Attaching someone else’s DNA to your online family tree


Many of you, in fact almost four thousand of you, have already attached DNA to your online family tree.  As you know, this translates into a much larger potential for people finding and connecting to your family tree.  As more people add their results, the Ancestry.com DNA database becomes a powerful asset toward making connections and family tree discoveries.  With 8.3 million family trees containing 810 million profiles, adding DNA results to a family tree multiples your chance of finding and making connections with genetic cousins and extending branches along your family tree.  The four thousand DNA attachments spans over seventy-one thousand ancestors with inferred DNA!

I’ve received some comments on the blog about attaching “someone else’s” DNA to a user’s tree.  This is not a difficult process.  To have the DNA of another person represented in your tree, you first need to invite him/her to your tree.  Here’s how:

  1. After logging into your Ancestry.com account, find “view all my trees” in the “My Trees” menu.
  2. Next, “invite family” to the desired tree.  Be sure to assign a role of either “Contributor” or “Editor” to the invited person (this will allow him/her to both view and edit your tree and attach his DNA.
  3. The invited family will need to accept the invitation and then login and attach his/her DNA to the appropriate tree.  Should the other person need help, you could login on his/her behalf and attach the DNA. 

DNA will be designated on the person profile page as is illustrated below (the first shows the profile page for one’s self and the second for an individual receiving inferred DNA propagated up the tree.)treedna2
Attaching your DNA results helps others find your family tree through DNA.  Furthermore, attaching and propagating your DNA results will help others find and confirm a connection to your family tree.

Information and Links

Join the conversation by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information
March 31st, 2009
13 Responses
Feeds and Links
Comment Feed
From This Author
Categories
DNA Ancestry

Other Posts
Planned Maintenance For Family Trees Service Tonight
Working with text boxes in MyCanvas

Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Ginger Smith
Posted on:
April 1, 2009 at 7:29 am

I added my grandfather as an editor to my family tree so I could attach his DNA results to my tree. However, as an “editor” he is not allowed to see living people (that box is grayed out). So who does he attach his DNA to if he cannot see his own name?

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Wendy Jessen, Ancestry.com
Posted on:
April 1, 2009 at 10:10 am

Ginger, the box is grayed out meaning that you can’t prevent editors from seeing living people—it should be checked with no option to uncheck it. So, your grandfather will be able to see living people.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Ashley
Posted on:
April 3, 2009 at 9:44 am

Hey! I`m kinda curious about how to start my family tree! Can you give me some advice??
– Ashley

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
veronica
Posted on:
April 3, 2009 at 9:02 pm

im having a family reunion and trying to put together our family tree,but it so hard to find a lot of my ancestor im getting very up set

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Carol A. H.
Posted on:
April 5, 2009 at 1:30 pm

5 April 2009

Ashley, I know this response is a few days late but I never read the blog about attaching DNA until today.

There are several things you can do to get started doing your family tree. I’m a Family History Center Librarian and I help beginners all the tiime. I am quite good in that particular phase of genealogy. Your blog isn’t exactly in a good place to get help, but then I don’t know a blog that is better.

Most of us blog about subjects more specific. We vent regarding good things and bad things about ancestry.

I don’t know where you are so it is hard to set you going. Try going online to familysearch.org and learning where the nearest Family History Center is. They can help you get started, one on one. Also online there is a free family tree program you can download and use until you decide if you want to spend some money on somenthing else. This program is called, “Personal Ancestral File.” (PAF) It is on the the LDS (Mormon) Church site.
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

If you are in a sizeable community, there may be some adult education classes availble at a reasonalbe fee.

Your public library may have some refernce books on starting genealogy. Talk to a feference librarian

Talk to your family and ask about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and any other family member you know. Write this down. You probably are familiar with computers so you have a good start.

There may be a local Genealogical Society near you or a Hostorical Society. They won’t do your research for you but can give you help on getting started.

There is so much more I could write but this much should get you to some folks who can help.

Genealogy takes a long time. Most people do it all their lives once they get “hooked.” We never find everyone and also we never quite find enough people.

Only one last thng; Document your sources! Never assume you will remember where you got informaiton.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Wendy Jessen, Ancestry.com
Posted on:
April 5, 2009 at 11:55 pm

Ashley, the first rule of advice for starting your family tree is to start with yourself and work with what is already known — document these items and then start moving backward in time. Once you’ve established an Ancestry.com login, you can click on Family Trees in the header and begin your family tree online.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Wendy Jessen, Ancestry.com
Posted on:
April 5, 2009 at 11:57 pm

Veronica, I think everyone involved in famiy history has felt some frustration, a brick wall, or some other obstacle. Hang in there, take a break and start a fresh. There are many resources availalble in the community and on Ancestry.com to assist. Good luck.

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Sam
Posted on:
April 7, 2009 at 4:37 pm

It seems that you can only post to the current topic. Still what ever happened to SMGF access? It was so convenient to compare DNA info with SMGF.

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
lundborgca
Posted on:
April 7, 2009 at 4:40 pm

the printing on the pages and the example need to be larger…the example for DNA is so blurred i can not even see with my magnifing glass

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Dolly Hill
Posted on:
April 7, 2009 at 5:08 pm

I have been able to make contact with the maternal side of my very diverse family in Mississippi.He was able to tell me stories of my gggrandfather’s part in the Civil War,as a body servant in Mississippi.

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
Wendy Jessen, Ancestry.com
Posted on:
April 9, 2009 at 11:14 am

Sam, the link was removed due to changes with SMGF. We are currently in discussions with them to find an appropriate work around.

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
joan
Posted on:
April 13, 2009 at 5:36 pm

I have just had a test taken for my husband’s father, by one of his sons.

How do I go about finding out how to read it?

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
Wendy Jessen, Ancestry.com
Posted on:
April 13, 2009 at 9:17 pm

Joan, the first place to start in understanding the DNA results is to review the multi-page result packet. This document is available from the results pages on the right hand side click on VIEW full report. It will open in Adobe PDF, so make sure you have the latest version installed on your computer. Should you have specific questions about your results, please contact our client services team at dna@ancestry.com. Furthermore, there are many other resources on the web for furthering one’s DNA genealogy education, e.g. ISOGG, Wikipedia, etc.