Common questions and the gotchas that trip up new users. If your question isn't here, the GDAT Facebook User Group is the fastest place to ask.
Those analyses need family groups. Import an ancestor tree, then run Settings → Recompute family groups. If they're still empty, check that you imported the tree into the active profile. (Surname analysis and clustering don't need this step.)
That's expected. Everything is scoped to the top-bar Profile (kit). Switching it re-scopes every screen and clears the selected match. Switch back to return to what you were viewing.
Only three: Person, Ancestors, and the Chromosome Browser. When a match is selected, an accent dot appears on those sidebar items and the match name shows in the top-bar chip. Click the chip's ✕ to clear it.
The kit is probably Ancestry-only. Ancestry doesn't publish segment data, so there's nothing to paint. Import a kit from FTDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, or GEDmatch for segment and triangulation work.
Pile-up and centromere regions cause spurious shared segments. Exclude them: in Settings → False-positive regions, click Seed defaults. GDAT then leaves those regions out of segment and triangulation views.
The Windows installer may not yet be signed with a commercial certificate, so SmartScreen shows a warning. Click More info → Run anyway. Full steps on the Install & Update page.
Yes. They coexist — both install and run at once and read the same database. Move over at your own pace.
No. Your database is a separate file; installing an update never modifies it. GDAT 4 also backs up the database automatically before every destructive action (import, delete, merge, replace-all). Keeping your own periodic copies is still good practice.
Open the About workspace — the version line reads “GDAT 4 · v…”. Quote it when asking for help.
GDAT 4 (Genealogical DNA Analysis Tool) is a DNAGedcom tool. © DNAGedcom LLC 2020–2026. Genealogical DNA Analysis Tool is provided as is with no guarantee given as to its performance.