Question

Not clear on how to add FTDNA autosomal test results to WikiTree. Are there detailed instructions somewhere? [closed]

Answer 1

Register at GEDmatch and follow their instructions to upload your Family Finder results there.  Then enter your GEDmatch ID on your DNA Tests page at https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:DNATests&u=16155883

Comments

Thank you!  Nowhere on the WikiTree site did I see this simple explanation; move your dna to GedMatch first, then enter your GedMatch id into WikiTree.  Thanks for the guidance.

---

Here's the help page:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:How_to_Get_Started_with_DNA

---

Thanks Chris.

Also if you google WikiTree AND you will get a lot of results including the WikiTree LiveCast Series on DNA.

Mags

---

I did all of this and I don't see - next to the profiles on my tree - that I have the family finder data uploaded.

---

On your profile you have entered yDNA test information and mtDNA test information and they're both being correctly displayed on the appropriate profiles. If you took a Family Finder test, you need to add that as another DNA test. Then you need to wait for WikiTree to do the daily update of the DNA test information to see the information on your family's profiles.

---

I had already added the Au test.

"Then you need to wait for WikiTree to do the daily update of the DNA test information to see the information on your family's profiles."

I think that answers my question; I'll check back tomorrow ;-)

---

And sure enough; at 24 hours I now see the Au results.

2nd question: I see that I'm only listed up to the 6th generation - my family finder results aren't on the profiles of 7th generation ancestors.  But, other tests (from other Wikitree users) do show up.  Why theirs and not mine?

---

The suggestion possibilities propagate to eight degrees of biological relationship...easier to think in terms of birth events. A 3rd cousin is eight birth events from you: four up the tree, generationally, and four back down. A 6g-grandparent is also eight birth events from you: all eight a generational step up the tree. It's a bit misleading, though, because to find a DNA connection to a 6g-grandparent means you would need to locate a living descendant to test...meaning a 7th cousin. The amount of DNA theoretically shared with a 7th cousin is 0.003%, so effectively zero.

Edited to add: and I kinda sorta guess we should be conversing in a topic that isn't a year old. Just noticed. My apologies to the G2G moderators.  :-)

---

I see no issue commenting on even a 10 year old topic.  Better to beat all the dead cats in one thread than 10 cats in 10 threads ;-)

A year from now, someone who has the same question: "How do I link my family finder test?" may also have the same questions to the follow up discussion.

I'm looking at some 12th generation ancestors and I'm seeing that they have multiple Family Finder references.  How is that possible if it only goes back 8 generations?

---

Shouldn't be. Are they possibly showing yDNA or mtDNA references rather than autosomal?

The issue with topic age is the platform G2G uses, a product called "Question2Answer." It has an almost nonexistent search capability, and it doesn't operate like the threaded message boards some of us are more used to. Once a question ages out, it's really only by random chance that someone finds it and activates it again. Then again, as features, functions, and guidelines change over time, it may not be a bad thing that older info and answers sort of fade away.

---

In that case I'll make a new question next time and provide a link to the earlier answer.

In the case of "shouldn't be," have a look at Mary Clayton.  She is my 9x great-grandmother.  We're talking 13 generations to my kids.

Ah, I just answered my own question.  I clicked on some of the links of the DNA matched profiles; they are (what looks like) grandparents and some have even died.  Looks like someone is assigning their DNA test to a grandparent so as to maintain some bit of anonymity.

---

Ah. Yep; good catch. It is possible--with commercial, direct-to-consumer DNA testing marking its 18th year--that people born early in the 20th century may have had a cheek swabbed (no saliva tests until significantly later than 2000) and a sample stored at FTDNA until affordable autosomal DNA came along. (The first relatively inexpensive autosomal DNA test--and it was for medical purposes, not genealogy--is only 10 years old, offered by 23andMe. The next major player to enter the fray, and expressly for genealogy, was FTDNA in 2010, which had formed in 2000 and had already been testing yDNA and mtDNA. AncestryDNA, though not yet with labs that they owned, began selling tests in 2012.)

So if you factor in an elderly relative who tested, and the possibility of unusually long generations in the line (my grandfather, for example, was born in 1866...152 years ago!), we can certainly see those DNA connection suggestions propagate to much earlier dates than we might otherwise expect. That's why it's so much more accurate to view autosomal DNA in terms of the recombination and sharing at each birth event rather than calendar years.

I actually wish WikiTree could cap the direct line at the 4g-grandparents but still go to eight birth events laterally to 3rd cousins. There are far too many people who think those suggestions are some sort of evidence of DNA matching, and going back to 6g-grandparents is misleading...being able to arrive at solid autosomal DNA evidence back beyond 4g-grandparents is not only extremely difficult, but highly unlikely. There are several reasons why, but any proposed autosomal evidence linking more than six generations back from the test-taker is very likely in error and should be considered suspect.