What is point of projects?

[Jim Barrett]

When you sent the join request where you singed into your "myFTDNA" website and did you use the "Manage Projects" link on that site?

[PDHOTLEN]

I dropped out of many of my projects. I still had one pending. I received an email saying that I was accepted, but click here to complete the process. I clicked there two different times. And FTDNA wanted me to purchase something. I mean, there was no other choice but to spend my money. I don't need projects; projects need me. Otherwise I'll go the Ancestry.com pedigree tree route.

[JohnG]

I have had a new burst of enthusiasm for projects in the past year. I have been working my way up my family tree looking for my patriarchs in the Y trees. It gives me one more piece of information about my ancestors and has helped me figure out Family Finder matches - is their Acme line without paper really my Acme line with paper but no Y chromosome to test. In now have a captured by Indians story and a family with an odd haplotype and an ability to speak Spanish in Ireland.

I also found the select by project interesting in the Y results. It let me find a partner to take the Big Y and have a base of 250 years ago to see how much has changed since then.

I wish there were more effective autosomal projects. I have lots of clusters of matches that we keep together by email. I have never been sure how to do a project. In some cases, the logical thing would be to put the autosomal with the surname or with a region that seems to be the common denominator. The Y surname administrators do not seem excited to add autosomal.

[Wilma Wildcat]

I joined the Sutton project when I joined FTDNA two years ago. Since then, I've never seen a report from the project, no communication about anything, no matches, nothing.

When I go to the project page for the Sutton project all there is is an overview. The exact same overview that I saw before I joined the project.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but what is the point of these projects? They seem pretty useless to me. Is the data only give to the project manager?

It just dawned on me that perhaps you have not clicked the links taking you to the results page, where all your fellow members have their results. Is that the case? Because that is the reason I go to our project -- not for the overview page, for sure. But I have to go through the overview page to get there.

[sammy321]

The Admins in the three projects I'm in are all very knowledgeable and helpful. One did GEDCOM for me and another helped completed my proven lineage on the maternal side. They reply to my emails and without them I'd be up the creek without a paddle.

[Maureen Hastings]

The World Fam project for my maiden name surname has been inactive since 2010. I don't see anything on RootsWeb, either. The admin did send me some historical information when I joined, but there is no discussion and no new results since 2010. Is there any other way to know if anyone with that Surname has tested?

I have no males to y-test anyway, but wonder if anyone else has discovered anything useful or gleaned helpful information by using their autosomal results in connection with y-matches or is that wishful thinking on my part so maybe it doesn't matter if the project is dead anyway?

I don't have one match for my maiden name in my 29 pages of autosomal results but it feels kind of weird not being involved with any project that is of the name I was born with and grew up with. Any suggestions? Tough luck?! It's not registered with One Name Guild, either.

Thanks.

[PDHOTLEN]

Just to narrow it down a wee mite (after peeking at my old research tree on Ancestry), Samuel Thorn 1770-1850 married Phebe Esther Chase b. 1777. He was born in Poughkeepsie, NY. And she was born in Gagetown, New Brunswick. They both died in Hillier Township in Ontario. So one can guess that they met in Ontario. Her line (my U5 match) came from Massachusetts. His Thorn/Thorne line goes back to Long Island, NY.

Poking around a bit more, I saw that Phebe's grandmother was Mary Strange. That rings a bell, since that surname is not common. Mary's dad was Lot Strange. One entry on Ancestry shows that Strange line going way back in England to where it changes to Le Strange. Aha! I have Le Strange in my maternal line back in England just a few generations down from Joan Plantagenet, although a different Le Strange person. So what does this mean? It looks like there must be some kind of mtDNA U5 connection be4tween this Massachusetts matching clade and my own. But I'm not going to try to ferret it all out.

[PDHOTLEN]

Getting away from the subject of project administrator, I see the person who posted the above ^ message is named Thorn. My U5b2b2 HVR1+HVR2 is very rare, up to this point. One tree I put together based on that match, ages ago, on Ancestry has a Thorn in it; in Canada. I'll have to take a peek again. I presume a common maternal ancestress with my line back in merry ole England, before the Pilgrims came over. One line in that tree moved to Canada from Massachusetts around the 1812 War era, I think it was.

Just to narrow it down a wee mite (after peeking at my old research tree on Ancestry), Samuel Thorn 1770-1850 married Phebe Esther Chase b. 1777. He was born in Poughkeepsie, NY. And she was born in Gagetown, New Brunswick. They both died in Hillier Township in Ontario. So one can guess that they met in Ontario. Her line (my U5 match) came from Massachusetts. His Thorn/Thorne line goes back to Long Island, NY.

[PDHOTLEN]

Getting away from the subject of project administrator, I see the person who posted the above ^ message is named Thorn. My U5b2b2 HVR1+HVR2 is very rare, up to this point. One tree I put together based on that match, ages ago, on Ancestry has a Thorn in it; in Canada. I'll have to take a peek again. I presume a common maternal ancestress with my line back in merry ole England, before the Pilgrims came over. One line in that tree moved to Canada from Massachusetts around the 1812 War era, I think it was.

[Rebekah Canada]

"Social Status"

Social status & respect have nothing to do with it. (I doubt mine have increased around here...) Your posts have proven that you're quite a competent researcher. Give yourself some credit! It's only when both feet are in the grave that you won't be able to be an administrator.

What Vinnie says is true. There is no social status at Family Tree DNA. One of the best and most needed traits in a project admin is the knowledge that they do not know everything.

[PDHOTLEN]

I received a very belated response to an earlier request to join the Danish Demes project. I thought my old eyes saw an exact HVR1 match in Denmark (since seen to be in error). They said I need more than just a haplogroup; I need an address of ancestors (or something like that). Ha ha! Well it looks like Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, King of Denmark and all the Vikings, is attached to my maternal tree via a couple of his children. It is not, apparently, a direct maternal line (via his Swedish wife). I don't know Harald's address offhand, but anyone can Google it easily enough.

[vinnie]

I actually had a co-admin, but I had to delete her because she mined all of the personal information then became unresponsive to my communications..

I hope you let the office know about that.

Otherwise, people's interests change, so don't be discouraged. It sounds like you've been a great administrator.

[Zaru]

Conversely....

My project is filled with unresponsive participants. I send updates often, presented them with my published ground breaking research regarding their family, and I never hear anything. Not one response. Most of them have not logged in in over a year, it's really disconcerting- because the project has some real potential to substantiate genetic findings with paper histories.

I have even offered, as a perk, to research any lineages on their behalf, gratis- but not one response. I actually had a co-admin, but I had to delete her because she mined all of the personal information then became unresponsive to my communications.

I will continue to fight the good fight.

[vinnie]

I've gone deaf; haven't answered my phone in many years.

I've been an administrator for a few years now and the only people I've ever spoken to are folks in the FTDNA office, and that's only because I'm too impatient to wait for e-mail responses.

I'm really not up on computers, and am limited in that regard.

if you're able to navigate through your own accounts and projects, you've got all the computer experience you need.

I don't have enough social status and respect to be a project administrator, along with being old and having one foot in the grave.

Social status & respect have nothing to do with it. (I doubt mine have increased around here...) Your posts have proven that you're quite a competent researcher. Give yourself some credit! It's only when both feet are in the grave that you won't be able to be an administrator.

[PDHOTLEN]

You may want to call the office to see if the project's been abandoned. If not, the administrator is supposed to provide an e-mail address. If it needs an administrator, you may want to consider volunteering.

I've gone deaf; haven't answered my phone in many years. I'm really not up on computers, and am limited in that regard. I don't have enough social status and respect to be a project administrator, along with being old and having one foot in the grave.