The family tree partnership between FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage has now gone live. You can now choose to transfer your FTDNA tree to MyHeritage or link to an existing MyHeritage tree. FamilyTreeDNA will retire their current tree builder on 9th September and all trees not connected to MyHeritage will become read-only. With a free MyHeritage account you are restricted to having a tree with no more than 250 people in it.

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I found the process of linking to my tree at MyHeritage fairly straightforward. I did, however, struggle with the process of selecting myself as the home person through my FTDNA account. You are initially presented with a list of just 25 names. In order to connect yourself as the home person you need to type your name into the search box exactly how it appears on your MyHeritage tree and your name will then appear in the list. If you want to link other DNA matches to your tree you need to do this via your match list. I’ve now linked my parents to my tree but the family matching feature seems to be very slow and I’m getting a message that it might take up to 24 hours to confirm my maternal and paternal matches.

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There are full instructions for using the MyHeritage tree feature in this blog post from FTDNA:

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If you don’t already have a family tree attached to your FTDNA account I would encourage you to build one using the MyHeritage tree builder at least for your direct paternal line in order to contribute to the Big Y research, as explained by FTDNA in their blog post:

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“FamilyTreeDNA conducts internal research using family tree data stored on our site. This research has brought new features and tools, including the Big Y Age Estimates and Globetrekker, and is being used for the upcoming mtDNA improvements with the Million Mito Project.

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If you choose to transfer a family tree from FamilyTreeDNA to MyHeritage, you can permit MyHeritage to periodically share updates from your tree back to FamilyTreeDNA. The default is to share this data. This enables FamilyTreeDNA to continue conducting research and developing new features and tools based on our customers’ family tree data.”

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Attaching a tree account is also helpful for all your DNA matches.

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Best wishes

Debbie Kennett

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