11-24-2023, 12:25 AM
I welcome new developments but I can't help but feel this is putting the cart before the horse. While having Y-DNA for my autosomal matches would be nice, it doesn't drive me forward as I don't know how most of my FTDNA matches are related to me due to:
1) No or limited trees
2) Poor FTDNA tree software
3) Lack of equivalent to common ancestor/theory of relativity.
I would say this is the area FTDNA should focus on first to help genealogists move forward. By contrast at Ancestry, I know how almost all of my closest relations are connected (either for certain via common ancestor/manual tree inspection or an educated guess by looking at shared matches).
The second thing is a general lack of new matches. In the last week I have had 2 new matches at FTDNA vs. 26 new matches at Ancestry. The other thing for me personally as a Brit is that FTDNA is still very heavily US-focussed. I find it harder to successfully work with American matches due to them being further back in time (and the difficulty of finding that one cousin who emigrated) and I would love for them to do some advertising in Europe.
1) No or limited trees
2) Poor FTDNA tree software
3) Lack of equivalent to common ancestor/theory of relativity.
I would say this is the area FTDNA should focus on first to help genealogists move forward. By contrast at Ancestry, I know how almost all of my closest relations are connected (either for certain via common ancestor/manual tree inspection or an educated guess by looking at shared matches).
The second thing is a general lack of new matches. In the last week I have had 2 new matches at FTDNA vs. 26 new matches at Ancestry. The other thing for me personally as a Brit is that FTDNA is still very heavily US-focussed. I find it harder to successfully work with American matches due to them being further back in time (and the difficulty of finding that one cousin who emigrated) and I would love for them to do some advertising in Europe.