More About Genomac Genealogy DNA Testing in the Czech Republic

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted June 25, 2007 in DNA Around the World, DNA Testing, DNA and Genealogy

What do I know about DNA testing in the Czech Republic? Virtually nothing except for what I dug up last week on Genomac and Forensic DNA Service. Ludvik Urban has first hand knowledge and set me straight over at RootsWeb.

Dr. Lei a <irony>”little bit”</irony> warps the facts.

1. “ancestry tests costing about $55.80″

Test by Genomac costs 2x more [2500 CZK].

I got the figure from the Prague Post article I quoted.

2. “Genomac is not much different than DNA testing companies in other countries.”

Maybe yes, maybe not. But in the Czech Republic, it is prohibited by law to keep DNA samples of individual persons. Genomac does keep samples without government permission.

3. “Any commericial database of DNA profiles must be registered.”

The Genomac’s database is not registerd.

4. Genomac as a result of its genographic test sells a map downloaded from YHDR database with erased copyright and without YHDR permission.

I bought Y-DNA test at Genomac for me and also from some of my relatives last year. As a admin of Genebaze, a genealogy website, and in the name of genealogy community I offered to Genomac acooperation, especially in a search for common ancestors. It refused. By the same time [last September] Genomac decided to sell ONLY YHDR maps, NOT markers values! After my query it started to sell marker values for aditional raised price.

I hope Genomac will soon fulfill the law and open its database. It promises that search the its database will find one’s ancestors and relatives.

What makes me sad is the fact that Genomac still refuses to prepare testfor more than 12 markers [<cite>"12 is enough, whe YHDR as a reference hasless markers"</cite>] and also refuses to store data about most distant ancestors.It refuses to evaluate obtained haplotypes by any haplogroup predictions. Instead of it, it produces a “certificate of origin” with these results:

“west-slavic”, “romanic”, “south-slavic”, “scandinavian-german”,
“mediterran-balkanic-north african”, “mediterran-near east-asian”,
“baltic-scandinavian-siberian” and “mediterran-kaukasic”.

Dont laugh, it’s true!

As a result of its very efficient marketing, people refuse to make test for more than 12 markers “because they have from Genomac all data”.

Ludvik Urban,
Genebáze and its amateur Czech and Slovak Y-DNA, mtDNA database

Thanks for letting us know more about the DNA testing scene in the Czech Republic, Ludvik! I will try to contact Dr. Marek Minarik to get his side of the story.

Tags: ludvik urban, marek minarik, genomac, czech republic, genetics, genes, dna, dna testing, genealogy

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3 Comments »

Comment by Gabriela

2007-06-30 02:05:11

I have just ordered DNA testing from Family Tree DNA, through their Czech Project. If ordered through a project, the test is at a discount. For the amount of testing they do, they have the best price and I have discovered that they also have great customer support and boards. Lots of feedback and information exchange from FTDNA is on rootsweb. http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/DNA/GENEALOGY-DNA.html
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Czech/

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Comment by Hsien

2007-07-01 19:10:32

Gabriela, Thanks for sharing this very helpful information!

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Pingback by Dr. Marek Minarik of Genomac on Genealogy DNA Testing in the Czech Republic

2007-07-03 13:12:36

[...] in response to Dr. Urban’s specific comments (in italics), Dr. Minarik had this to [...]

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