FAQ
May 31, 2018
You may have read or heard about a number of changes to projects and privacy settings of all FTDNA Testers. (This is a new law – GDPR – which took effect on May 25, 2018). You can read more about it here:
The most important thing you can do right now is to log into your FTDNA personal home page and hover your cursor over your name on the top right hand side and click on <Privacy and Sharing> and work your way through the privacy options. (See item #7 Privacy and Sharing Tab in the FAQ below dated May 30, 2018 for more information).
May 30, 2018
Helpful Tips for dealing with the many items that need your attention on your personal FTDNA Homepage (often called myFTDNA)
Please take some time to review and update the information in your kit at Family Tree DNA.
1. CONTACT INFORMATION TAB:
If the contact person is not the person who gave the DNA sample, then please input the name of the DNA donor and put the contact person as c/o (Care Of) in the address line. For example
2. ACCOUNT SETTINGS TAB:
3. GENEALOGY TAB – FAMILY TREE:
If you have a tree on Ancestry.com you can download a gedcom. If you need help creating a gedcom or extracting your tree from Ancestry, go to
4. GENEALOGY TAB – MOST DISTANT ANCESTORS:
Input data on your Paternal side: John James Smith b. c. 1803 Cavan, Ire d. 1899 New York
6. BENEFICIARY INFORMATION TAB:
7. PRIVACY & SHARING TAB:
Change most of the default setting on this tab. FTDNA has made the defaults extremely limiting. That makes it harder to use the DNA results for genealogy.
Change “Who can view my mtDNA Coding Region” to allow project admins to view it if you want their help in researching your direct female line.
You may have read or heard about a number of changes to projects and privacy settings of all FTDNA Testers. (This is a new law – GDPR – which took effect on May 25, 2018). You can read more about it here:
GDPR also resulted in this project being moved from the World Families website back to the FTDNA website. World Families made a business decision to cease hosting projects on their website due to the GDPR regulations. The FTDNA website does not have all the functionality that was available on the World Families site e.g., Pedigree Information page. However, participants can still add their pedigree information (see item #3 – Genealogy Tab – Family Tree in the FAQ below dated May 30, 2018 for more information).
After updating <Privacy and Sharing>, click on the <Project Preferences>. In <Project Preferences> click on “EDIT” and grant me “Full Access”.
If you do not allow me Full Access, I will not be able to help you, see who you match or anything else.May 30, 2018
Helpful Tips for dealing with the many items that need your attention on your personal FTDNA Homepage (often called myFTDNA)
Please take some time to review and update the information in your kit at Family Tree DNA.
Click on the LOGIN TAB at the top of the screen and enter your kit number and password to open your MyFTDNA page.
Click the MANAGE PERSONAL INFORMATION link on the left of the page. Or, use the drop-down menu at the top right to open your profile.
There are a lot of items that you can configure. Please take some time to click through the links and setup your profile.
Input your current mailing address. This is used in case FTDNA needs to send you a new test kit to upgrade if more DNA is required. It is also useful if a DNA Project Administrator needs to contact you and your email address is not working.
You can input as many email addresses as necessary. This is helpful if one of your email addresses stops working for any reason. If you have a beneficiary or relative that you want to administer your kit in the future, input their email address too. You can also input the email address of your DNA Project Administrator. Any emails that you input would facilitate managing your DNA if you are no longer able to.
John James Smith, c/o Marie Smith Jones.
Change the Personal Information default from Private to Basic or Full. This allows others with FTDNA login access to view the information you share in your profile. This is useful for people who match you and for others in any DNA project groups you join.
If you have a website or family tree online, you can show the link in the ABOUT ME box. If the DNA donor has passed, or is no longer able to donate additional DNA, then you might want to include a note explaining this in the ABOUT ME box.
Even if you have not yet created a family tree on FTDNA, please change the default Family Tree privacy setting. Hopefully, someday you will create or upload a tree. Or, a project admin might do it for you. It will help if these settings are already configured. In order to use DNA for genealogy, you want people to check your tree. If you have a gedcom file of your family tree, please upload it by clicking on the FAMILY TREE button on your kit’s main page.
If you don’t have a gedcom file, you can manually create a tree by clicking on FAMILY TREE and clicking on the profile icon and filling in the information.
Input your Most Distant Ancestors. These should be the most distant known ancestors you have in your direct paternal and direct maternal lines. Only input names that you know with a high confidence level. It helps if you include date and location information with the name, although you may have to abbreviate words.
If the date is approximate, use the letter “c” as the abbreviation for circa in front of the date. Circa is the standard term meaning around or about.
Input data on your Maternal side: Matilda Kramer b. 1799 Baden, Germany d. 1856 Cincinnati, Ohio
5. GENEALOGY TAB – SURNAMES:
Input all the surnames of your known ancestors on all branches of your lineage. This is very useful because the matching tools allow people to search matches for surnames. If you have a surname with variations in spelling, it can help to input each variation. That way you will show up depending on the variation someone uses to search for their matches. This is extremely useful for people that have taken the Family Finder test. It may help you identify where in your family line you might match.
Input the name and contact information of the person you want to take over your kits should you pass away or become unable to manage it. If you don’t have anyone to make your beneficiary, then ask on of your DNA Project Administrators for their contact information to make them your kit beneficiary. It is very sad that many people pass away without designating a kit beneficiary. It makes their DNA kit of limited use for future researchers.
Change most of the default setting on this tab. FTDNA has made the defaults extremely limiting. That makes it harder to use the DNA results for genealogy.
Change “Who can view my Most Distant Ancestor” so that project members can see it. Otherwise, it is hidden.
Change “Who can see me in project member lists” so that others can see you. It helps if people can see you and contact you to share their research.
Change “Who can view my ethnic breakdown” to allow matches to view it.