My whole Family Tree just disappeared

[LPeer]

My entire extensive Family Tree is no longer there. I had it open and was in the process of editing information for one person on the tree, and it appeared to freeze and keep running, so I hit refresh on my browser (safari), and when it refreshed, it listed my name twice in boxes at top of the tree, and one was a brand new tree with nothing on it. I tried to click on both and there was nothing on the tree at all. All information and photos were gone.

Has anyone had this happen before? Are the trees backed up somehow on the server?

I filled out a service ticket already, but since it might not get answered for a week, I figure I need help right away if there is anyway for them to get the whole tree back or pull a backup off the server.

[dna]

I do not know the reasons for this particular issue. However, there should be an option to save a tree in its existing form, so it could be recovered by a user at her or his discretion. It is not only protection against errors, but also a timesaver when major changes are introduced by a user into the tree that later are found to be invalid or not desired.

W. (Mr.)

[Jim Barrett]

If you built your tree using a real genealogy program you could load it here or any where else without having to worry about what FTDNA did with their system.

There has been more than one time when FTDNA told us they were going to wipe out all of the old trees and start over again.

[MikeP]

If you built your tree using a real genealogy program you could load it here or any where else without having to worry about what FTDNA did with their system.

There has been more than one time when FTDNA told us they were going to wipe out all of the old trees and start over again.

I created a starter tree with a real genealogy program. I saved it as a gedcom 5.5. It will not load. Someone else in the forums also reported not being able to load gedcom 5.5.

[LPeer]

It was all manually filled in

I manually entered the information for each person, including dates and places and uploaded many pictures as well. I never went to the bottom right and clicked on delete the whole tree and also never saw that dialogue box, or confirmed it, but it's as if the whole tree was deleted beacause of a bug or something, after it freezing and me refreshing the browser. I have screen shots of the whole tree as of a couple days ago, but I do NOT want to take all of the time to manually build it all over again and upload all of the photos as well.

[LPeer]

dna, where would that be, a "save a copy" type of option? I've never seen that anywhere on the tree before?

[J. R. L.]

That EXACT thing happened to my daughter last month!! Please report yours to FTdna and have IT work on it.

Can you enter names into search and get them to come up? She can. The info seems to not be lost, but it's not usually visible. Sometimes it comes back to be visible and then it goes away.

[J. R. L.]

Has anyone had this happen before? Are the trees backed up somehow on the server?

There is no backup on FTDNA.
They asked us how we loaded our tree, but it doesn't make any difference in getting the info back or causing the problem.

My daughter used a gedcom to begin her tree, then she added more info as time went on. So it was both a gedcom and manual.

[LPeer]

did your daughter also have lots of photos posted as well? Not sure if that figures into the problem/bug or not. I noticed that I was one of the few people that had uploaded many photos to the tree.

I filled out a contact form (through the sticky note on this forum), and have not heard from any support or IT person yet.

[Darren]

This happened to several people a month or two ago, I reported them and eventually engineering was able to restore them, pictures and everything. If you have not filled out a ticket yet please do so, or send me a private message and I would be happy to help. As long as you report it should be able to be restored based on my past experience.

I have also passed along the suggestion allowing one to save or export the data, I agree it would be a very useful feature, especially if data has the chance of just disappearing.

-Darren
Family Tree DNA

[dna]

dna, where would that be, a "save a copy" type of option? I've never seen that anywhere on the tree before?

My complain to FTDNA, starting on the day myFamilyTree had been introduced, was that there is no such option as save a copy of the current state or create a backup copy.

W. (Mr.)

[LPeer]

Just to update everyone, Darren was able to get the entire tree and photos restored late last night.

[Darren]

I actually had nothing to do with it, but thanks for the vote of confidence. I have seen one report that it was gone, when I checked it was back and they could see it as well, but this afternoon it is gone again. So I will bring this up to the engineering team. If anyone else is experiencing this please send me a private message with your kit number and a contact email address.

-Darren
Family Tree DNA