Updated: November 9, 2015

For anyone who has been a customer of 23andme, their Countries of Ancestry (CoA) has been a terrific tool in the toolbox.
Alas – it is going away. You have until November 10th, 2015 to use the tool and even more importantly – Download yer data!

Put it in the calendar folks.

Today’s the day your 23andme folks should go out and 23andme – Get the latest Countries of Ancestry Data for all of your profiles there. While 23andme is promising new tools, surely it can only help to have this data in your back pocket for later.

Also, Bonus tip: In addition downloading your own matches at 23andme itself, you can use the DNA Gedcom.com site to download the CoA data for ALL of your matches! (It is a free tool but see Donate button at bottom of page.) The download process can take awhile, as you provide your 23andme login, it reaches out to get all of the CoA files for you, then places them in a download location.

DNA Gedcom estimates 30 minutes to an hour for the process, but it took about 20 minutes to download the CoA matches for all 3 of my 23andme profiles, so that is a pretty good speed. Especially considering my wife has an Ashkenazi great-grandfather, so LOTS of matches.

To reiterate: GO GET YER DATA NOW – who knows how many other users are planning to download today? Could be some bottlenecks ahead.

Below is part of the original announcement from the 23andme community forums:

As part of the updates and transition to the new 23andMe, many features will be undergoing significant changes. While we are working to transition customers to the new site, some changes will have an immediate impact on the customer experience in the current 23andMe site, including Countries of Ancestry.

To provide some context for this change, we wanted to share a number of key principles behind the updates to the 23andMe site and features, including:

* Simplifying the features and site experience
* Adding new tools to help customers get the most out of the service
* Reducing barriers to customer engagement, connection, and communication
* Maximizing trust and participation by ensuring that users clearly and explicitly opt in to all information sharing

In consideration of these principles, while some aspects of the feature will be incorporated into the new site, Countries of Ancestry will not be available as a standalone tool in the new 23andMe. The following features of Countries of Ancestry are being removed:

– The ability to view and download the segments you have in common with members you are not directly sharing with, including public or anonymous DNA Relatives matches.
– The ability to select any profile you are sharing with and then view and download this same information for that profile.

In order to conform to our stance on customer privacy, starting on November 11, 2015, Countries of Ancestry will no longer be available. Up until this date, customers may continue to access the web interface and download.