Ancestral trees at DNA Painter: every step

An ancestral tree at DNA Painter is an interactive chart of just one person’s direct line:

This person, plus all their known direct ancestors

Here are the steps involved in creating one.

Step 1: Log in

Go to dnapainter.com and click Sign in in the top right corner (or if you want to do it now, click here).

Step 2: Click the Ancestral Trees tab

You’ll then be in your dashboard, where you can find all the maps and trees you’ve created at DNA Painter.

If you’re not already on the ancestral trees tab, click on it

The logged-in dashboard on the homepage showing the ancestral trees tab

Click the Create a new tree button.

You will then be taken to a new tree ready for you to populate.

Step 3: Import your direct line or create it manually

If you already have a family tree, you can export it as a GEDCOM file from your family tree software, and then upload that to DNA Painter in order to extract your direct line.
If you don’t have a tree, you can build your direct line out on-screen at DNA Painter

Creating an ancestral tree manually

A newly created tree is populated with a four-generation generic tree with names like Mother, Father, Grandfather, and Great-grandmother.

A blank ancestral tree ready to populate

You can edit this tree by simply clicking on any of these nodes and typing a name. After you hit enter, this name will be saved.

To add more information, or to edit a name you’ve already added, hover over any node and then click Edit. This will bring up an overlay.

The edit person form — The **edit person** form

To add additional nodes, click on the person you want to add parents for and click Add parents.

Importing a GEDCOM

Rather than add ancestors one by one, you can select a GEDCOM file and DNA Painter will then extract and import your direct ancestors.

Click Load GEDCOM on the right (note that this button won’t appear if you’re on a phone)

The Load GEDCOM button on the ancestral tree page

An overlay will appear. You can click on this overlay and browse for your GEDCOM file, or drag and drop the file onto the overlay.

The overlay that appears after you click Load GEDCOM — The overlay that appears after you click **Load GEDCOM**

After your file has loaded, you’ll see pale blue panel that says Type a name here. This is where you need to type a few characters of the name of the person whose ancestors you want to import:

The blue panel where you type some characters from the name of the person whose ancestors you want to import.

As you type, the names from your tree that match will appear.

The dropdown showing people in the tree who match the letters I've entered. — The dropdown showing people in the tree who match the letters I’ve entered.

Once you see the person you want to use as the root person in your tree, click their name to select them.

The blue form after I've clicked 'Jonathan Mark Perl' to select that person as the root person in the tree. — The blue form after I’ve clicked ‘Jonathan Mark Perl’ to select that person as the root person in the tree.

You’ll then see a heading, Import Settings. By default, the names of all living people will be replaced with ‘Living’, and any other info about them will be omitted. If you would prefer to import the names and details of living people, simply click on this option.

If you are DNA Painter subscriber, you then have the option to import eight generations of your tree, or all available generations. Free users can import up to 4^th-great-grandparent level without subscribing.

You can also choose whether or not to include the notes field.

Once you’re ready, click Import ancestors

Step 4: Explore the features of ancestral trees

You’re now ready to explore the many features and display options available. Below are a few of these, followed by some links to posts that explain in more detail.

Views

There are now four different views in a tree:

Tree, Fan, Dot, Places

Filters

You can filter your tree using the following parameters

Generations slider, X-DNA, Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, Genetic ancestors

Dimensions

Dimensions are categories of facts in your tree that DNA Painter can extract, or which you can add yourself, such as age at death and country of birth.

Reports

Several useful reports are now available, including

Brick Walls, Genealogy Facts, Tree Completeness

Sharing

You can optionally share any link via the Share button at the top right.

Display options

Under the settings cog at the right, you’ll see options to display photos, ahnentafel numbers, haplogroups and more.

You’ll also see colour palettes, allowing you to apply a set of colours to your tree