Building Quick & Dirty Trees to Identify Genetic Matches

Quick & Dirty trees are undocumented trees built quickly in an attempt to identify a genetic match.
Quick & Dirty trees are built without extensive documentation or verification, solely as HINT GENERATORS, not as genealogical proof. Once a connection is identified, that connection can be pursued and the tree can be documented and verified.
This method has largely replaced the "Mirror Tree" method (in which a tree is built or copied and attached to a test taker's DNA to generate Shared Ancestry Hints). A Quick & Dirty tree is NOT attached to anyone's DNA.
Here's the link to the AncestryDNA video by Crista Cowan and Angie Bush: • AncestryDNA | Mirror T...
Here's the link to DNA Central: dna-central.com

[@charelW]

Really good quality information and video. It really compliments the Ancestry video referenced at the start. I can now proceed with my first Q&D tree.

[@jos.4276]

I take this one step further: When reviewing the Ancestry Trees, I always click on the Tree Owner to review if there's a potential DNA match. I manage several DNA profiles, so I'm sure to select the correct DNA test to compare with the Tree Owner's test. This will slow you a bit, but it CAN help you to focus on the correct branch of the Q&D tree.

[@tollgenealogy213]

This works great, I use this method too! Like you I have a number of DNA tests I research, and doing this as a build a quick tree, it helps prove / disprove lines if I run into DNA matches sharing with the test kit person.

[@bonniemariedavis2909]

I do this, too, and have from the beginning and tried to rely on tree 'hints' in Ancestry, at least, where there was indicated shared DNA rather than other trees w/ same people but not showing that. However, the other day i had a daunting thought with this 'theory'/practice I was using - that these members may have various trees (they are not always shown in that drop down menu, I have found) and their DNA may be attached to a different one than the one with which I share names of ancestors rather than that they do not share DNA with me :( so that gave me pause. But still ... I find it does help and I see the 'lines' of the DNA (incompletely, but still I see something to explore more). Good luck with your research. :)

[@GenealogyTV]

I've done something similar but a little different. I'm trying to solve an unknown father case where there is zero information. I took trees from Ancestry cousin matches where several surnames showing repeatedly across several cousins and built a tree in Excel (so I can stack them all showing the sources) and cross matched them with YDNA cousin matches on Family Tree DNA as well. I'm confident I know most of my subjects’ great grandparents. Now I just need to finish building the descendants back to the 1940s when my subject was born. I'm slowly building a tree but have yet to find the right guy in the right place in time. It’s a process.

[@bonniemariedavis2909]

I am doing much the same thing but cannot bear to deal with spreadsheet programs, and have never learned or understood Excel well enough to 'do' anything with it, to my chagrin (because I can see from your comment it would be very helpful). A friend has offered me some templates he used; do you recommend my trying to muddle through this process, or sticking with my own more Luddite approach (which is indescribable, but so far has yielded much more 'close' results in my bio F search (prob. deceased; really just for my own edification/not expectations of relationships). It IS a process, and can be pretty overwhelming at times. :) Envious of your prowess.

[@remixcocuk7325]

Absolutely stunning!

[@MarkJT1000]

This an excellent video and I'm sure will be very helpful to me. Thanks.

[@yagzlolu3319]

great footage and beautiful morning

[@wendypowell7866]

thank you Blaine, this was excellent, I am going to have a crack at a Q&D tree for my elusive Great Grandmother, Rose! We know nothing of her parents. Your presentation was insightful, first tho, heading to Ancestry's Crista Cowan's preso :)

[@LindaSchreiber]

There's also another way that you 'just can't find a connection'. Twice in the last few years, I have found out that I was doing the quick and dirty on someone's *adoptive* family tree ;)

[@tgymuzikstudio1188]

Baam :) fascinating work you have here

waiting on next one📍

[@gokdeniztok4519]

So peaceful.

[@yigitergin5688]

Very beautiful❇ ❤️

[@MusicInMotion_67]

Blaine, when you have the common great grandparents how do you then figure out the grandparents on that side of the family? I am trying to find my biological father. I know who my either great grandparents or they may be my GG grandparents. The Leeds method hasn't really helped me as I keep getting three or four colors for that one side of the family and I know that there were numerous occasions that members of my great grandmothers family married into members of my great grandfathers family complicating matters. Oh and to further complicate it, when doing the LEEDS method, I also discovered that somewhere back in history my great grandmothers family married into my maternal side of the family. Any suggestions for how I can go about this?

[@lindam9085]

Question: i did my dna test with 23& me. Does ancestry dna test give more information on shared dna? 23 & me only shows percent of shared dna from cousin’s.

[@judyrichards8547]

This method is great for trees where you already have some information from your own tree that you are trying to match up to but what if you are trying to find the biological parent of an adopted person? How do you link into other's trees if you don't even have a name to start with?

[@BlaineBettinger]

Great question! You build trees for the closest matches, preferably for a group of Shared Matches, and then look for overlap of surnames, places, etc. What you hope to start to see is the same family or families showing up multiple times, which suggest they are families you should be pursuing in your research.

[@masumyuzlu6922]

Qué hermosa😍👌

[@lindaeaton7781]

Is there anything that you could then do with "shared" matches to that particular DNA match? Would it make sense to add information on them out there floating in that same tree? Does that make sense? I have some matches, who will not respond to me, who I believe are related via the same surname in their trees, but different families. So I assume they are brothers with their different families or say an uncle with family, etc.

[@BlaineBettinger]

That does make sense. For example, I have a cluster of shared matches that are all shared in common, and when I build out their trees I run into the same family over and over again.

[@bonniemariedavis2909]

I have a private DNA matches tree as well as those like explained herein for some particular matches that intrigued me or I found in a 'cluster' (sort of) with others with same ancestor(s). In THAT tree, which I only began because I would have a couple of matches to some person supposedly (in both trees), but I could not (yet) figure out where they belonged in my "big" (still private at this point, but more complete) tree -- and I added the first one and so on, and at some point I found other matches that I couldn't associate with the big tree either,and I just stuck them in the DNA tree kind of as 'blobs' on their own, and so on .. and now two months or so into that, I have found many of the blobs connected, and now have found a bridge(s) to the "big tree" (still confused in a few places, but far fewer holes than before). So, I think this can work, but I think the trick is to recall or keep track of the various blobs or pods and not get out of control and forget one, because it may drive you crazy trying to find it again. I realize I have created a monster in some sense with this method, but since I found the first 'bridge' just the other night, and got pretty excited, I thought I'd share that with you. :) Thanks!

[@chriseldon8203]

​@@BlaineBettinger I have a "person" who matches many people in other trees following a surname that keeps popping up. I think I know where there is a paternal breech shall we say. When I contact tree owners and DNA Kit managers and inquire about a "person" matching DNA that comes from their tree through DNA they seem to be oblivious because they do not have it on "paper". Unfortunately, some of these trees have 40,000 "paper" documented individuals filled with inaccurate information because they fail to follow the DNA. I cannot count how many times a message contains ""I do not have that "person" in my tree"". Talk about a quick and dirty tree...

[@ahmosise857]

Video💙Wow ❤️

[@oldking8232]

️love ❤️

[@darrylberg2655]

I have used this technique. The inherent problem is the initial assumption that Mary Alice in the UNLINKED tree is biologically connected to the DNA match. This is extremely dangerous. The match has not linked their kit to this tree. The tree might belong to a friend, a research associate, an adoptive family, or any other non-biological connection.

[@BlaineBettinger]

Certainly, that's why we want to ensure that we don't make any conclusions using clustering alone. Clustering provides clues, and then the real work begins!

[@karantinadaoyunkeyfi3448]

Dream your dream !!

[@mmg8823]

At 12:09 "nothing is jumping out" at him? According to this Mary Gannung had a child with her son, Daniel Webster Rowell. This is just sloppy.

[@flyingpenguin390]

Nothing's jumping out at him because he doesn't recognize the surnames, not that there's nothing to be gleaned from it at all. He's specifically looking for names he knows.

[@jcagy2]

This is a lazy way of doing research! Copying from someone else with no proof. No wonder these sites are so screwed up LDS-about as reliable as stage whispers. Give me the old fashion records way.

[@BlaineBettinger]

'Nuff said: bcgcertification.org/skillbuilding-perils-of-source-snobbery/

[@LisaVanGemert]

Dude. He SAID it wasn't research yet. He says it over and over. Don't be a troll. Why do people waste time making rude comments like this? What's the point? He's giving you an idea for FREE on his own time. If you don't like the idea, then you are free to ignore it. Here, you are making a rude comment full of nothing but criticism and grammar errors and typos for no reason. You comment isn't even accurate because he flat-out says that this is not a research tool - it's a connection tool that would require more research later. Ugh. This just makes me tired.

[@kjw79]

Actually I came to say thank you for his diligence in ensuring the tree was private and unsearchable, and emphasizing it to viewers. You should only use trees as a guide to records anyway.

[@fomalhauto]

@@SuperHans58 also very challenging for African Americans because of slavery