RLP 333: How To Add DNA Information to WikiTree

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 333, How to Add DNA Information to Wiki Tree. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (42s):
Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone, welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (48s):
Hi. Nicole. How are you today?

Nicole (50s):
I’m feeling energized. Ready for a new week working on my genealogy projects. How about you?

Diana (56s):
Same. I am really excited to finish writing my report. I feel like I’ve been talking about that for a while, but it’s sometimes a work in progress, so I’m excited about that.

Nicole (1m 6s):
That’s great. What have you been reading?

Diana (1m 8s):
Well, I am reading a book that you recommended titled, Enemy Women, by Paulette Jiles, and she is the same author who wrote News of the World. So some of our listeners may have watched the movie with that same title, News of the World, starring Tom Hanks that’s set in Texas after the Civil War. And so I really enjoyed that movie and listened to that book. So I was excited to start reading Enemy Women, and I’m about halfway through, but it’s so fascinating because this one takes place in Missouri, right in the middle of the Civil War, and we have our ancestors who were right there in Missouri, especially our Nancy Briscoe, who was a young woman and I just keep picturing her as I am reading this book.

Diana (1m 55s):
So it’s Enemy Women and the main character is actually put in prison. And I had no idea that the Union Army imprisoned women who were supposedly helping Confederates. And in the story, the young woman doesn’t do anything to warrant being put in prison. She’s just denounced by another family and then there she is in prison. It’s super interesting, I have to say that. Kind of disturbing

Nicole (2m 23s):
It is. It’s disturbing to hear about all the violence and bloodshed from the militia and the armies there at that time, the gorilla warfare and just how the civilians weren’t safe at all from the bloodshed of the war. I really enjoyed the book, but it was horrifying.

Diana (2m 40s):
Oh yeah, it is. It’s written so beautifully though. Paulette Jiles has such a way with words. I am just fascinated by the language and the description and how she presents the characters. It’s really beautifully written. So I always appreciate that in the book because I like good context, but I also like it to be well written. So this one has been a pleasure and I’m excited to read the second half and see what happens to this poor woman who’s imprisoned. You know, this is one of my favorite types of books, historical fiction that’s based on research, especially having ancestors that lived through the same thing. It’s really fun.

Nicole (3m 17s):
It really is. I’m glad we can share favorite books with each other because I started reading News of the World now that you told me about that.

Diana (3m 25s):
So Right. And that’s Texas where our ancestors were after the Civil War as well. So anyway, it’s so fun.

Nicole (3m 34s):
For announcements, our Research Like a Pro Webinar series for 2024 has a new webinar coming up on December 10th: Who Was Clemsy Cline’s Father? DNA and Indirect Evidence Provide a Candidate in this Burned County Case Study. And this will be presented by Diana Elder, AG, that’s you. And this will be a fun one about Clemsy Cline and Henderson Weatherford’s 1850 Morgan County, Missouri household, which included two children from the Cline family who were born in Arkansas giving a really helpful clue to the origins of Clemsy.

Nicole (4m 17s):
So this case study will talk about the burned county, Izard County, Arkansas, and how federal land records and state tax list helps overcome the record loss and DNA added further evidence to the hypothesis. So this will be a great case study and you’ll be able to read Diana’s report that goes along with it. And so if you haven’t registered, be sure to do so. And then you can have access to all 12 of the webinars for 2024. The next Research Like a Pro with DNA Study group begins in February of 2025 and we’re looking forward to that. It will be fun to choose a DNA research objective and follow it through an entire project. The beginning date is February 5th and the end date is May 14th, and we will be meeting weekly, although sometimes we have a week break in between like on the weeks where we’re doing our research and when we’re writing.

Nicole (5m 6s):
Go ahead and register on our website. There is an early bird discount. So if you register during the month of December, you get that discount. And if you’d like to be a peer group leader for that, please reach out to us. Let us know. Send us your DNA research report that you’ve done in the past so that we can see if you’re ready to lead a group of your peers and give them feedback on their work. And getting the feedback from each other in the study group is so helpful and so motivational to help us complete our assignments. So if you need that little extra bit of motivation, then you might wanna consider joining us. Those of all levels of experience with using DNA will be able to learn and gain something from the study group because you choose the difficulty level by choosing your research objective for upcoming conferences.

Nicole (5m 52s):
We will be attending RootsTech on March 6th through 8th in Salt Lake City and we will be presenting several lectures there and we hope to see you at our exhibit hall booth and hopefully we’ll have some new products to be able to share with you. So be sure to stop by our booth there.

Diana (6m 7s):
Well, I’m looking forward to Roots Tech. It’s always a great opportunity to meet new people and to meet our old friends. I think back to when we first started going and we were so excited about starting out our business and becoming professional genealogists and we met so many people through RootsTech, so we’re excited for the next one as well. Well, our subject for today is all about How To Add DNA Information to WikiTree. It’s been a while since we podcasted about WikiTree, but we wanted to go through the steps and remind people of this great tool. In fact, for my Weatherford project that I’ve been talking about, I had noticed on Through Lines in Ancestry that I was not getting any Through Lines for the Weatherford parents that I thought belonged to Henderson Weatherford.

Diana (7m 1s):
So I’m going to be doing a DNA project on this with the next study group, but I decided to go to WikiTree and see if anyone had added DNA to WikiTree because that’s one of the superpowers of WikiTree. You can see who has uploaded, well not uploaded their DNA, they just noted that they have tested. And so we’re going to talk about that today. But I did notice that for one of the Weatherfords further back on the tree, that there were a lot of people, someone has taken the YDNA test and put their haplogroup out there and several people had noted that they had taken autosomal DNA tests and so I am really excited as I do my project next spring to use WikiTree and see if I can make some connections and use that as a source.

Diana (7m 50s):
So if you want to do something similar, if you want to start getting your DNA on WikiTree, we are going to go all the way through the steps. So let’s just remind everyone, in case you don’t remember, a little about WikiTree, it is collaborative and it is such a good place to get your DNA. You, as I said, won’t be uploading any raw DNA. If you took a Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA test, you can add your haplogroup and then for autosomal DNA, you’ll note where you’ve tested such as Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, 23 and Me, MyHeritage or Living DNA. And then this will help your genetic cousins find you. So you can collaborate.

Diana (8m 30s):
Now, you can join WikiTree as a guest, a family member, or a Wiki genealogist. The membership page explains the three levels fully and all are free options, but you can only add DNA if you are a Wiki genealogist. So we do recommend that you do that. And when you do that, you have to sign an honor code and that helps ensure accuracy in this collaborative family tree. Basically that honor code is going to say that you will be adding sources and that you’re going to, you know, you’re gonna do the things that a responsible Genealogists would do. Now, once you’ve joined WikiTree, you’ll add your parents and grandparents and you’ll always be prompted to look for an ancestor that might already be in WikiTree.

Diana (9m 16s):
And then you can connect to that ancestor. You might find some of your lines are filled out and others may need you to fill them out. I know when I was first looking at WikiTree, I noticed that my Benjamin Cox was on there and someone had already filled out his account. So I could just connect my line back to him. The help page has some videos to introduce you to WikiTree and to answer questions. So you never have to actually do everything yourself, you know, just from scratch. You can watch some videos and get you going. So, I, highly recommend doing that.

Nicole (9m 55s):
Great, yeah, and sometimes when you get started with WikiTree, you’ll have some questions and you’re not gonna be sure what to do. And they actually have a really great help area that you can use to follow tutorials and see kind of what you need to know. And they have some different terminology that they use. So it can be really helpful to go to the help page. We’ll put a link to the help page in the show notes. But if you go there, you’ll see a list of different things that you can do like just Getting Started and setting up an account. Then how to create a guest account. If you’re just wanting to kind of look around in WikiTree, that will be the first thing you would wanna do.

Nicole (10m 36s):
And then if you wanted to upgrade to be able to communicate with cousins in WikiTree, then you could create a family member level account. Then if you are ready to start working within WikiTree, you can upgrade to the Wiki genealogist level by reading the honor code and signing that. And those are all free levels of account, but they all have different permissions and allow you to do different things. So once you’ve agreed to the WikiTree Honor Code, then you can do more things like changing profiles and adding information. Also, a benefit of that is that you don’t see advertisements when you’re a Wiki level genealogist. Another thing that you may want to look at in the help page is the information about how to upload a GEDcom.

Nicole (11m 21s):
So if you already have a family tree on Ancestry or somewhere else, you can export it as a GEDcom and then upload it to WikiTree. So there is an article about how to do that. And then there are a bunch of short tutorials for getting started that you can go to. And these ones include several different how to tasks. The first one is about Start Climbing our Family Tree, and this is for new members to learn 10 introductory tasks to become familiar with WikiTree. And then number two, in this tutorial of how to use WikiTree, there’s Edit a Profile. So it gives you the basics of how to create a profile and how to edit the various elements.

Nicole (12m 2s):
And then how to number three is to Manage your Watch List. And this talks about tools for managing the profiles in your watch list, following changes, finding duplicates, seeing where your help is needed and that and that kind of thing. And then how to number four is called Dig a Little Deeper. And this covers some advanced features and functions like categorization, route search and suggestion reports. And how to number five is called Join the Community. And this gives you several ways that you can get involved in the community at WikiTree with various projects. And then how to number six is be a successful WikiTreer. So this one is more about collaboration and the challenges that come with working with others on WikiTree and then 10 ways that you can be a wonderful WikiTreer. So walking you through some collaboration techniques.

Nicole (12m 49s):
And then at the bottom of that list of different tutorials, there’s a link to Getting Started with DNA on WikiTree. And that takes you to kind of a help guide to help you unlock the combined power of DNA testing and WikiTree. So it gives you some kind of ideas of where to get started about if you’ve taken a DNA test, what you can do with it on WikiTree after you have your results back, how you can make sure your test appears on your ancestors profiles, and then work on confirming ancestors and triangulation and things like that.

Nicole (13m 30s):
So this is a great way to use your DNA and collaborate and find other DNA test takers. Now let’s have a word from our Sponsor. Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Break down genealogy brick walls with a subscription to the largest online newspaper archive. Did you know Newspapers.com has over 1 billion pages of digitized newspapers dating back to 1690? Their growing collection includes papers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and beyond. Discover birth and marriage announcements, obituaries and everyday stories about your ancestors in seconds. Newspapers.com can help you fill in the gaps between vital records and reveal details about your ancestors’ lives that you can’t find anywhere else.

Nicole (14m 10s):
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Diana (14m 31s):
All right, well let’s go through the steps and just walk you through how to create your login at WikiTree. So first you go to the WikiTree website and you find that at wikitree.com, open your web browser and then click on get started. There’s a button right there on the homepage and you’ll read the honor code and we’ve talked about that a couple times, but basically it’s going to outline the community’s values and expectations and then you’ll need to click yes, I want to join the button if you agree to the terms. And then you’ll create your account and it’s just like pretty much every other account that you are creating.

Diana (15m 11s):
You enter your first and last name, a valid email address, and then your username. So you can use your real name or a pseudonym if you don’t wanna have your real name out there. You create your password and confirm it and then complete the captcha to prove you’re not a robot and then you submit the form. So all of that is pretty simple and easy, and then you will get a verification message in your email to verify that and make sure that you really are a real person. This is a real email address. And then you’ll just click on the link to activate your account. And once you have done all of that, you will have your account ready and you’re ready to start adding to the tree and so many fun things that you can add.

Nicole (15m 57s):
Yeah, and you might be wondering like why do I need to create a like a Genealogist level account to add my DNA? And that’s because in order to add or update information in the tree, you have to agree to the honor code and the nine points. So you can’t just have a guest account or a family member account, which allows you to communicate with other members. You need to have that genealogist level account. So of course they’re all free, but this one allows you to add your DNA information to the tree. We’ll go over the next step for how to add that DNA information. But I was just gonna ask Diana, so she wrote this blog post in order to send it to relatives who might want to join WikiTree and add their DNA information.

Nicole (16m 38s):
Is that right?

Diana (16m 40s):
Yes, absolutely. Because I have had some of my cousins take a mitochondrial test and one do a Y-DNA test and I would love to have them go on WikiTree and put their information out there because I asked them to take the test, but I can’t put their information out even though I have the haplogroups and where they tested. So, I did write this and I have to say that I have not done that yet. It’s on my to-do list, but I got busy with other things. So now that we’re recording this podcast, that will be my goal of the day: write an email, link this blog post , so that they can do that because they are so willing to take the test and I’m, I’m hoping they’ll be willing to go take this extra step to get their DNA information out there.

Nicole (17m 28s):
Yeah, and that’s kind of a tricky thing about WikiTree that when I first started using it, I wanted to enter in the information from DNA tests that I manage, So I have my father-in-Law’s test on Ancestry and his YDNA test and I can’t add it. I have to have him do it. and I think that’s just one of the privacy rules that WikiTree has in place, that only the person who took the test can add their own information about their DNA test to WikiTree. And that’s probably because WikiTree is a public website that others can look at. So if they don’t want people to know they took the DNA test, they want people to be able to opt out of that by not putting it up so they wouldn’t want other people coming along and entering DNA tests for anyone that they feel like.

Nicole (18m 15s):
So it does make it challenging for us because we have to ask our test takers to do this extra step, but hopefully they can follow this blog post and, and our listeners can also send this blog post to anyone that they have asked to test and see if they would be willing to also add their information to WikiTree, which really enhances the DNA experience on WikiTree to have more people’s information there because it increases the information that we have about YDNA and mitochondrial DNA and it really helps advance genealogy research.

Diana (18m 46s):
Oh, I absolutely agree.

Nicole (18m 48s):
Well, after you’ve created an account, the next step is to add the DNA information to your WikiTree profile. So make sure that you have sign the honor code and you have a Genealogist level and then log into WikiTree and enter your username and password, click login, and then you’ll access your profile by clicking your name at the top right corner. And that’s how you’ll get to your profile page. And on your profile page, you’ll click edit to make changes to your profile. And this is where you can add information to the DNA section of your profile. So when you get to the profile and you’re ready to edit it, you’ll scroll down to the DNA section.

Nicole (19m 29s):
This is going to be towards the bottom of the editing page and you’ll click DNA. Once you’ve clicked on DNA, you’ll click Add A DNA test. There’s another way to access the DNA page and that’s from the dropdown menu under your username. So if you do that, you’ll just click on DNA Tests. So either way you get there, you’ll go to the DNA page and you’ll click Add A DNA test, and then you’ll scroll down to the part that says Add New Test Information. Then you’ll select the type of DNA test you have taken from the dropdown menu, whether YDNA, mitochondrial DNA or autosomal. And then you’ll enter the DNA test information. You’ll fill out the form with details about your DNA test such as your username and enter your kit number and any other relevant identifiers provided by the testing company such as your haplogroup, if that’s applicable.

Nicole (20m 20s):
If you’re adding your DNA test information from MyHeritage DNA, for example, at the end there’s the option to add third party links. So if you have added your test to GEDMatch, then you can go ahead and add your GEDMatch kit number there. Then there’s another optional space for extra information that you can add. That’s basically it. And after you’ve added all this information into the form, you’ll click add test and that will update your profile with your DNA information. Then the last step is to just verify and confirm. So you’ll want to verify that your DNA information appears correctly on your profile and confirm that your profile now shows the added DNA test information.

Nicole (21m 4s):
Then you’ll repeat the process for each DNA test you have taken. So maybe you’ve taken one at Ancestry, one at My Heritage, and also a Y-DNA test or mitochondrial DNA test, so you’ll have to do this for each test you’ve done. For example, my profile shows that I have DNA from all the major companies, plus I uploaded my DNA to GEDMatch and then you can edit your profile and your DNA information at any time. And this is just so valuable. What’s amazing about this is that it automatically knows which ancestors to propagate the DNA information to. So all you have to do now is build your tree and then you know, let’s say that you took a mitochondrial test, you add that here and then you build your tree and you expand your matrilineal line out several generations.

Nicole (21m 52s):
Now that mitochondrial test will appear on each of your ancestors who are on the matrilineal line, showing your cousins that they don’t have to take that mitochondrial test or find a test taker ’cause you’ve already done it. And so it really gives you more use out of your mitochondrial test by helping others see that information. And one thing that is challenging about FamilyTreeDNA with the Y-DNA and the mitochondrial is that unless you know personally the person and you’re in contact with that cousin who’s a descendant of your common ancestor, you can’t really see the results of it. Like if my third cousin on on the matrilineal line has tested, if she puts that information on Wiki tree, now I can see the haplogroup of, you know, that matrilineal line.

Nicole (22m 36s):
So it’s really great to be able to share that information, especially for those Y-DNA and mitochondrial tests. What I like about the autosomal test is that you can see cousins who have tested and you can test your hypothesis by looking at their GEDMatch results and comparing your kit with that hypothesized ancestral couple that they descend from. And hopefully you can either find a match or you can find that there is no match with several of these people helping you confirm or reject your hypothesis.

Diana (23m 4s):
Right? It is a wonderful website and you might feel like you’re a little bit nervous about putting your information out there, but rest assured that you are not putting any of your actual DNA information aside from just that you tested somewhere and that you’re putting your haplogroup there. And of course, if you have your GEDMatch kit number, then you know anyone can go look at your information there, see if they match you or you know, see if you have some segments in common if you do match. So let’s just look at one example as we wrap up this episode. and I went to my profile for Clemsy Cline Weatherford since we’ve been talking a lot about her and the Weatherford family.

Diana (23m 46s):
And I can see that I have got 3 DNA testers who are listed on her profile. One is myself and the other one is you Nicole and the other one is your brother. And so anyone could take a look at that and see that, you know, there are three people that have DNA for Clemsy Cline Weatherford, and it’s fun to see the percentages. So it does the calculation, and I would’ve inherited, you know, more or less than 3.12%. And then my children 1.56%. So you can see that’s not a huge amount that we would’ve inherited from Clemsy because she is my third great-grandmother and my children’s fourth great-grandmother.

Diana (24m 31s):
So this is the importance of trying to get more people to put their DNA out there so we can have a better coverage of her genome. And I do have a cousin who took the mitochondrial DNA test who I need to contact now and have that mitochondrial DNA added here because that was on this line going straight back to Clemsy, which is exciting. So I would highly recommend that you put this on your to-do list to get your DNA and a basic tree out there. You know, even if you just do your basic ancestors and you don’t do descendancy at this point, you can go and add of course later, but get a basic tree, get your DNA there, and then you’ll be on your way.

Nicole (25m 13s):
All right, well great. Well, thank you for listening to this episode about adding DNA information to WikiTree. We hope that you found it helpful and that you can send our blog post tutorial about how to do this to any of your relatives who’ve taken a test that you are hoping they will add. And we can all add more information to WikiTree to help make it better and help increase the amount of DNA tests that are included there and improve the opportunity of all of us to find DNA evidence for our research questions. All right, thanks for listening and have a great week. We’ll talk to you again next week.

Diana (25m 46s):
All right, bye-Bye

Nicole (25m 49s):
Bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.