Oxford Ancestors is not dead yet

Update 11th January 2021

The reprieve was short lived and Oxford Ancestors ceased trading on 31st December 2020. See my blog post Oxford Ancestors have ceased trading.

I wrote back in March this year that Oxford Ancestors was planning to close down this summer.

I've now learnt that they have had a reprieve. The following newsflash was published on their website on 3rd May.

NOT DEAD YET
Oxford Ancestors is NOT closing down after 18 years. I have enjoyed those years immensely and it has been a rare privilege to have you send me your DNA from all over the world. We started because I wanted people to be able to share in the excitement of the research being done in university laboratories like my own in Oxford but rarely reaching beyond the halls of academe. That has all changed now and cheap DNA tests are widely available, even if their meaning is sometimes dubious. The popularity of ‘ethnic testing’ is a case in point, where even religious persuasion is given a genetic foundation by some companies. Have they never heard of the outrages of ‘racial purity’ and the eugenics movement or is it just one more business opportunity? 

NEWS FLASH 3rd May 2018
I have just received some very good news. Our labs at the University, which were threatened with closure for up to a year from July 2018 owing to redevelopment of the Science Area, have now been reprieved. In light of this I am very pleased to announce that Oxford Ancestors will remain open for business as usual. 

Please accept my apologies for our below-standard service over the last few weeks. 

Bryan Sykes MA PhD DSc
Chairman

Here is a screenshot from the Oxford Ancestors website captured by the Internet Archive on 23rd May 2018.