Starting early 2017, National Geographic Genographic (NGG) began shipping test kits from their new partner Helix instead of FamilyTreeDNA for any orders placed inside the USA and for delivery inside the USA. This change is not compatible with previously reported NGG Geno2.0+ NextGen features and capabilities. The NGG website hides this change. It is not noted on the FTDNA website except in a buried forum response. The question was posed to FTDNA directly in a conference in early June 2017 with essentially a tacit affirmation. Helix is still in flux as to what features they are really offering today or in the future that will help the genetic genealogy community.
At this time, it appears the RAW data results file is not available from Helix. The test chip array method Helix used does not produce the same result either. The test result is not compatible with nor importable to FTDNA: either the yDNA SNP or FamilyFinder autosomal match database. It is not clear that Helix includes a deep Autosomal SNP test suite (greater than 500,000 SNPs) like others and that the newer Geno2.0 +/NextGen test provided previously. Nor that Helix offers the very deep yDNA SNP suite (greater than 10,000 SNPs) of the FTDNA NGG Geno2.0 +/NextGen test. With this incompatibility, and given NGG does not have a match database to start with (autosomal or yDNA), it is not really clear what you are getting from the NGG test in the USA that will help you as a genealogist. Until this is all sorted out, we have to drop the recommendation of the NGG test for USA based customers who want a deep yDNA SNP test solution importable to FTDNA.
Visit our NGG page for a link when ordering international for international delivery. This will get your the old, good FTDNA technology kit. At least this week
