Could the service be purchased and incorporated into another platform - say FTDNA or YSeq?
Hi, Leake. I of course can't say with certainty, but I imagine that option isn't viable. Oxford Ancestors uses--as far as I know exclusively, but certainly for the most part--a microbiology lab on premises at Oxford University. In other words, while the company may hold some tangible assets, the infrastructure and facilities belong to the university.
In fact, Sykes announced the closure of Oxford Ancestors in March 2018 (I wrote about it here). Several weeks later, he announced that the company would be able to remain open. He said, in part: "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."
The existing customer data is, unfortunately, of little value to another company. Oxford Ancestors didn't keep pace with the evolving landscape of genetic genealogy and DNA sequencing. Still today, for example, their £199 (equivalent to about US$267) yDNA test looks only at 26 STRs (short tandem repeats); the de facto entry-level STR panel at FTDNA has been 37 markers for almost a decade and the regular price is US$119. The same-priced MatriLine mtDNA test looks only at the low-resolution Hypervariable Region 1, which isn't adequate to even verify many of the high-level haplogroup clades, and is no longer sold by FTDNA.
No, I think with Professor Sykes's passing Oxford Ancestors will become relegated to its place in our history of consumer genetics. I don't think I'll research it further, but it may have in fact been the very first direct-to-consumer testing lab. Opinions vary. My info shows that FTDNA had formed and run proof-of-concept 12-marker yDNA testing as of January 2000, and began selling the first consumer tests in either March or May of that year. Oxford Ancestors was offering consumer mtDNA tests by April or May of 2000. I'll call it a tie, but historians at some point will decide the winner.
