How to Contact Your Matches

• Tips for Contacting Your Matches

  • Don't "bother" 12 marker matches
    • Most researchers do not consider 12 markers enough to be conclusive
    • Unless it's your only, or an important match, then ask them to join you in upgrading to see if the match holds.
  • Tell them...
    • Who you are
    • How you match
    • Who specifically that you match
    • Your ancestry
  • Ask them
    • For their help
    • To define their ancestry
    • To work together

• FTDNA will send you automated messages when you have a match (either with only your surname project members or to their internal "opted-in" database) - depending on your selection.  You can contact these individuals through their email addresses.
   
• Each time you receive an email from the Project Administrator that there are new results or pedigrees on your project's website, take a few minutes to see if you have a match or you recognize any of the ancestors. 
   
• You will want to contact those whose pedigrees indicate that you share a common ancestor.   The name and email address for the pedigree provider is posted at the end of the first line of the pedigree.  Change the AT to @ and remove the spaces to use the email address to contact him or her.  (We use the AT and spaces to preven spam harvesters from stealing your email address from the webpage.) 
   
• If you have a match that is shown on the project's Results Page whom you would like to contact (and he hasn't posted a pedigree on the Patriarchs Page), you can contact  the project administrator to ask to be put in touch with the individual.   You will want to exchange information and compare your paper trails to find where you connect.  Some (most) of your matches on the project’s Results page will also appear as a match on your personal page matches at FTDNA. However, some of them will not, as they may not have tested at FTDNA, they may not be a member of your project, or they may have chosen not to show publicly as a match at the FTDNA website. 
   
• Currently, it is difficult to correlate which project members you match on the project’s Results Page with the persons your match on your personal page at FTDNA, as Project websites use the kit number or an identity number to identify project members, while FTDNA identifies your matches by name.   You can ask your Project Administrator to tell you if a match on the Results Page already appears on your "Matches" page at FTDNA, to avoid contacting the same person twice.