This is the fourth blog post in the Top Five Things To Do With Your DNA series. No matter what your goals are, follow the posts in this series to get the biggest family-history bang from your DNA buck.
Genealogy is all about taking things that you know, and building on top of them, to improve your family history. Each time you learn something new, you can combine it with other things you know to learn even more.
So, how do you apply this idea to figuring out who the people in your DNA match list are?
DNA Match lists are organized to show your closest matches at the top of the list. These are the matches that you share the most DNA with. This means that your closest relatives will be at the top of the list and your farthest relatives will be at the bottom of the list.
Genealogy is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Genetic genealogy even more so, because you don’t have all the puzzle pieces. You can imagine how much easier it will be to start with the biggest puzzle piece first. Once you’ve placed this piece on the table, you can then move on to the next biggest piece. This will give you the best possible chance of fitting all of the puzzle pieces together.
As we talked about in, Add Known DNA Matches To Your Tree, whenever you come across someone that you already know on your match list, put them in your tree family right away. I promise you, once you get farther down the list, you will thank yourself for doing this because it gets harder and harder to keep it all in your head.
Here are some of the easiest ways to figure out who people are as you work down the list.
(Please note, I’ve hidden everyone’s name in this example for privacy purposes)
A. Check to see if you recognize their name. Remember, this may not be the name that you know them by. It might be their married name, their birth name, their maiden name, or even a name that they made up completely.
B. Which side of your family are they on? If you’ve already assigned matches to the Maternal and Paternal sides of your tree, you will see “Maternal” or “Paternal” for the matches that Ancestry can reliably place there.
If you haven’t assigned family sides yet, you’ll see the side of family listed as “Parent 1’s Side” and “Parent 2’s Side.” If you look at a few of your matches that you recognize, you may be able to figure out which side is which.
C. If you can’t identify a match by their name, it’s time to look a little deeper. Luckily, many people at ancestry create publicly available family trees. Even if your DNA match’s name isn’t familiar to you, a quick look at their family tree may turn up a relative that you recognize. This is another easy way to figure out who your DNA matches are.
D. Occasionally, you will notice that some of have your DNA Matches have “Common ancestor” written under the link to their family tree in your match list. Ancestry shows this when it finds one of your DNA matches has an ancestor in their tree that matches an ancestor that you’ve put in your tree. Given that you share the same ancestor, this is a huge hint for figuring out who your DNA matches are.
Keep a sharp eye out for these extra-special jigsaw puzzle pieces. They can help you click together lots of other pieces in your puzzle.
Congratulations! You’ve learned one of the most important genetic genealogy techniques… Start at the top and work to the bottom. This will help you build your family history using the best information you have.
If you think this Top 5 Tip will be useful for your family and friends to use, please forward it to them as well.
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