Pedigree Collpase

[Cesca]

I'm new to this forum. My DNA is currently being tested at FT DNA. I am currently in putting my family tree.

How does the family tree on FT DNA deal with Pedigree collapse? I have 2 lots of cousins marrying first cousins, but I dont seem to have a way to connect the spouses to their cousins without having to repeat the name.

Is there a way around this?

Thanks.

[mattn]

I'm new to this forum. My DNA is currently being tested at FT DNA. I am currently in putting my family tree.

How does the family tree on FT DNA deal with Pedigree collapse? I have 2 lots of cousins marrying first cousins, but I dont seem to have a way to connect the spouses to their cousins without having to repeat the name.

Is there a way around this?

Thanks.

As far as I know there is currently no way to do what you are attempting to do on the FTDNA website. What you would need to do is get a gedcom program for your computer or build your tree on a site like Ancestry.com and download it as a gedcom. If you build a tree through a gedcom program (or Ancestry) you would be able to merge lines like you are attempting to do. There are gedcoms out there that cost money and there are some free ones too, maybe you can search the forum here for what people use or somebody might respond here with a good program. If you have an Ancestry account I know you can do it right through the website and download it and then upload that tree as a gedcom to your FTDNA account, maybe My Heritage has that ability too.

[Cesca]

Well that sucks. I did upload a gedcom, but was unable to find it so I have just added my own tree manually. If I upload a gedcom now, I will lose everything I have added.

I have been reading some of the earlier posts from last year about the changes FT DNA apparently made to their family tree and it sure looks like they went backwards in that area.

My family tree is currently online at Wikitree. I chose that site because it was free. I cannot afford to be paying every month for Ancestry, My Heritage or Geni.

I got my DNA test as a birthday present.

Thanks for your response. I will just ignore the pedigree collapse and use the male line in order to keep the surname. This tree doesnt even allow NOTES to be added to the names to explain. So backwards.

[KATM]

When you click on a person in your FTDNA tree, you will see their profile. There are three tabs: Profile, Story and Notes. You can put your explanations in the Story or Notes tabs.

You say had a GEDCOM file that you uploaded, and you added things to it in your tree at FTDNA (myFamilyTree). Did you add information that you don't have in the genealogy software program that produced the GEDCOM file? Is it some type of information that you don't want to add into the file using your program? Which genealogy program do you use?

A possible solution: If you use the Chrome browser, there is an extension called DNArboretum that you can use to download an Ahnentafel list. Then, you can take that list and use Kelly Cooper's Ahnentafel to GEDCOM converter to get a GEDCOM file. You can then open that file with your genealogy program and do whatever you need to do with it, and upload again to your "myFamilyTree" at FTDNA. At least then you'll have the FTDNA version of your tree on your own computer, whether you change it or not. I will say that I've tried the DNArboretum extension and not had useful results, but maybe I didn't use it correctly.

It's usually best in the first place to create a GEDCOM that you can save on your computer, make changes to it on that computer, and re-upload as needed, rather than to change the tree within your FTDNA tree online. Doing it that way, you will want to overwrite the existing GEDCOM on FTDNA, since that is how you'll update it. It's much easier.

[Alexandrina]

I know people keep plugging DNArboretum however it does not work at FTDNA.

[spruithean]

I also have a fairly large amount of pedigree collapse and I am too "afraid" to try to deal with it on FTDNA's family tree tool. I would prefer to keep using my personal genealogy program to keep the consanguinity sorted using that program!

[John McCoy]

Among other advantages of using a genealogy program on your home computer is that your program will probably be able to find all of the (multiple) relationships between two individuals, and draw you a tree for each such connection. Just the thing to help you understand why your pedigree "collapsed"!

[Broder Tuck]

DNArb8retum does have a few issues, but it should still work.

First of all, switch to pedigree view or it will Only see the first few generations. Then you need to wait a few seconds so that it has gotten all the data before you use the button.

The next drawback is that it will most likely only get the year not the full dates.

If this procedure worked better, too many might be tempted to grab gedcoms for all their matches and upload to online tree sites without the tree owners permission.