The People list shows everyone in your DNA research as a person: the testers of your own kits, every DNA match of those kits, people you add by hand, and people you pick out of a family tree. One person can hold several kits and several match records, so somebody who tested at two companies, or who matches three of your kits, is one entry, not several.
People is a Gold feature. The page is in the Client under People > People.
A kit's tester and matches appear in People once the kit has been pushed to GDAT. When you open the list and some kits have not been pushed, or have been gathered again since, a yellow bar across the top says how many and offers a Push to GDAT button. The list is incomplete until you push them.
If your GDAT file was last opened by an older version of GDAT, the bar asks you to open the file once in GDAT 2026r03.3 or later. Nothing is changed in the file until you do.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name | The person's name as the testing company or you gave it. |
| Where | How the person came to be in the list: a kit owner, a DNA match, a person from a tree, or added by hand. |
| Origin | The testing companies this person came from. |
| DNA match of | The most DNA this person shares with one of your kits, and which kit. “(+2 more)” means they also match two more of your kits. |
| Managed by | Who the testing company says manages the test, when that is someone other than the tester. |
| Born / Died | Dates and places, when known. |
| Kits | For the testers of your own kits: how many kits they hold and with which companies. |
| Matches | How many match records belong to this person. |
| WikiTree | The person's WikiTree ID, if you have recorded one. |
| Notes | Your own notes about the person. |
Name, birth and death dates and places, gender, an email address for living relatives, a WikiTree ID, and free-text notes. Words in the notes can be found from the search box on the list, so notes such as “paternal” or “adopted” work as your own labels. Click Save after changing anything.
For a person who is a DNA match, this section lists each of your kits they match, with the shared cM, the number of segments and the longest segment, and the relationship and maternal or paternal side when the testing company gives them. A person who matches three of your kits has three lines here, the largest first.
Below that are the other facts that came with the match, whichever are known: who manages the test, how many people are in the tree gathered for them, how many shared matches they have, their haplogroups, and their surnames.
The section is not shown for a person who is nobody's match.
View Pedigree shows the person's ancestors. For the tester of one of your kits, or a manual match of one of your kits, it opens their place in the kit's combined tree, in Compare Match Trees. For anyone else it opens the tree viewer, where you can switch between List, Horizontal, Vertical and Fan layouts and zoom in and out. For a DNA match it shows the tree that was gathered for them, up to twelve generations. For anyone else it shows the parents you have recorded under Relationships. People the testing company hides, usually the living, appear as “(private or not named)”.
Merge with tree person… gives this person a tree by saying they are someone in one of your uploaded GEDCOM trees (see My Trees). Pick the tree, then the person in it. The person you have open keeps their name and DNA matches and takes on that tree person's parents and children, so View Pedigree then shows the tree. The merge can be undone under Merge history.
The kits this person is the tester of. To add one, choose it under Select a kit… and click Link Kit.
If the kit you pick already belongs to another person in the list, linking it says the two are the same person. The Client asks “Same person?” and, if you agree, merges them into one, with all their kits and matches. This is how you bring together somebody's A* kit and their FTDNA kit. It can be undone under Merge history.
Unlink takes a kit off this person. A kit whose matches are already in GDAT under this person cannot be taken off here; if it was joined to them by a merge, undo that merge instead.
Open Common Ancestors opens Common Ancestors for one of this person's kits.
Record how this person is related to others in the list: father, mother, son, daughter, sibling, half-sibling, spouse, or a cousin. Search for the other person, choose the relationship and how confident you are, tick DNA Confirmed if it is, and click Add Relationship. Parents recorded here are what View Pedigree shows for someone with no gathered tree.
A match you know about that no testing company's list gave you: a result somebody emailed you, or a match on a service the Client does not gather. Click Add Manual Match and choose:
The match then counts as one of that kit's matches in People and in the tree tools, and GDAT lists it with the kit's other matches under a source named “Manual”.
Match records from a testing company that are this person. Attach Service Match lets you pick a kit and choose the gathered matches that are this person. Because a pushed match is already a person in the list, attaching it merges the two; you can undo that under Merge history. Unlink on an attached match undoes the merge that brought it in.
The same person often appears more than once: they tested with two companies, or took two tests with one. To join them:
The kits, matches and relationships of both are now on one person.
Every merge is recorded at the bottom of the surviving person's page under Merge history. Undo takes the merged person back out, with everything they had before the merge. This includes a merge made by linking a kit or attaching a match. A merge made in GDAT is listed but cannot be undone from the Client.
Because People lives in your GDAT file, what you do in one program shows in the other. Kits you push appear in GDAT as profiles with their matches, and a manual match you add here is listed in GDAT. Work you do in GDAT on those matches, such as sides, segment groups and locked trees, is kept when a kit is pushed again.