1. CONTACTINFORMATION:
Input your current mailing address. This is used in case FTDNA needs to send you a new test kit to upgrade your kit. It is also useful if a DNA ProjectAdministrator wants to contact you and your email is not working. 

Input multiple email addresses if you can. This is helpful if your email address stops working for any reason. If you have a beneficiary or relative that you might want to take over your kit someday, input their email address too. If you want, input the email address of your DNA Project Administrators. Any email that you input here could someday take over management of the kit if you are no longer able to do so. 

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, John James Smith, c/o Donna Smith Jones.

2. ON THE GENEALOGY TAB

Earliest Known Ancestors

Please enter the known origin of your most distant researched paternal ancestor (your father’s father’s father’s father etc) and his name, year and geographical area.  Do the same with your most distant researched maternal ancestor (your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother etc).

Surnames

Please enter as many surnames as you have in your family tree and theirlocation.  (There is no sense in enteringa name like ‘Smith’ if you do not state the area in which that Smith lived).

3. ON THE PRIVACY & SHARING TAB: 
Select “All Levels” for the Family Finder matching

Select “All Levels” for the mtDNA matching

Select “All Levels” for the Y-DNA matching

Opt in to Sharing for ‘Origin Sharing’

Opt into sharing for your ‘ProjectProfile’

Opt into sharing your ‘Coding Region Sharing’

Click on Save

4. ON THE PROJECT PREFERENCES TAB: 
If you have already joined a project, please click on “Edit” and either give the administrator Full access or limited access.  If you require “No access”, then there is no sense in joining a project.  Currently, the default is “No access”.

5.  ON THE NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES
Here you can select whether you want FTDNA to notify you regarding new matches and you can specify the levels for which you wish to be notified. Until you experience these notices, turn them all on.

Please now return to your main Home page (use your browser back button or click on “myFTDNA” on top left and click on “My Dashboard”).  In the middle towards the top of your screen, you will see a box  myFamilyTree.  Click on it and start looking at the “Tool Navigation” that is displayed.

It is strongly suggested you load your familytree – whether manually or via a gedcom file exported from your home computer’s genealogy software.  At the very least please load your direct paternal line and your direct maternal line. If one of your known relations has also tested with FTDNA, please add their name to the tree (use the same name that the relative has tested under).

HINT: females should test undertheir maiden name.

If you need help creating a gedcom or extracting your tree from Ancestry, go to   http://www.nixternal.com/export-gedcom-file-from-ancestry-com/ 
If you don't have a gedcom file, and can't make one, then you can manually create a tree by clicking on yourself in the centre of the screen and “add relationship”. If you have a tree on Ancestry.com or elsewhere then you can get a gedcom. 

Whilst you arewaiting for your results to arrive, look at the “Resources” in your toptoolbar.

Consider joining various forums – these are mainly on Yahoo and in Facebook or Rootsweb.  A good one to consider is  DNA-NEWBIE@yahoogroups.com