Whole genome sequencing for £29 on My Heritage

[Romilly]

I’ve been sent an offer from My Heritage for a DNA test with whole genome testing for £29!

Has anyone on here already had one?

I find it hard to believe that they can offer it for that price?

Romilly.

[Zaphod99]

I think it's been discussed here recently, but it has not been made totally clear exactly when the whole genome testing starts. If I was doing it myself I would wait until the new year.

Zaph

[Romilly]

The email that I received today from My Heritage says,

‘MyHeritage DNA with Whole Genome Sequencing for only £29, plus 30-day free trial’

I have already uploaded an Ancestry DNA test to My Heritage, but I’m tempted by this offer. I can’t believe that they can do whole genome sequencing for £29!!

Romilly

[Indigogirl]

I had the same offer. From what I have read any test submitted now will be able to be used for the whole genome sequencing but it may not be done til next year.

They also need to build a database so until lots of people have tested with the new test, the information they will be able to provide could be limited or some time off . I assume that's why it's cheaper at the moment

[louisa maud]

Hopefully is someone purchases one they will put it on here, I got the same offer.

LM

[cockney rebel]

Hi
I am not a DNA guru, I look at my matches, often shake my head and then go off on another journey!
Can somebody put this "whole genome" business into perspective for me?

My DNA was tested through Ancestry. If "whole genome" suggests 100%, what kind of figure applies to my Ancestry test?
And although it does sound a bargain, is it something of interest only for the real gurus?

In ignorance....
Rebel

[Zaphod99]

https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/10/myheritage-upgrades-its-dna-tests-to-whole-genome-sequencing/

Zaph

[HughC]

My understanding is that most of our DNA is shared by every human on Earth,
and that organizations such as Ancestry have deliberately selected the parts that distinguish us from others (but could well be shared with close relatives).

So it seems to me that whole-genome sequencing is pointless.

[AlanBoyd]

The size of a haploid human genome is ~3.3 billion base pairs. It's true that if you were to compare the genome sequences of two humans they would be very similar overall, but it is the positions where there are differences that matter for lineage analysis.

.Ancestry looks at an array of ~700,000 variable sites (SNPs: single nucleotide polymorphisms) in the genome. However, each individual human is thought to carry 4-5 million differences from the reference human sequence, so WGS will extract more potentially useful information, maybe 5x SNPs.

The other advantage of WGS that I can think of is that it will extend coverage beyond SNPs to insertions and deletions of DNA, which will add to the number of variable sites.