You’ve testing your DNA and discovered a huge list of DNA matches. Some names you recognize, while others are complete strangers. This can be part of a journey of exploration, learning about how you connect to these unknown people and building out your family’s story.
Some unknown close matches may reveal your heritage is different from what you were told. While these findings may shift the understanding of your family’s background, they also open the door to a broader, richer story. This discovery may carry emotional weight, as it redefines part of your family story. But it also provides a wonderful opportunity: to learn more about your newly discovered heritage and to connect with relatives who share this same biological line.
Bearing this in mind, now you’re ready to start researching your DNA matches, but you’re not sure where to start. Here’s my biggest tip:
Keep your information organized.
Unorganized information can be chaos, especially if you are trying to connect a large group of people or working with previously unknown families. It’s easy to forget details, so it’s critical that you are able to retrieve them quickly, or relatively quickly, as is the case at times.
Here is the way I start out every DNA match search. These tips are geared toward those who have tested their DNA with Ancestry, but they can easily be used or modified using other programs.
Create groups
Take advantage of Ancestry’s sorting features, both by Parent 1 and Parent 2, and by group. The first groups should be for your four main grandparent ancestral lines. You may think of other groups you want to create, like Civil War veterans, Maryland residents, or Westward Pioneers. You may have a specific group you want to track in your family, and this is the place to do that.
Everyone gets a tree
Create family trees for all your close DNA matches. You only need to go back 6 or 7 generations. If you know your great grandparents, that’s already four generations. You just need to create trees for as many of your matches as possible.
I keep these trees together with my main tree on what is called a separate branch. This makes it easier for me to connect the trees when I find out who the common ancestors are. If you may a mistake, it’s easy to disconnect that same branch. If you create separate trees, you will go back and forth between trees when you need to look for common ancestors. When you find the connection, you must add the entire connection to your tree all over again.
Spreadsheets rule
Use spreadsheets. I track lots of different details on different pages in one spreadsheet. This keeps all your information easy to retrieve.
Make a list of each distinct surname for each family. I create a simple table with the DNA match name at the top and all the distinct surnames underneath in the same column. You should be able to see common surnames between the fourth and sixth generations. You can also sort the surnames alphabetically and look for matches that way. Whatever works best for you is fine.
It’s not as scary as it may seem
These tasks may sound daunting, but it’s much easier than you may think. If you are using Ancestry to create your tree, it’s easy to search for information about your matches or their family members. Remember, you don’t need to focus on finding information about living people, other than using them to identify their parents or grandparents. This is where you need to start keeping track of dates and where they lived. This information can help you identify where your family line connects to the match’s family line. You want to go back as far as possible, to second or third grandparents if you can find that information.
Use Ancestry’s Pro Tools to help you find how your DNA matches match each other and take notes. If I can identify connections, I connect the two DNA match branches in my main tree.
You’re just collecting data and creating trees. Ancestry connects records and adds details to profiles at the click of a button which makes this part of your data collection foolproof and stress-free.
And if you find you’ve made a mistake, it’s no problem. Delete the wrong record, disconnect two tree branches, merge duplicates or even delete someone who doesn’t belong. Fix the error and continue your journey.
Ready…set…go!
Now that your data is organized, you’re ready to start finding common ancestors!
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