Email Change Issues

Email Change Issues

Use Cases

This article applies assumes you can login to your account and that you receive an error message when you use the Email Change option on the Manage Profile page which is accessed by clicking on the "Manage" button on the home page.

There are three reasons you cannot use the Email Change option on the manage profile page:
  1. The email you are trying to change to is already associated with an existing account.
  2. Your current email address is a "dead" email - that is you can no longer read email sent to that address.
  3. Your account is a "social" account - it has been linked to Google or Yahoo.  To login with a social account - on the first page of the login process one does not enter an email address but clicks a button - either "Login with Google" or "Login with Yahoo!".
If none of these apply to your situation to change your email please login and click the Manage button on the home page and click the Email/Password change tab to get to the page above to change your email.

Changing to an Existing Email

Each email address is only associated with one GEDmatch account.   If you attempt to change your email on an account but the email address is already associated with a GEDmatch account a failure will occur.

To check to see if another account already has that email you can use the User Lookup tool in the Information section to look up an email address to see if belongs to another account.

If you are trying to merge resources from two accounts you own to one you can transfer DNA kits or GEDCOMs from one account to another account - There is a pencil icon in the Manage column for kits and GEDCOMs from there you can click the tab to transfer the item to a different account.

It may be that you were not sure if you had registered an account to the new email - The User Lookup tool can help identify if the account with that email already exists.

Changing email with a Dead Email

Your email address is GEDmatch is "dead" if you can no longer read email sent to that email address.   This might be because you change ISPs or the email service you used is no longer available.

We need to verify that you the one trying to change the email address on the GEDmatch account - This it normally done by sending an code to your email - if you have a dead email you cannot obtain this code.

An alternative to verify you are the one requesting the change of email address is to re-upload a DNA kit which is in your account and then send the following to support@gedmatch.com

1) The kit number you uploaded to verify that you have access to this account
2) The existing email address
3) The new email address you want for this GEDmatch account.

Support will verify the newly uploaded kit and change your email address and notify you on the ticket you create.

Changing email on a "social" account

We currently don't have a simple way to change email with a social account.

To do so there are the following areas:
  1. Create a new account
  2. Transfer all resources from your existing old account to the new account
  3. Verify all resources are now in your new account
  4. Delete your old account
If you just want to keep the same email but want to remove the "social" aspects of the account - your new account can be a temporary account.   There would be an additional step of changing the email address of the temporary email address to the original email address after deleting the old account using the regular email change mentioned above.

In more detail 

1) Creating an account

On the first login page click the link "Sign up" 
Follow the flow to create your new account.

2) Transfer all resources from your existing account to the new account

There are the following resources:
  1. DNA resources (kits)
  2. GEDCOM resources (family trees)
  3. Tag groups
  4. Tier 1 status
To transfer these resources you need to login to your original account.

DNA Resources Transfer
On the home page in the "Your DNA Resources" for each DNA resource click the pencil icon to the right of the kit in the Manage column

On the next page click the "Kit Transfer" tab to see:
Enter the new email and click Transfer Kit.


GEDCOM Resources Transfer

If you have any family trees for each GEDCOM click the pencil icon in the manage column.
---
On the next page click the "GEDCOM Transfer" tab

Enter new email twice and click "TRANSFER OWNERSHIP" button.

Tag group Transfer

If you have any Tag groups contact support@gedmatch.com
 with the old email address and the new email address so Tag Groups can be transferred.

Tier 1 Transfer

If you are a tier 1 member contact support@gedmatch.com
 with the old email address and new email address so your tier 1 membership can be updated.


3) Verifying your resources are in your new account

Login to your new account and check DNA Resources, GEDCOM resources any Tag groups and Tier 1 status.   If anything is missing go back and resolve those missing items.

4) Delete your old account

After verifying all resources are in your new account - login to your old account and click the "Manage" button in the profile area.

On the next page click the Profile/Registration Deletion tab
Follow the flow to delete your old account.

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