First log in to your Ancestry account, select the DNA tab at the top of the page and go to your DNA Home Page.
On the page above click on the Manage Test Settings link next to the orange view results button.
On the Manage Test Settings page on the left hand side of that page you will see a large gray box.
In the box above you will see the Download your raw DNA data section. You need to click on the Get Started button
At this point you will see a box like the one below asking you to input your Ancestry password. Do that.
After you enter your password you will receive the following box from Ancestry.
You will then open up the email software you use and go to the email account you have registered at Ancestry and you will get a message with the following graphic embedded in it.
Once you receive the message above in your email hit the orange Confirm Data Download button. This will open a new window in your browser that will display the screen below.
At this point you will hit the green Download DNA Raw Data button and it will initiate the download of your raw data file to your computer. Be sure to tell your computer were on your computer you want to place this file.
This file will come to you zipped. Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is. The format was originally created in 1989 by Phil Katz, and was first implemented in PKWARE's PKZIP utility, as a replacement for the previous ARC compression format by Thom Henderson. The zip format is now supported by many software utilities other than PKZIP. Microsoft has included built-in zip support (under the name "compressed folders") in versions of Microsoft Windows since 1998. Apple has included built-in zip support in Mac OS X 10.3 (via BOM Archive Helper, now Archive Utility) and later. Most free operating systems have built in support for zip in similar manners to Windows and Mac OS X, while also supporting several other formats in a similar manner.
Once you have unzipped your results, you can then view your results. Since this ASCII text file is very large I use a free program EditPadLite to view the file. Your results will look like below in that program.
As I mentioned in my previous post right now there won't be much you can do with your raw data until third party software providers and other DNA companies jump on the band wagon an incorporate this raw data format into their systems. I have taken my data and stored it in a safe place (aka one of my thumb drives where my genealogy data and pictures are stored) until I can export my 700,000 plus SNPs into other areas for further study.
Ancestry has updated their information on this and they now have a file on downloading your raw data at this link: http://ancestry.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5557/kw/dna%20raw
There is also another page in the Ancestry Knowledge base with information on the raw data at this link http://ancestry.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5556/kw/dna%20raw/related/1
If you have any questions, email at the address in the masthead and I will do my best to give you a hand.
