Wednesday, December 4, 2013

FTDNA Releases Updates in Response to Requests from Project Administrators


I received an email from Bennett Greenspan, CEO of Family Tree DNA, today with some very welcome news! FTDNA is not wasting any time making good on the promises that they made at their conference last month. Obviously, they really were listening to us! (Take a look at #6...this is a very important update that will make a lot of genetic genealogists happy!)

Today we are releasing some great updates that were requested during our 9th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy.  Here is a quick summary with some screen shots of what to expect.

1. The timeout for myFTDNA has been increased from 30 min to 2 hrs. This will benefit everyone but will especially be appreciated by our Group Admins when they are impersonating into a kit.

2. Changed the word "Triangulation" to "Common Matches" for Family Finder matching. 



3. Instead of using the word "Steps" on the matching pages we will now use "Genetic Distance." This will effect both the Y-DNA and mtDNA matching pages.





4. Fixed the Interactive Tour.  It was getting stuck at the Family Finder section, but will now complete.


 5. Updated the Profile Pop up on matching pages with a new design and restored the "About Me" section and badges. This profile is available on all matching pages:  Y-DNA, mtDNA, Family Finder, and Advanced Matching.


 
6. Added the ability for a user to download chromosome browser data for all of their matches. This new option is towards the top right side of the chromosome browser page and will be in Excel format.




These features are already live, so go check them out! I am told that there will be more updates every two weeks, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they release next (on or about December 18th). Thanks, FTDNA!

5 comments:

  1. They did not restore the list of Projects a person is a member of.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome! All at once. Thank you FTDNA and Thank you CeCe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. While I like the term "Genetic Distance" more than "Steps," can you define what that means in real time or generations?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Please excuse ignorance, but I need to better understand how tests identify me.
    My haplogroup is R-U152 (also please correct any errors I make in description) and my snp (?) is R1b1a2a1a1b3*.

    Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b originally showed R1b1a2a1a1b3*. as North Atlantic. A new tree doesn't have it listed.

    U152 was listed under Italo-Alpine, now the heading is Italo-Gaulish. This is using the tree from http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html
    Does FTDNA follow this tree?
    What can I do and where do I go to better understand all of this.
    I need to better explain this to persons that I am trying to recruit to my project. I just requested the M228.2...test.
    The question, how does FTDNA identify me (dna tests) and how is this different from ISOGG or Eupedia ( I am Italo-Celtic).
    thanks for any help

    ReplyDelete
  5. Please excuse ignorance, but I need to better understand how tests identify me.
    My haplogroup is R-U152 (also please correct any errors I make in description) and my snp (?) is R1b1a2a1a1b3*.

    Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b originally showed R1b1a2a1a1b3*. as North Atlantic. A new tree doesn't have it listed.

    U152 was listed under Italo-Alpine, now the heading is Italo-Gaulish. This is using the tree from http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html
    Does FTDNA follow this tree?
    What can I do and where do I go to better understand all of this.
    I need to better explain this to persons that I am trying to recruit to my project. I just requested the M228.2...test.
    The question, how does FTDNA identify me (dna tests) and how is this different from ISOGG or Eupedia ( I am Italo-Celtic).
    thanks for any help

    ReplyDelete