FAQs

All quoted days are in working days. A working day is classed as Monday to Friday – we do not operate on weekends or Bank Holidays.

The day we receive your properly consented samples is Day 0.

Results Delivery:

Next Day = results will be delivered after 4pm the following working day. For example, if we receive your samples on Tuesday, your results will be available on Wednesday. If your samples are received on Friday, your results will ordinarily be the following Monday, except where Bank Holidays occur.

2 Day = results will be delivered after 4pm on the second working day. For example, , if we receive your samples on Tuesday, your results will be available on Thursday.

If there are any delays due to repeat laboratory work being required, then we will actively update the ordering party by email with a new expected results due date.

There are no hidden costs and no hidden extras. The price includes the kits (swabs, consent forms and return postage paid envelope), return postage paid, the laboratory testing and the reporting.

We strongly recommend that the mother of the child is involved in the testing process and there is no reduction in the price if the mother is not tested.

If you lose, destroy or render the kit unusable, we will charge £12.50 for a replacement.

If a DNA test kit is lost or rendered unusable, a replacement kit can be sent by post. If a report needs to be re-issued after the original has been sent, this can be facilitated within 12 months of reporting stage. There is a separate charge for either of these at £12.50 respectively and if you wish us to provide this, please call 0191 543 6434 where we can take telephone payment or send you an online payment link.

Please carefully read our Terms and Conditions of sale, which indicate our refund policy as well as our Refund Policy FAQ.

We offer personal information DNA tests and legal DNA test. We are aware that personal information tests are often called peace of mind DNA tests or DNA tests for peace of mind.

Since the result of a DNA test may not give you peace of mind, depending on your circumstances and as per ethical guidelines, at dadcheck®silver we generally prefer to use the alternative “personal information DNA testing”.

We are often asked about the difference between the two types of human relationship DNA test, personal information (peace of mind) and “legal”:

Using the personal information tests, the test participants will receive our DNA test sampling kit, ensure the consent form has been signed appropriately and take the check samples (it is a simple cotton bud on the inside of the mouth, just rubbed around the cheek and each person can do their own or ideally an adult in the case of a child, a helpful video can be found here). Upon receiving the samples, we take them in to the lab and conduct the analysis. The result provided is based on the samples which we receive. We can deliver the results the next day – just place the correct order online or ask one of our staff to help you. If you go this route, there can be no checks made on the identity of the person providing the incoming samples.

For a legal DNA tests ordered through dadchecksilver.com or dadcheckgold.com – a DNA test that can be used for legal purposes, then we have to be in control of the sample collection and we undertake a protocol to identify the person providing the samples. This will be undertaken by one of our registered samplers. The samples then come directly back to our lab – maintaining what is often called a “chain of custody”. This legal test can be used, for example, to change Birth Certificates, court proceedings, for Passport applications or Home Office applications. Due to the extra work required, legal DNA tests are quite expensive and sometimes our clients prefer to undertake a personal information (peace of mind) test beforehand.

A simple cheek cell sample is taken from each donor. Our kit contains instructions for how best to take a sample including sampling babies and young children. We also have a helpful video here.

Relationship DNA testing can be a life-changing event and we would recommend that before ordering a test you think carefully about the potential outcomes and have considered if testing will be in the best interests of those involved.

If you find that any person requires extra support to deal with the outcome of a DNA test, then there are a number of online resources for support with this:

npefellowship.org  The international organisation, the NPE (Non-Parental Event) Friends Fellowship provides emotional, educational and practical support to those who have discovered that one or both parents were not their biological parent(s).

bps.org.uk It is always recommended that you speak to your GP for advice before reaching out to a phycologist. If you do need the services of a psychologist, then you can do so through the link provided.

The dadcheck®silver service is a premier DNA test for paternity testing and also for genetic information concerning other relationships. It is intended as a human identification service for the general public and is offered at two levels;
a) as a personal information DNA test and
b) as a legal DNA test suitable for use such as Birth Certificate changes, the Courts, HMPO and other legal organisations.

We are highly responsive and provide a high level of customer service. We appreciate the sensitivity of this purchase. By using our own UK based laboratories, we offer you exceptional value for money and the highest quality laboratory processing and analysis.

We offer many types of DNA testing services for the determination of human biological relationships. We are experts in immigration DNA testing, in providing DNA tests for surrogacy and also for inheritance matters.

We operate our own accredited* UK laboratories and we do not send samples to other laboratories for processing. For personal information DNA testing for paternity and other biological relationships, you may order online or by telephone.

Please note that we do NOT carry out tests relating to prenatal (DNA testing while pregnant), distant ancestry (genealogy etc), or for animals (e.g. pedigree testing).

chXout on the other hand, a registered trademark belonging to Complement Genomics Ltd, offers services to the non-human DNA testing market. A range of DNA testing services for animals, plants and fungi have been designed for businesses, citizen scientists and professionals alike.

*For legal tests only

The definitive way to determine if twins are identical or non-identical (also known as ‘fraternal’ twins) is to carry out a twin DNA test, commonly known as a Zygosity test.

We will issue a twin DNA kit to each donor, there is no need for any parental involvement. A simple cheek cell sample from each of the twins will give our laboratory all we need to provide you the answer. All processing from the beginning of your order to the end is performed by dadcheck®silver in our UK based laboratory. We will never send your samples abroad or to any other company for processing meaning the result can be provided to you sooner!

In the laboratory we will test the DNA samples from the twins using 23 markers to determine if they are genetically identical at all the DNA markers, or if they have similar but different DNA profiles as is expected with full siblings (i.e non-identical twins). This produces extremely accurate results which will conclusively determine if twins are identical or not.

For further information, or order a twin DNA test online, please click here, or you may also contact us on 0191 5436434 or e-mail sales@dadchecksilver.com

When you place your order you will create your own account password.  You will then use this along with the user-name which will be issued to you by email.  You may use these to track the progress of your case in the “My Account” section of our website.

When your fully consented samples arrive at our laboratory, you will be sent another e-mail to confirm their receipt and the expected results due date. When you log in, you will be able to see an estimated completion date, plus any messages we may have for you. If there is a delay for a re-test or some other issue, we will inform you by this route and also by e-mail/telephone. For example, it may be that in the case of a test where the alleged father has given consent and the mother is not participating, that we ask to see evidence of Parental Responsibility. This may require you to show us an appropriate marriage or birth certificate.

The estimated completion date will also be found at this login and may be updated from time to time and is non-binding. It will generally be 2 working days from receipt of all of the fully consented samples into our laboratory for our standard service or the next working day for our express service. Your results will generally be uploaded after 4pm on the designated completion day.

Please be advised our working days are Monday-Friday and we do not operate on weekends or Bank Holidays.

When your results have been uploaded, you will be sent an e-mail to inform you of the availability of the results and to remind you to log in.

We determine whether or not an individual is the biological father of a particular child by using the latest and most robust DNA testing technology. This is often referred to as a paternity DNA test. We are also experts in establishing genetic relationships between other individuals, for the purpose of grand-parentage, sibling and avuncular (aunt/uncle) testing. For example, this is often used for establishing relationships if an alleged father is not available, for example if the alleged father is unwilling, unavailable or deceased.

Our service is based upon the fact that each and every one of us is unique. This uniqueness comes from our genetic code, which we have inherited equally from our biological mother and biological father. The dadcheck®silver paternity test detects the presence of shared regions of this unique genetic code (we look at 23 markers), which can in turn be used to determine if individuals are related. We analyse your genetic code and the results are displayed as a series of coloured bands. We then look at these bands from both mother and alleged father to see if every band in the child is present in the parents. If so, there is a good chance that the child and parents are biologically related.

Please be aware that the dadcheck®silver DNA test is for either:
a) personal information or as a separate option,
b) for legal purposes such as Birth Certificate change, Immigration (Home Office/Passport Office) etc.

If you wish to have a DNA test for use in court, to change a birth certificate or another legal reason, then you will need a test suitable for this purpose (sometimes called an accredited paternity test). This means that we have additional procedures to consider, including sampling undertaken by a third party. We will discuss this with you at the time of ordering. Please call 0191 543 6434 or e-mail sales@dadchecksilver.com for this service.

If you are from the general public and have more complex DNA testing needs, then we may assist with this. This might be one of the following:

A private legal (accredited) DNA test for Birth Certificate changes.
Immigration  DNA test for the Home Office or Passport Office
A maternity DNA test (generally required for Immigration applications)
DNA tests on deceased persons (forensic DNA testing)
Surrogacy DNA tests for a Parental Order
Sibling DNA Tests (full, half or not related)
Sperm donor testing (alleged father and child)
Grandparent DNA testing
Avuncular DNA Testing for aunts/uncles.

If you have any questions, we will be happy to help.

If you have a solicitor (or social services are involved) and they are dealing with your DNA testing case, then please direct them to our service for professionals, which is: www.dadcheckgold.com. You can ask them to call 0191 543 6334 or e-mail sales@dadcheckgold.com.

For our legal DNA tests, our laboratories are recognised by the Ministry of Justice for legal DNA testing and we hold the international accreditation standard, BS EN ISO 17025 for testing laboratories.

For our personal information DNA tests, once you have placed your order, a personalised DNA testing kit will be sent to the address(es) of your choosing. The kit(s) will arrive in a fully opaque envelope with no branding on the outside and will include a consent form and two named sterile mouth swabs per donor, a pre-paid return postage envelope and a helpful Information sheet.

For our legal (accredited) DNA tests, there is a strict chain of custody for the sample collection process. Therefore, the sampling kit is not issues to the family directly but instead, to one of our own registered sample collectors or the medical centre of your choice. Further information regarding this process can be found on our website under “Legal DNA Tests” or by calling us on 0191 543 6434.

Personal Information DNA Tests
Our personal information DNA tests start from £145 inc. VAT.

This price will depend on the number of test participants and the desired turn around for your DNA test report.

We strongly recommend that the mother of any child(ren) participates in the DNA test as this will provide us with the most conclusive test result.

This is especially the case of complex DNA testing such as that for sibling, grandparent or avuncular (aunt/uncle).

For personal information tests, the price includes the kit(s) (swabs, consent forms, return postage paid envelope(s), the laboratory testing, the reporting and any telephone support that may be required.

Some people will require an extra kit or an extra report (to another address). There will be an additional charge of £12.50 for any replacement kits or reports.

Legal DNA Tests
Our legal DNA tests for birth certificate changes, the Courts, Surrogacy, HMPO and other legal organisations start from £349 inc. VAT**

** Extra postage/courier charges may apply. Independent 3rd parties may charge a sampling fee.

For tests suitable for legal purposes, the price includes the kit(s) (swabs, consent forms, return postage paid envelope(s)), co-ordination with the sampler, the laboratory testing, reporting of the results in the format required for the legal purpose and any support that may be required. Additional sample collection fees may apply but we will discuss this with you at the point of enquiry.

Unlike with personal information tests, the mother of the child must be involved in any DNA testing process. Further donors (usually additional children) can be tested for £150 inc. VAT each.

Analysing your genetic code using a DNA test is the most accurate way of determining whether or not a biological relationship exists between individuals.

The dadcheck®silver paternity test proves with 100% accuracy if a man is not the alleged father of a child and proves that a tested man is the alleged father of a child with at least 99.99% certainty (if the mother is involved in the DNA testing process, we can generally improve on this figure).

For grandparent, avuncular (aunt/uncle) and sibling DNA testing, the relationship is more distant and the results will generally be lower than a standard paternity DNA test. If for example, the mother does not participate, then this number will reduce and can be highly variable. It can be between 50% and 90% depending upon your family’s genetic background. In a grand-parentage test, if we can test both grandparents and there is no issue of paternity, we may get a probability of relatedness of up to 99%.

If you are wishing to have one of these particular DNA tests, then it is important that you understand the limitations of the technology and we would always suggest that these DNA testing data are taken in context with other evidence you may have. We much prefer you to call or e-mail us to place these type of orders, so we can arrange to discuss the case with you. We can then advise on the most appropriate DNA test which will give a conclusive and useful outcome for you and your family.

All people providing a sample for any type of dadcheck®silver DNA test must give their consent by signing the personalised consent form which will be provided with the DNA test kit.

We will not process samples for any paternity test or other DNA test unless we have the signed (written) consent of each of the adult participants and if a child under 16 is involved, consent from a person with parental responsibility for the child (or children) taking part – for further information regarding Parental Responsibility, please see FAQ ‘What is Parental Responsibility (PR)?

In cases where the alleged father signs on behalf of the child, we always ask to see proof of parental responsibility e.g., the full birth certificate or a marriage certificate to the mother. This can be sent us to by email.

We will not process any samples without the appropriate consent and evidence of this where it is any person other than the child’s mother signing on behalf of the child. This will effect your expected results due date if we have not received this evidence before the samples arrive with us. 

You should be aware that it is a serious offence, punishable by imprisonment, to personate another body for the purpose of providing a bodily sample (e.g. for a DNA test) or to proffer the wrong child for that purpose.

It is also a criminal offence to have in possession bodily material for which a DNA testing is intended, without appropriate (qualifying) consent. If the consent form has not be signed properly or appropriately, we will not proceed with the test.

If you wish to provide a sample for a dadcheck®silver DNA test, you must be absolutely sure that it is your sample and that you have signed the consent form which gives us permission to carry out the test.

Please note however that an individual may withdraw their consent at any time during the testing process but not after the paternity or DNA Test Report has been issued.

Consideration must also be given to older children e.g. 10+years and under the age of 16 years as they are likely to be able to understand the nature and possible consequences of a DNA test. We strongly recommend that the person with parental responsibility discusses the DNA test with the child and takes their views into account.

From ordering, we will send the sampling kits to the requested addresses by first class mail within the UK.

The day we receive your properly consented samples is Day 0 and this is when your quoted turnaround will begin.

All quoted days are in working days. A working day is classed as Monday to Friday – we do not operate on weekends or Bank Holidays.

Results Delivery:

Next Day = results will be delivered after 4pm the following working day. For example, if we receive your samples on Tuesday, your results will be available on Wednesday. If your samples are received on Friday, your results will ordinarily be the following Monday, except where Bank Holidays occur.

2 Day = results will be delivered after 4pm on the second working day. For example, if we receive your samples on Tuesday, your results will be available on Thursday.

Please note that we quote 4 working days for results of sibling, grandparent and avuncular DNA tests.

If there are any delays due to repeat laboratory work being required, then we will actively update the ordering party by email with a new expected results due date.

We will not give progress reports until the Paternity Test Report is ready. This Paternity Test Report will only be sent to the person ordering the DNA test and before the report is issued, we will not discuss the case with any other person unless we have written permission to do so.

You will receive an e-mail when the Paternity Test Report has been uploaded and this will generally be after 4pm on the expected day of delivery. Please do not call for results before this time, as staff will not be able to update you until the report has been signed off by the Quality Manager.

If we have any issues with the data (such as the need to repeat the sampling), you will receive an e-mail to keep you updated.

Parental Responsibility (PR) means that the person concerned has all of the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority that a parent of a child has by law (as defined in the Children Act 1989). Where a child’s parents were married to each other at the time of the child’s birth, each parent will have Parental Responsibility for the child. However, if a child’s parents are not married to each other, the mother shall automatically have Parental Responsibility over the child. Where the parents are not married to each other, the alleged father will acquire Parental Responsibility if he acts with the mother to have his name recorded on the child’s birth registration after 1st December 2003. An unmarried alleged father will not be able to claim Parental Responsibility unless he acquires it by:

• Having his name on the child’s birth certificate (for births registered after December 2003).
• Obtaining a court order.
• Registering a legally written agreement subject to the mother’s consent.
• Marriage to the child’s mother.
• Being granted a residence order.

People other than parents may acquire Parental Responsibility by appointment as a guardian or by an order of the court.

In cases where the alleged father signs on behalf of the child, we always ask to see proof of parental responsibility e.g., the full birth certificate or a marriage certificate to the mother. This can be sent us to by email.

We will not process any samples without the appropriate consent and evidence of this where it is any person other than the child’s mother signing on behalf of the child. This will effect your expected results due date if we have not received this evidence before the samples arrive with us. 

Helpful information regarding who may have Parental Responsibility can be found here.

The dadcheck®silver paternity test is more conclusive if we can test all three of the child, mother and alleged father.

A test without a sample from the mother will not provide the same degree of certainty as a test with samples from both parents, but nevertheless, we would expect to report a probability of paternity in excess of 99%.

All people providing a sample for any type of dadcheck®silver DNA test must give their consent by signing the personalised consent form which will be provided with the sampling kit.

In cases where the alleged father or any person other than the child’s mother signs on behalf of the child under 16 years, we always ask to see proof of parental responsibility e.g., the full birth certificate or a marriage certificate to the mother. This can be sent us to by email. For further information regarding Parental Responsibility, please see FAQ ‘What is Parental Responsibility (PR)?

We will not process any samples without the appropriate consent and evidence of this where it is any person other than the child’s mother signing on behalf of the child. This will effect your expected results due date if we have not received this evidence before the samples arrive with us.

For sibling DNA tests, grandparent DNA tests and aunt or uncle DNA tests, we strongly recommend that the mother of the child(ren) participates in the testing as this really helps with the final results interpretation and makes the results so much more conclusive. Occasionally when DNA testing without any parental involvement at all, a biological relationship may exist between two (or more) tested people, but it cannot be detected because of the relatively low amount of DNA shared between the tested individuals. This would be the one thing we would like to make you aware of before embarking on testing.

Not at all. Our samples are taken by gently rubbing a soft cotton swab around the inside of the mouth. Full instructions of how to take the samples are included in the “That DNA Company” sample collection kit and on our helpful video available on our website.

The procedure is simple and painless and can be used on young children and newborn babies.

If you are unsure and would like some guidance on the DNA sampling process then please watch our video or call us on 0191 543 6434.

For legal (accredited) tests the sample collection procedures are different to personal information tests and we must take steps to correctly identify each participant at the time of sampling. We do this through an extensive network of sample collectors who will have been previously sent the bespoke DNA test kit and consent forms and will follow our identity checking procedures. You will also be photographed at the time of sampling. Our registered sample collectors will send the samples directly back to us.

Our samplers may be our own staff, entities who have joined our registered samplers scheme, registered medical practitioners or a member of a company specifically subcontracted to collect samples for us.

Additional charges may apply for sample collections and any use of next day delivery/couriers.

We operate a nationwide collection service and also have arrangements in place for international identity checks and collections, most often used for immigration and surrogacy purposes or if one of the participants is based overseas.

The identity check and buccal cheek cell sampling will be conducted by either a member of Complement Genomics Ltd staff or will be undertaken by an independent third party supplier such as a registered medical practitioner, a sample collection company (an approved supplier to Complement Genomics Ltd) or one of the participants on our registered sampler scheme.

If the samples submitted for this particular DNA test were not collected by staff directly employed by Complement Genomics Ltd, the company (Complement Genomics Ltd) is not responsible for any errors or omissions which may have been made by these entities during the sampling process.

As dadcheck®silver uses a home DNA testing kit, you must be sure of the identity of the persons participating and we expect you to warrant those identities. You should be aware that it is a serious offence, punishable by imprisonment, to personate another body for the purpose of providing a bodily sample (e.g. for a DNA test) or to proffer the wrong child for that purpose.

There is no requirement for proof of identity to be supplied to us for personal information DNA tests.

Please note that it is NOT necessary for all individuals who are giving a sample to all be present together at the same sampling venue at the same time or indeed to be in the same place for sampling. However, at the time of sampling, a child who is under 16 MUST be accompanied by the person with Parental Responsibility, as indicated on the consent form.

With self-sampling at home, on rare occasions we are unable to obtain a complete DNA profile, or there may be issues with contamination, mixed profiles or not enough of a sample has been taken. The actions we will take are as follows:

1) Discoloured (e.g. due to food/nicotine) swabs or mouldy swabs (due to the long time taken to return them to us) will not be processed. We will inform you of this point via e-mail and offer you a replacement kit for a charge of £12.50.

2) If we do not gain enough DNA from one swab to complete the test, we will conduct the work once more, then process the second swab before taking the decision to re-sample. This can cause a delay to your expected completion date which we will notify you of by email.

If we have started the laboratory work and find an issue such as no DNA on the swab, mixed profiles or adulteration, then we will inform you of this point and offer re-sampling for a charge of £44.

The original DNA test report is uploaded as a .pdf to a secure web-link which is provided to the person who ordered the test. The postal copies of the reports are also sent to the person who ordered the test as well as all test participants over the age of 16 years, plus any person who has signed as having Parental Responsibility for a child under 16 years.

The reports are in a standardised format, which complies with relevant legislation* and either excludes the alleged father or provides evidence that he is indeed the tested child’s biological parent.

The paternity test results will say whether the alleged father IS EXCLUDED or IS NOT EXCLUDED as the biological father of the tested child.

IS EXCLUDED: This means that the tested father cannot be the biological father of the tested child because they do not share enough DNA to confirm the biological relationship tested.
IS NOT EXCLUDED: This means that the tested father is likely to be the biological father because testing determined that he and the tested child do share a biological parent/child relationship with a high degree of probability.

An inclusion paternity test result i.e. tested father is the father will include:

A Probability of Paternity value (%)
A Likihood Index value

If you have any questions about your Test Report once this is issued to you, please contact our helpful team.

We do not issue the original data (DNA profiles), since interpretation of these data is highly complex and requires a trained operative.

* The Family Law Reform Act 1969 as amended by The Family Law Reform Act 1987 and The Family Law Reform Act 1987 (commencement No.3) order 2001 and The Children Act 1989.

For our other DNA tests, you will receive a written report from one of our geneticists and the Quality Manager which explains the test we have done and the results obtained, with any caveats and assumptions.

We shall only correspond with the person who has ordered the DNA test (the ordering party), unless we receive their written permission to enter into correspondence with those other parties involved in the paternity testing case. We will only discuss the case if we are confident we are talking to the ordering party. Please expect that we will ask you for your case number and certain other details of the case.

Personal Information DNA Tests
The original report is uploaded as a .pdf to a secure web-link which is provided to the person who ordered the test. The postal copies of the reports are also sent to the person who ordered the test as well as all test participants over the age of 16 years, plus any person who has signed as having Parental Responsibility for a child under 16 years – per your instructions on the online order form.

Results will be uploaded onto the secure web space we will provide for you and also dispatched by first class post.

Legal DNA Tests
The DNA test report will be issued to all test participants over the age of 16 including any person who signs the consent form for a child under 16 years. These are issued in e-mail format in a .pdf file as well as all participants in the UK receiving a paper copy at their address.

We can also provide your solicitor, the Home Office/Passport Office with their own copy of the test result too.

Please be advised that for Data Protection, we will securely destroy all case related data including the DNA Test Report 12 months following case reporting stage.

After we have sent out your DNA test reports, we will store your DNA swab samples for three months and after this period, they are incinerated.

All associated DNA test paperwork and records are kept for 12 months and then securely destroyed.

We strongly recommend that you save a paper or electronic copy of the Test Report for future reference as your account login details will be destroyed 12 months following reporting stage and we will have no access to your information. 

If you lose the Test Report, we cannot re-issue this after 12 months following reporting stage and a new test would need to be ordered.

We are registered under the 1998 Data Protection Act. You can find more information about how we protect your privacy by reading our privacy policy.

dadcheck®silver uses all reasonable precautions to make sure that samples received for testing cannot be mixed up. Our team of highly skilled and qualified scientists adhere to strict laboratory requirements of internationally recognised quality standard, ISO 17025 (an accreditation for testing and calibration laboratories).

We operate a tried and tested Quality Management System and included in this is the requirement for all work to be witnessed and double-checked by a second competent member of scientific staff.

The use of overseas surrogate mothers by British couples is increasingly common. Surrogacy contracts (if indeed there is one) are not enforced by UK law and are only legally binding in a small number of countries. These situations can be both highly complex and given the nature of the arrangement, emotionally highly charged.

If you are considering entering into a surrogacy contract you will find it can be a lengthy and complicated process and besides the obvious issue of the new child’s passport and nationalisation, is the need for a UK based parental order that transfers legal rights from the surrogate mother.

In the UK, the law says that the mother of a child is the woman who gives birth to that child and the father is the man she is married to at the time of conception. Therefore, if the overseas surrogate mother is married, although the prospective parents’ names should be on the child’s birth certificate (given a parental order has been agreed), the child is not necessarily recognised as automatically eligible for British nationality.

The intended parents must apply to the Home Office for registration of the child as a British citizen before applying for a UK passport. On the other hand, if the surrogate mother is single, such an application to the Home Office is unnecessary provided that the father has provided evidence that he is genetically related to the child.

There are two types of surrogacy which present different legal implications:

The first, “traditional” surrogacy, or artificial insemination, involves insertion of sperm into the fallopian tube of the surrogate mother, who will consequently be the biological mother of the child. As a result, the surrogate mother must agree to a series of legal obligations transfer her rights as the parent of the child to the individual(s) who have opted for surrogacy.

The second, “gestational” surrogacy, more commonly known as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), involves implantation of an externally fertilised embryo where the biological parents do not involve the participation of the surrogate mother; therefore the child and the surrogate mother are biologically independent of one another. Whilst the embryo may have one, both, or neither parents as participants in the surrogacy, under UK law the mother and father of the child is the woman who gives birth to the child and the man she is married to at the time of conception.

Both of these possibilities require the use of accredited, legal DNA testing, as this is imperative to confirm the biological mother and/or father of the child(ren)

At dadcheck®, we have been assisting many intended parents with their surrogacy DNA tests, with many of our families in the UK but also abroad. Sampling overseas is not a problem at all and we are happy to help you arrange this.

Complement Genomics Ltd t/a dadcheck® is accredited by the Ministry of Justice as “a body that may carry out parentage tests directed by the civil courts of England and Wales under section 20 of the Family Law Reform Act 1969”.

For further information please click here, or to request a quotation, please contact us on 0191 5436434 or e-mail sales@dadchecksilver.com

We conduct many immigration associated DNA tests for both private clients and those represented by immigration advisors.

Our DNA tests can be used to support HMPO and UK Visas and Immigration applications.

This may include passport applications and UK Citizenship applications amongst many others.

We have been assisting families with such applications for over 20 years. We are able to work both UK nationwide and worldwide using our DHL Express Worldwide courier account for fast and efficient shipments overseas for the DNA test kit for sampling.

We have built a strong relationship with overseas medical centres, especially for Pakistan DNA testing and South Africa DNA testing, which enables us to offer you a very smooth operation. We do however work worldwide using any medical centre for sampling of the family’s choice.

Our team of highly skilled and qualified scientists adhere to strict laboratory requirements of internationally recognised quality standard, ISO 17025 (an accreditation for testing and calibration laboratories).

For further information please click here, or to request a quotation, please contact us on 0191 5436434 or e-mail sales@dadchecksilver.com

The definitive way to determine if twins are identical or non-identical (also known as ‘fraternal’ twins) is to carry out a twin DNA test, commonly known as a Zygosity test.
Using DNA testing technology, we can determine whether twins are fraternal or identical.

In fraternal twinning, two different eggs (ova) are fertilised by two sperm to produce two genetically distinct children, which share the same genetic relationship as siblings born at different times (full siblings). The twins could be male or female, there is no bias.

In identical twinning, a fertilised egg (an ovum) splits into two and then the two embryos develop independently. The two babies have the same original genomes (a carefully chosen phrase).

For fraternal twins we expect to see a different DNA profile from each other (but still be able to statistically calculate the relationship) and for identical twins, we expect to see the same (identical) DNA profile.

For general curiosity, this type of test is sufficient to resolve any question of fraternal vs identical twins.

For further information, or to order your twin DNA test kit online, please click here, or you may also contact us on 0191 5436434 or e-mail sales@dadchecksilver.com

Shortly after you have completed your DNA test online order, we start to produce the test kit(s) which is tailored specifically for your case, with named and numbered swabs being issued to the parties as requested. This is the point of Commencement of our Service to you.

If you order a DNA test kit and immediately wish to cancel (i.e. before we have started to produce a sampling kit), then we will issue a refund. We do not generally issue refunds after the kit has been produced and sent to you, as our service to you has started. However, we may grant a partial refund (which is solely at the discretion of the Management) if we have not yet started the laboratory work. Please note that before ordering, we expect you to ensure that all participants of the test have agreed to the testing and have expressed their willingness to consent to it.