Get Involved: The Purpose of Projects

Projects are one of the many tools FTDNA customers can take advantage of to advance their genealogical research.  Joining is free and you can join as many as you like.  Projects can be accessed from the top of your Welcome Page:

There are a variety of categories to choose from:

• single Surname Projects: studies devoted to particular family names and how different lines may be connected
• YDNA and mtDNA Geographical Projects: studies of your direct maternal or direct paternal line from a particular area, such as Scotland or Poland
• Dual YDNA and mtDNA Geographical Projects: studies of maternal and paternal lines coming from a particular area.  Family Finder Projects are usually in this category, like the Iowa DNA Project
• mtDNA Lineage Projects: studies concerning a direct maternal line, such as the descendents of Old Mother Hubbard
• YDNA Haplogroup Projects:  studies for those who have tested their YDNA and would like to find out more about it and which further tests and upgrades might be advised
• mtDNA Haplogroup Projects: studies for those who have tested their mtDNA and would like to find out more about it and which further tests and upgrades might be advised

Once you have chosen projects that are of interest and apply to your research, you can access each project page from the left hand side of your Welcome Page:

Each project page should have information about its goals and purpose, as well as how to contact the administrator (s).  Some projects will have already upgraded to MyGroups which provides members with even more tools, such as the Activity Feed where surnames/locations/photos/articles of interest/queries/etc can be shared.  For projects such as mtDNA and YDNA Haplogroups, administrators and fellow members will be your lifeline to cutting edge information concerning your haplogroups of interest.  Take advantage of this valuable resource!

Of course, not all projects are made equally.  Some are gigantic, such as projects for countries like Norway or YDNA haplogroups such as R and its subclades.  Those projects get many, many, many new members each week and the administrators have mountains of emails and questions to wade through.  It may take longer than you  would like or multiple attempts to get an answer to your question.

If your question is simply, DO I MATCH ANYONE ELSE IN THE PROJECT? there is a quick way you can check without waiting for the administrator to run a report.  From your Welcome Page scroll down to the Family Finder Section and choose ‘Advanced Matches’:

An Advanced Menu will appear.  From the drop down menu, click on the project of your choice.  Depending on the nature of the project, check whichever boxes apply.  For the Iowa DNA Project, choose Family Finder and then run the tool.

Your list of matches and predicted relationship or No Result will then appear.

Why Join?

Whether you have ancestry from many areas or are only interested in those who share a surname or haplogroup, collaboration will be the key to your success.  Projects can be a fantastic aid- if those on your match list have also joined, your projects will help you find the other Swedes, people from the Andes or those with a certain surname.  Instead of endless pages of unfamiliar names that may or may not have trees and surnames listed, project matches will give you solid leads and help narrow the possibilities for your shared ancestry.