FamilyTreeDNA: mtDNA major pricebreak

FamilyTreeDNA permitted Tracing the Tribe to be the first to announce this price break last week.

Today, CEO Bennett Greenspan made the announcement directly to FamilyTreeDNA customers:

I am pleased to make a very special announcement about our Full Mitochondria Sequence test.

As you know, this test has continually dropped in price from its initial introduction at $895 in 2005. These price decreases were related to volume and workflow, translating productivity into economies of scale that allowed us to reduce prices to those customers interested in testing their full mitochondrial sequence.

Now Family Tree DNA is doing it again, but this time we are going to take advantage of new technology that will allow us to run more samples in less time, and the savings are substantial.
We expect that this price decrease will hearken a new era of Full Mitochondria Testing for the entire Genealogical community!

We will jumpstart this new era of complete mtDNA testing with an aggressive price in order to build the comparative database to the levels genetic genealogists require to answer precise ancestral and geographic questions.

So now on to the news that you've been waiting for.

A new price for the mtFullSequence test will be introduced in November but until then we are offering our current customers a promotional price through October 31, 2009:

$229 (was $439) for first time mtDNA test takers (the order item is mtFullSequence).

To order the test:

-- Log in to your personal page at http://www.familytreedna.com/
-- Click Special Offers
-- Select mtFullSequence from the dropdown order list
-- Click Continue to go to the payment screen and complete the order
-- It must be placed and paid for by the end of the day, October 31, 2009.

Bennett added:

Depending upon the time that it takes to process these upgrade orders using our new hardware, we may experience a back order or lag time in November. If this occurs we expect to resolve the backlog in December, so to avoid any delay in attaining your results please place your order early in this sales cycle.

This is a great way to get started with the "other side" of genetic genealogy and find out much more about your maternal ancestors - at a much better price - than was possible only a few months ago.