Submitting Your DNA Report

There is a need in genetic genealogy research to determine the distribution of shared segment lengths for each possible relationship type so that accurate relationship predictions can be achieved. A good example of this is The Shared cM Project created and maintained by Blaine Bettinger and relies on user submitted data. Another tool is the Orogen Relationship Predictors created by Brit Nicholson and based on peer reviewed data. This project, the DNA Survey, is derived from validated relationships found in family trees and submitted by users via their autogenerated DNA survey report file (dnasurvey-[timestamp].txt) using the DNA Survey Submission Form.

To generate a DNA survey report, you must enable the <SurveyReporting> option. The report file will contain all your prevalidated relationships and their shared segment lengths. The report will not contain any personally identifiable information, so it can be safely shared with genetic genealogists and database creators. In the report shown, the unique application id, generated by Gigatrees has been replaced with [APP-ID]. The application id is used to update any existing entries when determined relationships or shared segment lengths change. This also prevents duplicates.

Once your report has been submitted, your data will be aggregated together with other user reports so that an accurate probability matrix can be created for future use by Gigatrees and other genetic genealogy programs. In order for the probability matrix to be considered accurate, a minimum of 400 submissions for each relationship type will need to be collected. This will require a large number of users to report their data, so if you are interested in furthering the field of genetic genealogy, please consider adding all your DNA matches to your configuration and then report your data.

If you would like to submit your report to The Shared cM Project as well, you will need to enable the <SharedCMProject> option. When doing so a comma-seperated file will be exported (sharedcmproject-[timestamp].csv). You will need to load this into your favorite spreadsheet and fill in the EMail field before saving and submitting it. Unfortunately, the process for submitting to the Shared cM Project is not automated (requiring you to send your spreadsheet to him as an email attachment). It also does not have any way to validate the relationships or prevent duplicate entries, all of which the DNA Survey (see above) does seemlessly.