Lesson 2: Your First Gather (15 Minutes)
About 15 minutes · What you'll have at the end: your closest DNA matches downloaded into your own local database.
“Gathering” is DNAGedcom's word for downloading your DNA data from a testing service into your local database. Today you'll run your first gather — small and fast on purpose, so you see results in minutes, not hours.
Step 1: Pick your service
Click Gather in the top menu. You'll see a tile for each supported service: A*, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA (FTDNA), and GEDmatch (with more on the way). Pick the service where you have the most matches — for most people that's the one they tested with first.
Not sure whether a service is having a good day? Check the Service Status page before starting.
Step 2: Sign in through the embedded browser
How you sign in depends on which service you picked — each gatherer is built differently:
- A* opens that service's own site inside a built-in browser window and you sign in there directly, so your A* password goes to them, not to DNAGedcom. As you browse, the Client captures the data the service sends and saves it into your database.
- FTDNA works the other way round: you store your credentials in DNAGedcom once, in the gatherer's own settings, and it signs in for you.
The other services differ again. Per-service details, including two-factor sign-in, are on the vendor pages: A*, 23andMe, FTDNA, GEDmatch.
Step 3: Start the gather — and stop it around 30 cM
Every gatherer has its own options screen, so the exact controls differ by service. Two things matter for your first run:
- Set ICW to Fast. ICW (“in common with”) is the shared-match data that clustering runs on in Lesson 5. Turning it on now costs you very little; skipping it means gathering everything a second time later. In A*, the options live behind the … button — not the Gather button, which starts the run straight away.
- Start the gather and watch the cM figure. Matches come back strongest first, so that number counts steadily downward as the run proceeds. It's effectively your progress bar.
- Stop it when it reaches about 30 cM. That gives you your closest, most reliable cousins in minutes instead of hours — and nothing is wasted, because a later run picks up where this one left off.
Why stop early? A short first pass proves the whole chain works — sign-in, capture, database — before you commit to a run that can take hours. The full reasoning is in Tips & Tactics; per-option details are in the Gather Overview.
Tip: there's no “Matches only” switch and no minimum-cM box to fill in. You control how big the run is by stopping it, not by setting a threshold up front. If a gather is interrupted, just start it again — it picks up what's missing.
✅ Do this now
- Click Gather and open the service where you have the most matches
- Sign in the way that service works (built-in browser for A*, stored credentials for FTDNA)
- Set ICW to Fast in that gatherer's options
- Start the gather and stop it at around 30 cM
When the gather completes, you own a local copy of your closest matches. In Lesson 3 you'll open the Matches tool and take a proper look at what you just collected.