GEDCOM question

[TMontes]

I have been working on genealogy for over 40 years but I have avoided putting trees on FTDNA (or anywheres) because I was not sure how to really do it. I use Reunion for the Mac and am befuddled on how in the world to put a simple tree on any of my kits. Downloading to GEDMATCH last year was challenging enough for a computer-mind-lacking genealogist.

So is there a step by step process for me to get trees attached to my various FTDNA kits? I have stared at the GEDCOM page and really could not figure it out.....something abt outdating, updating....????

Thanks for any help here.

Teddi

[Petra]

Hallo Teddi,

I hope my English is good enough to explain. It´s quite easy to upload your Gedcom to your kits on FTDNA.

Supposing, that you already exported the GEDCOMS into a file from your genealogy programme? I do not use Reunion, so I cant tell you how to do the export from it... Perhaps another forist can help here.

Here´s a brief explation for the upload to FTDNA, if you already did your export from your programme:

1. Log into the acouunt of your kit
2. Go to My Acount -> GEDCOM/family tree
3. Look for the right GEDCOM (ending: .ged) starting with the name of the tested person on your computer (you should save these Gedcoms in one file to find them back)
4. Go back to the FTDNA side and click Upload my gedcom while putting the buttom "search on my computer". There you search the right path and select the right gedcom for the tested person and click to "UPLOAD". (If you do not find them you can do another export from your programme and save the gedcoms on the desktop)
5. Wait some seconds on the FTDNA side.
6. In some seconds you should get a message that the upload was successful
7. Go back to display GEDCOM options
8. Make a "dot" on "hide living people born in the last 100 years" if you like to hide these persons. Now it should be done...

9. Click right above the field in "most distant ancestors" and fill in the data of the oldest in female/male line
10. Another click more right shows you then the names of the uploaded Gedcom. Here you can fill in places, when they are different to other locations or anything you like to tell your match, f.e. moved from Rheinland to Iowa, what could be interesting.

Log out and log into the other kits and do again.

I hope I could describe it and that your upload will be successful.

[TMontes]

Thank you for your response. I do not want to post all of a tree-just maybe the first relevant 4 generations. I do not see how to start with that with out creating a mess.

Teddi

[Petra]

Hallo Ted,

hmmm, I do not understand, why you like to restrict your tree just to f.e. 4-5 generations back, when you did find more? It´s very helpful for possible matches to work together, when you have a tree which goes far back.

But perhaps I did not get you right? If you have a big tree with a lot of sidelines, married sisters and brothers - they won´t be shown on FTDNA (it would be even helpful, if they did in my own opinion). FTDNA just shows the direct ancestors of the gedcom of the tested person. So in this case you do not need to do anthing, just upload.

If you like to hide persons for other reasons, you have to mark them "private" in your genealogy software, before doing an extract of the gedcom.

[John McCoy]

Also, if you wish to "prune" your tree, so that, for example, only 10 generations of your ancestry are shown, look for an option in your genealogy software (such as Reunion) that allows you to specify how many generations should be included when you create a GEDCOM file. You should also see options to control the way names of living people are shown in the GEDCOM file. Once you have uploaded your GEDCOM, the family names it contains will automagically be added to your Family Finder profile "surnames list". There have been some problems with "special characters" (accented letters in names), and sometimes dates and place names were turning up blank. I'm not sure about the status of those problems. But if you don't like how your GEDCOM file looks when viewed through FTDNA, you can always delete it and try again using different character encoding options in your genealogy software.