Your Personal Page at FTDNA is a key part of the process. When you are tested at Family Tree DNA, you are given your own personal page at the FTDNA website which will allow you to:
- choose the information you give about yourself
- choose how you are notified about your matches and results.
- choose who is notified about your test results and matches
- choose whether your matches are compared against just the surname project or the entire database.
- choose how many markers to use in displaying your matches: 12, 25, 37, or 67.
- post your most distant known relative and your city or country of origin, which is very important piece of information which will be displayed with your test results and will be helpful to those you match.
- learn about your test results: your test result markers, your matches, your haplogroup, your family's migration, and ancestral origins, along with explanations of what it all means.
- upload your results to ySearch, the public database that allows aznyone tested at any company to compare results
- upload your GEDCOM
- order upgrades and certificates
- track the progress of your test through the FTDNA labs
- join up to 5 projects: 2 surname projects, 1 mtDNA haplogroup project, 1 yDNA haplogroup project, and 1 geographic project
- join the National Geographic Genographic Project.
You are given access to your Personal Page in two stages, which we call Access Your Personal Page and Update Your Personal Page.
Stage 1 (Access Your Personal Page) is the period after your test kit is returned, but before your test results are ready. During this time you will receive the password to the page, and you will have limited access to the page, primarily for the purpose of adding your information and tracking your test while it is in the lab.
Stage 2 (Update Your Personal Page) comes after you are notified that your test results are ready. Now you have many more options to choose about how your matches are displayed, uploading your GEDCOM, uploading your results to Y-search, and you can view lots of information about your test results.
(To see an example of a Personal Page at FTDNA, click here.)
Stage 1--Access
This is the part of the personal page you are given as soon as your test kit is returned.
When your kit is returned, you will be given limited access to your "personal page" at FTDNA.
You will need your kit number and a password (which FTDNA sends you when your kit is returned) to log in at www.familytreedna.com to view your “personal page”.
During Stage 1, you will have see the following on your personal page:
- My Project Groups -- This will show the project through which you ordered the test, as ordering through a project automatically makes you a member of the project.
- Contact Information
- You can update or add an email address.
- You can provide the country of origin for your earliest known paternal and maternal ancestors.
- Order Tests & Upgrades (Standard and Advanced options)
- FTDNA has divided their orders into standard and advanced. (You will find most of the tests you want in the standard orders selection.)
- Standard Orders include Y-DNA 12, 25, 37, 67. and upgrades between them, as well as mtDNA mtDNA Plus, and mtDNA Full Sequence, and their upgrades.
- Advanced Orders include individual markers and panels, X Chromosome, and Autosomal DNA.
- FTDNA can run all the tests you order from your initial sample. They commit to retain your sample for 25 years.
- To order an upgrade: Click on "Standard Orders".
- At the bottom of the page, click on the down arrow to see the range of upgrade choices
- Use the arrow to scroll through the tests to see what tests are available to you and follow the directions to order.
- Order Certificates is included under the Order Test and Upgrades link. To see samples of the certificates from FTDNA, click here.
- Pending Lab Results --will tell you can expect to receive results from your test kit. Keep in mind that the target results date is an estimate. If your result is more than a week late, typically FTDNA is rerunning the test in order to be certain of your result.
- Maps--this feature is not really useful to you until your results are ready.
- Refer Friends and Family--a tool for sending an email to your fellow researchers and family members to get them to take a look and possibly get involved.
- GEDCOM - Family Tree --An easy way to upload your GEDCOM to the FTDNA website
- Genographic Project -- An easy way to join the National Geographic Genographic Project, which is attempting to map the migratory history of all mankind. For a fee of $15 you can join your result to the National Geographic Genographic Project, a fascinating project that will give you insight into your deep ancestral origins. (This option will not show on your personal page if you do not have a haplogroup estimate.)
However, you do not have access to most parts of the FTDNA structure until your results are in. You cannot join additional projects or make comparisons outside the project at this stage.
Click here for Stage 2 (Update Your Personal Page), which becomes accessible after you are notified that your test results are ready.
