DNA & Kinship

What the paper cannot prove, the blood sometimes can

Records end. Registers burn, parishes close, families emigrate and leave no forwarding address. DNA is the one record every one of us still carries. This page explains, without hurry and without pressure, what a test can honestly tell you, which test answers which question, and how to compare your own results privately with the rest of the family.

Upload my raw results Notable kinship

Your file stays private

Stored in a locked area only your own account can open. Never sold, never shared, never published.

Comparison is opt-in

A kit is only compared with other family kits while you leave family comparison switched on.

Delete in one click

Removing a kit erases the file, the record and every match it created.

No health reporting

This site reads only the markers needed to measure shared ancestry. It makes no health statements of any kind.

Start here

Nothing technical, nothing frightening

A DNA test for family history does one simple thing. It reads several hundred thousand small points along your DNA and compares them with other people. Two relatives inherited long unbroken stretches from the same ancestor, so those stretches still match today. The more you share with someone, and the longer the shared stretches, the closer the relationship.

That is the whole idea. Everything else — percentages, maps, coloured pie charts — is interpretation laid on top of it. The part that proves a family connection is the shared stretches, and that is the part this archive measures.

Taking a test means spitting into a small tube or rubbing a swab inside your cheek, posting it back, and waiting a few weeks. There is no needle, no blood and no doctor.

What it can tell you

Which living people are genuinely your relatives, and roughly how close
Whether a documented line in our tree is also a biological one
Cousins in Italy whose branch never emigrated
Deep ancestral groupings on the father's line and the mother's line

What it cannot

Name your ancestors — only documents do that
Prove which particular ancestor a shared segment came from
Give a trustworthy figure for a single country of origin
Tell you anything reliable about your health from an ancestry test

Which test for which question

Family history questions first, the kit second — not the other way round.

I have never tested. Where do I start?

Start with an ordinary autosomal test from whichever company holds the people you hope to match. For most families that is AncestryDNA; for a family with branches still in Europe, MyHeritage is the strong second choice. One test, one tube, everything else follows.

Look at: AncestryDNA · MyHeritage DNA

I want to find living Cocchini cousins.

Go where the crowd is. AncestryDNA has by far the largest matching pool, especially of Italian-American families. Afterwards, upload the same raw file free to MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA to catch the cousins who tested elsewhere — three pools for the price of one test.

Look at: AncestryDNA · FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder

Where did the Cocchini name itself come from?

That is a question for the father-to-son line, and only a Y-DNA test reads it. The Big Y-700 is the most detailed option open to the public. It must be taken by a man born a Cocchini — a son, father, brother or paternal uncle.

Look at: Big Y-700

I want to prove how two branches actually connect.

You need to see the shared segments, not just a match list. FamilyTreeDNA's Family Finder and MyHeritage both include a chromosome browser; AncestryDNA does not. Test there, or upload your raw file to them free.

Look at: FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder · MyHeritage DNA

I already tested somewhere. Do I need to buy another?

Usually not. Download your raw data and upload it free to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, then bring the same file here for the private family comparison. Only buy again if you want AncestryDNA's pool, which accepts no uploads.

Look at: MyHeritage DNA · FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder · Living DNA

I want the deepest possible maternal or paternal line.

The mtFull Sequence follows your mother's mother's line and is open to everyone; the Big Y-700 follows your father's father's line and is for men. Both answer deep questions records cannot, but neither finds recent cousins — pair one with an autosomal test.

Look at: mtFull Sequence · Big Y-700

The major tests, explained

Which one answers which question. Prices change constantly, so each links to the company.

Ancestry

AncestryDNA

Autosomal · Best for finding the most living cousins

The largest testing database in the world by a wide margin. If your goal is simply to be found by relatives who share your ancestry, this is where the most people are waiting.

Strengths

· By far the biggest pool of potential cousin matches
· Matches connect straight to family trees other people have built
· Strong coverage of Italian and Italian-American families

Worth knowing

· Does not accept raw data uploaded from other companies
· No chromosome browser, so you cannot see exactly where you match someone

How it works: Saliva tube, posted back in a prepaid box. Results usually in six to eight weeks.

Raw data download: Settings, then Download DNA Data. Arrives as a zipped text file by email.

See today's price

23andMe

23andMe Ancestry + Traits

Autosomal · Best for ancestry plus your father-line and mother-line groupings

The only major consumer test that reports your Y-DNA and mtDNA groupings as part of an ordinary autosomal test, so you get a sense of your deep paternal and maternal lines in one purchase.

Strengths

· Reports paternal and maternal haplogroups alongside cousin matching
· Clear breakdown of where your ancestry traces to
· Raw data download is straightforward

Worth knowing

· Smaller match pool than Ancestry
· Many people who test here never fill in a family tree, so matches can be hard to place
· A separate health version is sold; ancestry-only is available if you prefer

How it works: Saliva tube, posted back in a prepaid box. Results usually in three to five weeks.

Raw data download: Your Account, then Browse Raw Data, then Download.

See today's price

MyHeritage

MyHeritage DNA

Autosomal · Best for european and italian relatives

Proportionally stronger in Europe than the American-centred databases, which matters for a family with living Italian branches. It also accepts raw data from other companies free of charge.

Strengths

· Good European coverage, including Italy
· Free upload of raw data from Ancestry, 23andMe and others
· Includes a chromosome browser

Worth knowing

· Some advanced tools sit behind a subscription
· Smaller overall database than Ancestry

How it works: Cheek swab rather than saliva — easier for anyone who finds producing saliva difficult. Results in about four weeks.

Raw data download: DNA menu, then Manage DNA kits, then Download.

See today's priceAlso accepts raw data from other companies

FamilyTreeDNA

Family Finder

Autosomal · Best for serious researchers who want to see the detail

The genealogist's choice. It shows exactly which pieces of which chromosomes you share with a match, which is what lets you prove how two people connect rather than guess.

Strengths

· Full chromosome browser and segment detail
· Free upload of raw data from other companies
· Long-standing surname and geographic projects you can join

Worth knowing

· Smaller match pool than Ancestry
· The interface expects some patience

How it works: Cheek swab, posted back in a prepaid envelope. Results in about four to eight weeks.

Raw data download: Sign in, then Data Download on the Family Finder page.

See today's priceAlso accepts raw data from other companies

FamilyTreeDNA

Big Y-700

Y-DNA · Best for tracing the cocchini surname line itself

The most detailed test of the father-to-son line available to the public. For a family interested in the origin of its own name, this is the test that speaks to it directly — but only a man born a Cocchini can take it.

Strengths

· Places the paternal line precisely on the human family tree
· Can connect families sharing a surname centuries before records exist
· Results keep improving as more men test

Worth knowing

· Men only; a woman must ask a father, brother, uncle or male cousin
· The most expensive of the genealogy tests
· Tells you nothing about your other ancestral lines

How it works: Cheek swab. This is a deep laboratory read of the Y chromosome, so allow two to three months for results.

Raw data download: Y-chromosome results download from your FamilyTreeDNA dashboard.

See today's price

FamilyTreeDNA

mtFull Sequence

mtDNA · Best for the direct mother's line, back thousands of years

Reads the whole of your mitochondrial DNA. Anyone can take it. It answers deep questions about the maternal line and is excellent for confirming or ruling out a claimed common ancestress.

Strengths

· Open to everyone
· Very good at disproving an incorrect maternal connection

Worth knowing

· Changes so slowly that a match can share an ancestor a thousand years ago
· Narrow: one line only

How it works: Cheek swab. Allow roughly eight to ten weeks.

Raw data download: Available from your FamilyTreeDNA dashboard.

See today's price

Living DNA

Full Ancestry Kit

Autosomal · Best for regional detail, especially british and irish lines

Combines an autosomal test with paternal and maternal line groupings and gives unusually fine regional breakdowns. A good companion test rather than a first purchase.

Strengths

· Fine-grained regional results
· Accepts uploads from other companies

Worth knowing

· Small matching database
· Regional detail is strongest for Britain and Ireland

How it works: Cheek swab, posted back in a prepaid envelope. Results in about six to ten weeks.

Raw data download: Settings, then Download raw data.

See today's priceAlso accepts raw data from other companies

This archive sells nothing and earns nothing from these links. They are here so you can buy once, from the company that answers the question you actually have.

Already tested? Bring your results home

Free, private, and compared only with other Cocchini kits

How it works

1. Download your raw data file from whichever company tested you. It arrives as a zipped text file; unzip it first.
2. Choose the file on the upload page. Your browser reads it on your own machine and keeps only the markers needed to measure shared ancestry.
3. That compact file is stored privately under your account and compared with other family kits whose owners also chose to take part.
4. You see how much DNA you share with each relative, how long the shared stretches are, and the likely relationship range.

Where to find your file

AncestryDNA — Settings, then Download DNA Data. Arrives as a zipped text file by email.
23andMe Ancestry + Traits — Your Account, then Browse Raw Data, then Download.
MyHeritage DNA — DNA menu, then Manage DNA kits, then Download.
Family Finder — Sign in, then Data Download on the Family Finder page.
Full Ancestry Kit — Settings, then Download raw data.

Files from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA are all read correctly.

A note on connecting directly to the testing companies: none of the major companies offer an open connection that would let this archive read your matches on your behalf. Ancestry and 23andMe closed their public interfaces years ago, and the remaining programmes are commercial agreements, not something an individual family can switch on. Downloading your raw file and uploading it here achieves the same result, and keeps your data in your own hands rather than passing it between two companies.

Go to my DNA workbench

The worries, answered honestly

Where a concern is justified, it says so. Nobody here is trying to talk you into anything.

This is a fair concern and it is the one to take most seriously. The testing companies make money from kits and subscriptions, but several have also run research programmes that share anonymised data with partners — always as something you opt into, never automatically.

You can decline every research consent at sign-up and still get your full results. Read the consent screens rather than clicking through them, and say no to anything you are unsure about. You can change your mind later.

What you upload here is different. Your file is stored privately, is readable only by your own account, is never sold, never shared with any company, and can be deleted by you in one click.

Testing is a choice, not a duty. The archive is complete without your sample and you are welcome in it either way.