for your understanding.
We remind you that no features reserved for Premium members have been impacted by the pending closure of our DNA service.
11/20/23
Smells like Privacy Rules Again – a reaction to the issues experienced by 23andme!. Never mind, for most DNA doesn’t stand for Deoxyribonucleic acid, it stands for Do Not Ask and/or Do Not Answer. Shame to lose yet another Chromosome Browser.
11/20/23
Disgusting attitude by your new masters. I hope ANCESTRY appreciate that this is a BIG mistake!!! I wonder how long familysearch.org will survive at this rate. We’ve already lost the functionality of an early gem at World Connect. Members should protest vigorously.
11/20/23
What a poor decision you are making – alienating so many of us, who will not now renew as we feel we’ve been conned.
And only a month’s notice, with no instructions on how to remove or save data – really?
11/20/23
In case you missed the instructions for downloading your relatives list you can use this link:
https://en.geneanet.org/genealogyblog/post/2023/11/geneanet-dna-how-to-backup-your-data
11/20/23
This sucks! From what I am reading removing these features is not helping the consumers who find this tool beneficial. I wholeheartedly agree! I hope you reconsider and see that this is not what we truly want. I joined this site to find obscure relatives. And what would be the point of this site if the aforementioned services were removed? It seems we, the consumers/customers are being offered a raw deal.
11/20/23
I have only ever been given 354 distant relatives on Geneanet and not one surname is familiar in my family tree of over 3000 ancestors. Yet Ancestry.com and My Heritage have found direct ancestors through DNA bloodlines and pretty much completed my tree for me. It’s as if Geneanet are using someone else’s DNA, not what I uploaded. It’s been absolutely not fit for purpose, a waste of time and money and I’m not surprised it’s being discontinued as it simply doesn’t work! And neither does this site as it’s soooo confusing to navigate.
11/20/23
It time to take astock alright and it looks like your stock is crashing! Time to say goodbye.
11/20/23
Ancestry purchased Geneanet. No one could expect anything but a headache when this happened.
11/20/23
Thanks so much Ancestry for purchasing Geneanet. [Sarcasm]
11/20/23
Excuse me for posting again but this is not a sad time or a joyful celebration of new services . This is FRAUD. I want my refund credited immediately. ‘-
11/20/23
The page indicated it was possible to upload DNA, but after creating an ID, it defaulted to not being able to upload any more – this was at 13:45 20/11/2023 (I had hoped to have until the end of the day)… disappointed but my own fault for waiting too long.
11/20/23
You have recommended I remove my data. How do I rmove my Raw Data from Geneanet?
11/20/23
I use Geneanet to find records and family lines of ancestors from France from 1900 and back. I type in a name and possible dates, and get the information others have uploaded. Will this feature still be available?
11/20/23
Sad to see, in the future I believe it will be a big thing with new technology, thank you, I will still be staying with this wonderful service. Cheers
11/20/23
This is unfortunately for many of us a step in the wrong direction.
11/20/23
Sorry to hear you are doing this .It was a wonderful feature,but thanks for all your help.
11/20/23
Pour moi vous ne donnez pas clairement la cause de cet arrêt : financier ? , ni les développements à venir apparemment plus en phase avec la demande !
Tres décevant
11/20/23
Thank you for the DNA services already provided. I’m sad for the loss, as members haven’t had a longer time to explore the value of the potential connections discovered. Looking forward to new ideas and services from Geneanet, and wishing good luck to members in their research.
11/20/23
This really sucks. I can tell you I have only used Geneanet to try to make connections to my ancestors. The problem has ALWAYS come down to their family trees.
Your family tree service is clunky and difficult to navigate. The majority of people having trees are set to private. This aggravated me until I realized MINE was, as well.
When DNA relatives DID have public trees it was hard for me to view/navigate them or be able to view the whole tree. It would say some people had 1500 people in their family tree and yet when I’m looking at it I’m only able to see 20 or 30. As in it seems like 20-30 are the only people who exist in that tree – not that 20-30 are public and the other 1470 are set to private. As far as I can tell, the other 1470 don’t exist. Hopefully your shutting down of a useful tool means you can spend time making family trees more functional and less tedious.
Also, You’re giving people a MONTH to download and collect all of their DNA data? You can’t just leave it up as Read Only for those of us who have it set up??
I literally have tens of thousands of DNA matches that I have yet to go through and now only a month to get all that together. Who knows if I’ll even be able to do anything with it once your DNA service shuts down completely.
Totally blindsided, not cool.
11/20/23
I only joined because of the DNA facility
11/20/23
I’m confused and blindsided. I only found out about it this year, and would have recommended it with more reminders or incentives. Would it be too expensive to keep running for another year? It seems to be very successful for something with such little advertising. Have you actually seen growth decline significantly? You may not have as much growth as you want, but if you still have steadily increasing growth then it is still successful. Perhaps there has been some industrial espionage by the DNA providers to convince you otherwise? It’s very strange for it to be ended so suddenly, without an appeal to users to help with growth first. This announcement would serve you much better as a rallying call than a death rattle. Suddenly ending one service only decreases confidence in the services that are left.
11/20/23
That’s such a shame. I’ll be sorry to see it go. How can I download my DNA Cousins list please?
11/20/23
What are the ‘more promising Geneanet features and services’? There is no mention of them. Would be interesting to find out.
11/20/23
Just because you don’t have a big DNA database doesn’t mean that it’s not useful or a success. I’d encourage you to retain it.
11/20/23
What the F… I just bought a year subscription so I can connect with my European dna roots . Where do I get my refund as this was sold to me when you are not going to provide any service. You better charge your name as “Gene “ is no longer applicable. Just use “Net “ as you sucker in customers.
11/20/23
How do I access my DNA cosins to download them, please?
11/20/23
Why not give it more time to grow?
11/20/23
I am stunned as the possibility of finding cousins and DNA connections was the reason I joined. I do wish that you would give a brief sketch of how the new features would benefit members.