family finder dna test- name on test ?

[denisecanuck]

I have just received my family finder dna test kit.
I ordered under my name but I am actually testing my mother.
Should I have used her last name when ordering the test or is what I did correct?
It will be me checking the results as she is 93.

thanks,
denise

[andreastill.gen]

I am testing various family members - it could be up to 12 by the end of the year, including me. I administer the kits. The person being tested needs to have their name on the kit. It is simple to change online. I also wrote that information on the slip of paper I included when mailing the kit back to FTDNA. The company updated the name when they received the kit at their facility. If there had been an error I would have fixed it online.

I believe FTDNA advises women to use their maiden names but I included the maiden name in parentheses and, when applicable, their married name just in case we run across matches that would know someone by one of the two names but not the other.

[dna]

Andrea offered you very good advice.

Using maiden names is the best option. And then husband family name in parentheses (or in comments or somewhere visible). When many husbands, sometimes only the names of the ones with whom a woman had children with are included (that could really depend whether FTDNA would be your primary genealogical tool or not).

And for each kit keeping sex correct is critical. You may want to check sex assigned to the kit on-line. And if by any chance it is wrong, phone the FTDNA Help Desk and they will correct it for you. You cannot do a sex change yourself .

For all the kits you are taking care of, you can have the same contact information - you.

[denisecanuck]

thank you for all the great advice.

I have sent an email to family tree dna because I didn't see online where to make changes to your numbered kit.

I will make sure the sex is correct because I am sure doing your own sex change would be very painful

thanks again
denise

[dna]

You should have a box on the left with a title Your Account.

Within, there should be Manage Personal Information.

Once inside, take a look at all the tabs, as all of them are one way or another important.

Name change is under Contact Information.

Use the Family Tree DNA Learning Center for assistance. Link is available at the top of this forum pages, and hidden under Resources when logged into https://my.familytreedna.com/

[loobster]

I definitely do not agree about married names vs maiden names - if Family Tree DNA has any place where it says policy on this - have totally not noticed. What I have noticed is you can put down any name at all to maintain anonymity, etc. For some kits, know for fact name is totally different from the actual name, for some the same.

Moreover - when I see name in parentheses, I have assumed that is Maiden Name - so communication is failing. Did not realize some are doing Married Name in Parentheses instead.

[denisecanuck]

I see where to make the changes now but isn't that my contact information that I want to keep. I want to change the name of who was tested or is that not possible?

[dna]

@loobster - Good point!

Conventions do differ. To me using maiden names was natural, years before I started thinking about DNA testing. With multiple marriages and sometimes even more name changes that convention kept me sane. The origin of the convention is quite simple. Jane Brown is born and entered as such into the database. Subsequent names are just searchable events and additional pointers (a little bit like titles bestowed upon someone).

However, I was always doing family trees and not traditional trees of either ancestors or descendants, where conventions are often different. Royalty tends to keep their names...

Adding DNA testing to my tools made me even think of this being the natural way of naming. I agree that if one is not accustomed to genealogical research, seeing
Jane Brown (Mrs. John Smith)
might look weird, but it is highly informative.

And posting
Jane Brown (Mrs. John Smith, Mrs. James Davis, Mrs. Jeff Wilson)
without any explanation should be avoided, so it might be better to write
Jane Brown (Mrs. John Smith 1955-1959, Mrs. James Davis 1960-1961, Mrs. Jeff Wilson 1961-)

The above is for sharing with other people, so they can get most information by just taking a quick look.

[dna]

I see where to make the changes now but isn't that my contact information that I want to keep. I want to change the name of who was tested or is that not possible?

Change the name, keep your address and e-mail. You should be fine (unless your post office has a problem with that).

[denisecanuck]

That works since Mom lives with me and gets her mail here.

Thank you