The short answer: LivingDNA does not and cannot give you Global25 coordinates. No testing company does. What LivingDNA gives you is a raw data download, and that file is what the independent Eurogenes Global25 service turns into a coordinate row. This guide covers the LivingDNA-specific half of the route; the full background — what a coordinate actually is, who produces one, scaled vs unscaled, real vs simulated — is in the main guide.
Step one: download your LivingDNA raw data#
In your LivingDNA account, look under Your account → Download raw data. The export is a text file of genotype calls; keep it somewhere stable, because it is the input to everything below and every service you use later will want it again.
The exact wording changes as LivingDNA updates its site, so treat the labels as landmarks rather than a script. Sign in, open your profile (your name or the person icon at the top of the page), and look for a Download raw data entry either directly under the profile menu or inside the account settings area. LivingDNA asks you to confirm the request, and the download itself is a zipped text file. Keep the .zip as delivered: the Global25 service accepts zipped files, and unzipping only creates a second copy to keep track of. If you manage several kits in one account, check which profile is selected before you click, because each profile has its own file. If the option is not there yet, look again once the results page for that profile is complete; the raw data becomes available when processing has finished.
What is actually in a LivingDNA file#
LivingDNA's chip carries autosomal coverage — the part a Global25 coordinate is computed from — alongside a comparatively generous set of Y-chromosome and mitochondrial positions (haplogroups are a headline feature of their own product).
As with every vendor, coverage differs by chip generation, and coverage decides what a file can support. Our free raw DNA file check parses the export, reports the format it detected and counts usable markers per chromosome — nothing is ordered and nothing is stored.
File format notes#
LivingDNA genotypes on an Illumina Global Screening Array based chip customised for its own product, so the export is an rsID-keyed list in the familiar layout: marker id, chromosome, position and genotype, one marker per line, typically with a short header above the data. Marker counts sit in the same broad range as the other GSA-era consumer tests, in the hundreds of thousands. Two consequences follow. The file is directly readable by any tool that already understands 23andMe-style text, so there is nothing to convert. And the marker set is a GSA design rather than the 23andMe v5 design the Global25 service is most often fed, which matters for the fit quality discussed further down.
Step two: the file becomes a coordinate#
Global25 coordinates are issued by Davidski's independent Eurogenes Global25 service — the G25 Requests portal at g25requests.app — not by LivingDNA, and not by us. Upload the raw file there, pay their €15 per-kit fee, and receive your row; their site states 2–7 days. The process and terms are the service's own and have changed more than once, so their posting is the only authority on the details. You will receive scaled and unscaled forms of your row: keep both, keep them labelled, and never mix the two in one comparison.
Submitting the file to the portal#
The portal takes the zipped LivingDNA export as it is, so the upload is the same three steps as for any vendor: choose the file, pay the per-kit fee, and wait for the email with your row. Name the kit something you will recognise later, because the label you give it becomes the first field of your coordinate row and follows the row into every spreadsheet you paste it into. When the row arrives, run it once through the authenticity check before building on it; that confirms the copy you pasted is the copy you were sent.
If the file is rejected#
A rejection at upload is almost always a packaging problem rather than a genotype problem. Work through these in order: make sure you uploaded the file LivingDNA delivered rather than a copy re-saved from a spreadsheet or text editor, which can change the encoding or the line endings; make sure it is the raw data export and not a results report or a PDF; and if the archive was unzipped and re-zipped, upload the original .zip or the plain .txt instead. A file far smaller than a normal export was probably an interrupted download, so download it again. If everything looks right and the portal still refuses it, the portal operator's own posting is the only authority on what the service currently accepts, and a short note to them is the fastest route.
Common problems with LivingDNA rows#
The one LivingDNA-specific effect is coverage overlap. A GSA-based export shares fewer positions with the set the service projects on than a 23andMe v5 file does, so the projection is computed from fewer shared markers. The coordinate is still an official projection and still valid for every comparison, but expect fit distances in the admixture calculator to come out slightly larger than they would for the same person tested on a chip with more overlap, and expect the last few dimensions to carry a little more noise. This is a property of the input, not an error, and it does not change which populations come out closest. If you have tested with more than one company, the file with the larger overlap will usually give the tighter fit.
Rather not handle the request yourself? Upload this same file with an Ancestrify Global25 analysis and, with your consent, we obtain your official coordinates for you from that very service (+€15, typically a few days) — your full analysis runs the moment they arrive, and the row stays yours to keep.
Resist the "free G25" converters: a simulated row built from another calculator's output describes the conversion's assumptions, not your genome. When a row's origin is uncertain, our authenticity check reads its numeric fingerprint.
Step three: use the row#
With a real coordinate row, all of this is free, in your browser, no account:
- Rank your closest ancient and modern populations, era by era, in the G25 distance calculator.
- Model your ancestry against curated source panels in the Global25 admixture calculator.
- Plot yourself on ancient-DNA PCA views in the G25 PCA viewer.
For the full worked report — distances, admixture and PCA across six eras with cinematic exports — see our Global25 analysis. If you would rather submit the raw LivingDNA file itself and get a formal, testable ancestry model with p-values, that is our qpAdm analysis, which takes the raw file directly.
Frequently asked questions#
Does LivingDNA offer Global25 coordinates?#
No. LivingDNA reports its own ancestry breakdown and haplogroups, and none of that is a Global25 row. The coordinates come only from the independent Eurogenes service, from the raw file LivingDNA lets you download.
Can I use my LivingDNA file in Ancestrify's free haplogroup finders?#
Not at the moment. The free Y-DNA clade finder and mtDNA finder read 23andMe, AncestryDNA and MyHeritage exports (the clade finder also takes a VCF); LivingDNA files are not among the supported formats. LivingDNA already reports both haplogroups in its own results, which covers the same question at chip resolution.
Will my LivingDNA coordinates match a 23andMe row for the same person?#
Closely but not exactly. The two files share most, not all, of their markers with the service's projection set, so a few dimensions will differ in the third or fourth decimal place. Both rows are official; treat the differences as the noise floor of the method rather than as a disagreement about your ancestry.
Terms used here are defined in the glossary.
