DNA Signatures - Adding your signature to the catalogue

There are 2 kinds of signatures : triangulations and references or candidates.

A signature is triangulated when 2 DNA tests (or more) are linked, these tests are coherent and the relevant genealogical lines are documented.

Otherwise, a signature can be used as a reference or candidate to find more triangulations or to complete a triangulation.

Documentation required

The genealogical lines should be documented. This means :

• If you are tested at FTDNA, please join the French Heritage project. See below. You can also participate to other projects.
  
• The kit number at FTDNA or a screenshot of the screen if you tested with Geno2, 23andme or another site. You shoult import your results to FTDNA. Geno2 Haplogroups will follow but not those from 23andme.
• Also, send me your fathers line (if yDNA tested) or mothers line (if mtDNA tested). Email: dna@francogene.com The lines can be eventually completed by an admin. It is also important to identify the pioneer with no ambiguity. See below.
• Sample of a documented line:
• JARRET dit BEAUREGARD Charles m: CHARON Marie Angélique, 1752-02-15 Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu
  JARRET dit BEAUREGARD Joseph m: PINEAULT Marie Charlotte, 1725-11-21 Boucherville
  JARRET de BEAUREGARD André m: ANTHIAUME Marguerite, 1676-01-12 Montréal
  JARRET Jean m: SERMETTE Perrette, before 1642 Vignieu (Isère : 38546)
• If you hive recent generations, please at least put a "Private" tag for the missing generations.
• The marriages of the genealogy before 1918 will be verified in the Fichier Lafrance if they occured in Québec. For other places, census or marriage records will be used, depending on their availability in répertoires or on the web site FamilySearch.org.
  
• You must also give your consent if you want to indicate your name as the contributor for the triangulation. You anonymity will be respected otherwise. Anyway, marrages of the last 100 years are not displayed.
  

Join a project

It is a good idea to join one or many projects because this will increase the usefullness of your DNA test and your visibility when looking for matches (i.e. to attract more people to complete the triangulation) and you get also a rebate on some DNA tests.

As an admin, I suggest obviously to join the French Heritage project. With a Quebec pioneer ancestor, I also suggest the yDNA and mtDNA Quebec projects. With Acadian roots, there are some Acadian projects, one suggested is Acadian Heritage which I manage.

May projects are for a family name. Also, many groups are haplogroup-oriented (yDNA and mtDNA). If you made a Big Y test, the specialized groups will help to better define your paternal line.

To join a project from FTDNA, you must first have an account. This will eventually give you a rebate or a mean to perform some tests not available otherwise (12 and 25 STR in particular). Each project is independant. By participing to many projects, you incease your visibility and your odds to have someone else tested to match your DNA signature and to get a match. You can also offer a free test to find that match.

From your dashboard (or profile), please perform the following operations:

• Join the project. With the link [1] Projects at the top of your FTDNA profile, follow Join a project, then in the category "DUAL (Y-DNA and mtDNA) GEOGRAPHICAL PROJECTS", select F and French Heritage. There is a link JOIN in the bottom of the page.
• You must then give to the admins an access to your data. Come back to your profile and follow the [2] Manage Projects link. This will open the Project Preferences tab. At the end of the "French_Heritage_DNA" line, click on "Edit" and give to Denis Beauregard (and other admins), select one of these (also needed when a new admin is added to a project):
• Grant Limited Access. This is the mininum choice, This allows an admin to see your profile, including raw data (except Family Finder and Coding Region if selected to hide) and your matches, so that the admin can see if your DNA looks like that of other tested people.
• Grant Full Access. This adds some data like the town you live. This may help the admin to answer to your questions.
• In the context of a project, your should share your results, so from the "Privacy & Sharing" tab, section "Project Sharing", in the bottom of the screen, sub-section "Group Project Profile" and check "Opt in to Sharing". It is up to you to decide if you want to be notified about new matches (but it is best to find them all short after the test to help to confirm that the signature is coherent). The part "Origin Sharing" will allow you to display your main origines found by the Family Finder test.
• Under the tab "Genealogy", enter the country of origin of your ancestor and the couple of gateway ancestors to ease grouping. For both yDNA and mtDNA, I think the best choice is the gateway pioneer (the one on the ship) and his/her spouse, instead of the parents and a bogus year. Some sites are inventing parents or marriages so the data about the pioneer are usually more reliable and more usable. If you have not found, go as far as you can. In many cases, I was able to solve a dead end, sometime with a team work.
  
• Finally, the tab Notifications allows you to decide if you will be notified when a new DNA cousin is found.
• To publish your genealogy online (for matches and admins), from your dashboard click on myFamilyTree. By clicking on someone, you have the option "Add Relationship" to add for example the father or mother of someone. There is also a link to directly Upload Gedcom at the top of the page. You can also send me directly your lines. Email: dna@francogene.com

Do it by yourself

A DNA test from FTDNA has 2 main groups of results : DNA data and matches. DNA data is used to find relatives among other users of the lab.

Y-DNA

From your dashboard, under [Y-DNA-Results Completed], select [Matches]. You get the list of matches or Y-DNA cousins. Keep in mind that the common ancestor may be living 1000s years ago but genealogical records are from the 1600s and family names in France are from 1200-1300. Find those with a similar name to yours (or a dit name) with a genetic distance not too large. Then, if the name is in blue, click on this name. If the name is in black, however, data are not shared.

If you have many matches, you can filter the results for [The Entire Database] or a specific project. You can focus on a family name or on an area. Participating to a project is not compulsory but if you don't, the project manager (admin) can't help you. The field Markers will select the number of markers for the comparison. The distance allowed depends on that number. In some cases, someone may appear at 25-marker but not at 12-marker. This means there are differences in the first 12 markers but maybe none in the next 13. These differences or mutations are random.

You can display up to 1000 matches. By sorting on "Name", you will get the list by alphabetical order.

If the name of the person is in blue, more useful data is shown.

• The email icon is to send an email to the match. It may help to find more by an internet research.
  
• The TiP square has probabilies about relationship. More markers, more accuracy. But they are statistics.
  
• The pencil in a square is for your personal notes about that match.
• A blue tree means there are some genealogical data there but it can be only the name.
• The list of Y-DNA tests follows, with sometimes a FF for a Family Finder.

MT-DNA

From your dashboard under [MT-DNA - Results Completed], select [Matches] to get your MT-DNA matches. The common ancestor may be thousands years back but genealogical records are mostly from 1600. Look for anyone under [Earliest Known Ancestor] for a common mothers ancestor having a genetic distance not too high.  Then, if the name is in blue, click on this name. If the name is in black, however, data are not shared.

There are 3 kinds of MT-DNA tests : HVR1, HVR1+HVR2 and FMS.

• HVR1 is limited to the top of the chromosome.
• HVR2 is limited to the bottom but for researches in the database, it is linked to HVR1.
• The full test is FMS and has a third part named CR for Coding Region.
  

You can make a search depending on the tset you made. With an FMS, you can see up to 3 differences from your results. For teh 2 other, an exact match is needed.

The same results as for the Y-DNA tests except the TiP is not available.