T&Cs
In placing an order with totheletter DNA, you accept and agree to abide by our Terms and Conditions. Therefore, please read the following carefully and completely.
In using our company, you understand our services are designed to help people develop their family trees for genealogical purposes. The DNA we extract from an envelope, postcard with stamp/s, aerogramme or other artefact you provide is to provide you with DNA information on a family member who has passed away for the purposes of genealogical research only.
We do not accept anonymous or “poison pen” letters.
We reserve the right to request evidence of your relationship to the family member, whether as the child, partner, -in law, or next of kin, or have written permission from the family member (while alive) or their legal next of kin to submit a sample to attempt DNA extraction. We reserve the the right to accept or refuse any sample. We also reserve the right to cancel an order at any point in the process (with a refund to the customer minus fees charged by our external payment providers) if concerns arise as to the provenance of the item or for any reason where concerns are held by totheletter DNA. totheletter DNA does not undertake DNA extraction for legal purposes.
totheletter DNA may consider accepting archeological artefacts on a case by case basis. If your item is an archeological artefact, in accepting these Terms and Conditions you are confirming you have received written advice from totheletter DNA that the item is acceptable for extraction. Acceptance of the item by totheletter DNA is made based on the understanding that all information provided by the client is factual and honest.
We do not undertake DNA extractions on artefacts from living persons. In cases where doubt exists that the artefact is from a deceased person, totheletter DNA will request further evidence to verify that the person is in fact deceased.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless totheletter DNA, together with its affiliates, vendors and subcontractors, from any liability whatsoever for any claims brought against such parties by the source of the DNA or their representatives. If the source of the DNA turns out to be living or are not your family member or next of kin, you will hold us, our affiliates and our vendors/subcontractors harmless from any claim asserted by such person or their representatives in respect of our services.
We may request further information from you to ensure that a case is in line with our Terms and Conditions.
You understand that we may not be able to extract DNA from the item, and that our fees cannot be refunded. The DNA may be unuseable, or that the item may not have been sealed by the person or contain the DNA of the person you anticipate. You may not be aware that the item was sealed by or pertains to another person until the autosomal DNA file has been made available to you at the very end of the process. totheletter DNA has no control over this and the customer will not be able to request a refund if the DNA does not pertain to the person they had expected.
totheletter DNA will not forward extracted DNA to other laboratories for processing unless otherwise agreed with the client. Any unused DNA will be held in accordance with our laboratory’s retention schedule unless otherwise agreed with the client. In most cases no DNA will remain after processing in our lab. If a client requests extracted DNA to be returned to them prior to possible further processing at totheletter DNA, totheletter DNA will charge the Pass 1 fee and a shipping charge to the client ($395USD plus $50USD at May 2023).
We will advise the customer if DNA is found in an item after the extraction process. This DNA may not be useable (it may be bacterial DNA or insufficient to enable us to generate an autosomal DNA file). Customers may be offered the choice of microarray processing if the sample is of sufficiently high quality after the extraction process. For those not suitable for microarray, the second phase of our process is a quality check that will identify if human DNA is present. The customer will be asked if they wish to continue beyond the extraction phase to the quality check and asked to make payment for the second phase at that point. The third phase in most cases will be Whole Genome Sequencing. Customers will be asked if they wish to move to the third phase and asked to make payment for the third phase at that point.
Our aim after Whole Genome Sequencing is to provide the customer with an autosomal DNA file that generates “genuine” matches on GEDmatch. Customers should be aware that the data file is unlikely to provide 100% full coverage of the DNA donor’s genome, due to the age and source of the artefact. Nevertheless we expect DNA we recommend for full Whole Genome Sequencing to provide sufficient quality matching in GEDmatch.
There is always the risk of failure even at the point of Whole Genome Sequencing or microarray, although it is expected to be low. We will charge our customers the cost price plus our administration costs in the rare event that this occurs. We will discuss the anticipated chance of success with the customer before offering progression to the these phases.
Our analysis may require some data imputation in order to enable upload to GEDmatch, depending on the quality of the data returned through the WGS process. The data may not be as complete as a DNA file from a living donor. YDNA data may not be complete, depending on the DNA quality. We consider a file to be suitable for DNA matching at GEDmatch when a GEDmatch Kit Diagnostic Utility shows the file as “good”.
We provide an autosomal DNA file suitable for upload to GEDmatch. On request, you can also be provided with the full FASTQ file.
The sample you send us is precious, and therefore we require that it is sent via registered post or a tracking service. In most instances your sample will be prepared by you at home (see guidelines on this site) and we do not return any remains of the item. For all items other than envelopes / stamps / postcards, please contact us to confirm postage cost if we have agreed with you that the remains of the item will be returned.
We use GEDmatch.com’s database, a third party free website to load your passed family member's DNA. In using GEDmatch.com, you accept their terms and policy which can be viewed here. In uploading data to any genealogical database, the user is responsible for conforming to the database T&Cs. totheletter DNA does not accept any responsibility for uploads to any databases, including GEDmatch.
The Australian government's Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC Report 108) - Section 8. Privacy of Deceased Individuals discusses the use of genetic information for health purposes only, but does not address the use of DNA for genealogy purposes. For further information, you can view the policy here.
Our company abides by Australian laws and legislation.
If you are not based in Australia and have concerns about the use of DNA from passed loved ones for genealogy purposes, you should consult your own jurisdiction.
In placing an order with totheletter DNA, you accept our Terms and Conditions.
Updated January 2024