Add your earliest known ancestors

[clintonslayton76]

Is anyone else getting tired of a pop-up on kit page login to "Add you earliest known ancestors..." when this has been done to the best of the kit manager's knowledge? It comes up everytime for me, and I have entered that information long ago.

[EJSteele56]

Hear! Hear! I am tired of seeing that on my dashboard each time I log in as well. The only thing as frustrating, is looking up a different haplogroup than my own on Discover Haplogroup Reports, and having to give my name and email, along with telling FTDNA that I am already a customer, when I'm already signed in.

[Jim Barrett]

I agree! I just sent the following to support, "Please tell me exactly what information is missing that causes me to see "Add your earliest known ancestor information." each time I sign into my kit. I'll be happy to add the needed information if you will tell me what is needed. Thanks" This gives me 3 open request.

[JeffZ]

This cleared for all six kits that I manage once I entered something for both the Country of Origin and Ancestral Location, or checked the "I don't know this information" box.

[John McCoy]

Unless the kit has a Y-DNA test or an mt-DNA test, "earliest known ancestor" is irrelevant. I have been able to find 14th Century ancestors, they are surely not relevant to autosomal DNA matching, and are so remote that they will not be genealogically useful to anyone else. So, not the sort of request an experienced genealogist is likely to take seriously.

[JeffZ]

Agreed, the surname and location list is more relevant for autosomal DNA. I assume the earliest known ancestor is just for helping to identify possible haplogroup origins. With the number of recent haplogroups that have been identified, it would seem better to enter information about the founder of your current haplogroup (if known). It could be useful to support reporting both if there is a significant difference due to migrations.

[JR_the_norman]

Hear! Hear! I am tired of seeing that on my dashboard each time I log in as well. The only thing as frustrating, is looking up a different haplogroup than my own on Discover Haplogroup Reports, and having to give my name and email, along with telling FTDNA that I am already a customer, when I'm already signed in.

On discover, I usually just replace the haplogroup in the url with the one I want to open. This way you don't need to login.

[Jim Barrett]

This cleared for all six kits that I manage once I entered something for both the Country of Origin and Ancestral Location, or checked the "I don't know this information" box.

Checking the "I don't know this information" box worked for me also. Thanks. Of course I didn't hear anything from 'support?'.

[clintonslayton76]

But as Mr. McCoy implies, the surname and location info is very relevant for a surname Y project, because that appears in their results on the grid, and this is where other members might see a common shared male ancestor!

Thanks for this tip about "I don't know...." ! I have many kits that I look at over the week, and some do not give me the rights to do this, but I will check the box when applicable for those that do. But it is an unexpected irritation, esp as we are getting some growth in our project (two kits pending analysis and two more atDNA samplers being encouraged for a Y test.) Most new members will be befuddled after entering what they think is their Earliest and continue to get this message at login. I hate to keep sounding this plea. but can FTDNA stop "fixing" things that are not broken.

[Jim Barrett]

Checking the "I don't know this information" box worked for me also. Thanks. Of course I didn't hear anything from 'support?'.

I heard from Support yesterday. They checked my kit and didn't see the message, of course this was after I had checked the I don't know box.

When I responded I pointed out FTDNA seems to ignore the Forum. They never post in Announcements, a good place for them to mention sales and updates and they make it harder and harder to find the Forum and don't mention it to new members.

[clintonslayton76]

Thanks, Jeffz and Jim. This is poor web design, because many managers have a name but no location, or vice versa, and the "I don't know..." box should appear under each item in each of the Earliest Ancestors.