Assigning a DNA beneficiary

Ahead of World DNA Day later this month, DNA Study Group has a daily series of challenges to encourage participation. Today's challenge is to assign a DNA beneficiary to the kits one might administer on the various DNA company sites or to communicate with your loved ones on your final wishes for your DNA results. While both are good, the first one, assigning a beneficiary to the DNA results I administer, may be easier.

At RootsTech last month, Ancestry had an Exhibit Hall talk at their booth to walk through the process of assigning a Legacy contact to your Ancestry account. This is fairly easy, and can be found on the Account Settings on Ancestry, then scroll down the page to "Legacy contact", appearing in a box under Region and Language. Once you've added the name and email for the person you want to name as your Legacy contact, Ancestry then sends a confirmation to you like the one below, and presumably an email to the person who has been named as the Legacy contact.

Notification email from Ancestry.

Although I'm hoping to be around for quite some time, I've reached the age where unfortunately friends and colleagues have died too soon. It doesn't hurt to plan ahead and think about who you may want to manage DNA data and those DNA connections after one passes. I want this information preserved so that future generations in the family can build from my own DNA discoveries. New technology and advancements may come along after me which allow us to break through mysteries unimaginable today.