Why DNA Match Grouping is KEY for Finding Your Family Roots

[@cynthiamartin2197]

Connie, I know you have a wealth of knowledge you're sharing, and I appreciate all the work and time it takes to produce a video. Mom and I started back in the mid-80's trying to track her family on foot through graveyards; sending emails through American On-line "You've got mail!." lol... as usual life took over and I rediscovered our box of information after her passing. Your videos have helped tremendously in my pursuit of just not my mom’s line but my dad’s. I also find myself reviewing your past videos as well because I do forget the nuisances; and they’ve assisted in cleaning up many of my early mistakes. I recently received my Ancestry DNA analysis which confirmed all the work I’ve completed thus far. I have no doubt this system will help bring in other cousins around my age and younger that are interested in our family tree! Thank you and have a great day! Cyndi.

[@GenealogyTV]

Ah thanks Cindi. Enjoy the Journey.

[@em4steam896]

This video has helped me break down a brick wall on an ancestor. Thanks for another great video! You are definitely the best genealogist on KZbin! Have a great weekend!

[@GenealogyTV]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@garylhaas2005]

Since many people in my hometown are related multiple ways, Match Grouping is a challenge. 1) i group matches with Common Ancestors by extracting their grandparents from Thrulines 2) i group matches after filtering DNA matches by locations 3) I group matches after filtering by surnames that DNA matches have in their tree. I have macros to extract data and make it easier to assign DNA matches to Custom groups.

[@GeraldM_inNC]

A family tree in which a person appears multiple times is called a "broken pedigree", and it is caused by "endogamy" - the practice of repeatedly marrying within the same small group of families in a village. My paternal grandfather's ancestors lived in the village of Montedoro for three full centuries, intermarrying with the same few families. There was so much endogamy that there are often multiple common ancestors with me and my DNA matches. I frequently find alternative CAs to Thrulines's suggestions.

[@BonnieDragonKat]

Yeah I have a similar issue. My mother is half second cousin to my father. And my paternal first cousin is also my maternal step-grandfather. And I have multiple DNA cousins who have married from one side of the family to the other. Like they were on my dad's side of the family and they married into my mom's side of the family. Makes for a very messed up tree. When I tried to do the leads method I couldn't even do it it was nearly impossible because on both my mother and my father side of the family I'm missing a great grandparent. On my mom's side is because she's totally unknown to anybody in the family we don't even know her name. And on my dad's side is because my great-grandfather was raised by a single mother and his father's name doesn't even appear on a birth certificate.

[@vm1776]

My family was in the same county for 300 years on one side and 100-200 years on the other. I do find matches where they match one side of my family as a 3rd/4th cousin and show a distant match on the other side which I haven't found yet but believe to be about 7th cousin. So I keep that in mind if we dont' match really close. I also have great-grandparents who were 1st cousins so for that line I have a color for people who match that couple and then further back I'm only looking at 3 last names in the next generation - it was frustrating to setup but once I matched cousins who are related to them but are a little further out it became easier to figure out those lines.

[@cathyc6725]

I LOVE your G Rule! I struggled with this until I saw your prior video on this. Now it makes it easy!

[@vm1776]

I was working with a 2nd cousin on a branch of the family and I made my colors for the family names we share to be the same colors as what she chose so that when I look at her DNA matches, I don't get confused. After working with this color scheme for a few years I have most of the last name to color memorized so I'm not switching my colors even though switching to a pattern like yours would help if someone else was using my data. Your videos do tempt me to go protools though.

[@bonniemitchell1662]

I've just taken advantage of My Heritage's deal to upload both my Ancestry DNA and 23 and me as well. I'm having trouble hunting down my Dad's line in Italy, and My Heritage claims to have a larger database in Europe. Here's hoping some matches will pop up.

[@GenealogyTV]

Happy hunting.

[@debbeb4499]

Good info, Connie. Besides paternal and maternal, Ancestry has a group identified as "Unassigned." It's worth looking in that group specifically, as well. I have one match at 28 cM that is unassigned while his mother at 30 cM is correctly assigned to my maternal side. Interesting.

[@GeraldM_inNC]

My parental lines are pretty easy to assign, since all my mother's ancestors are from Eastern Europe while all my father's are from Italy and the eastern Mediterranean. Most of my "unassigned" are bizarre, with pedigrees that are Anglo, Celtic or Scandanavian, making no sense at all. However, from the Shared Matches it has often proved simple to assign "unassigned" matches to one parent or the other. Note that in a handful of cases Ancestry's parental assignment is proven wrong by the Shared Matches, and I revised it. But, as you say, it's well worth it to periodically search your unassigned matches in hopes you can assign them. This is truer than ever now that it turns out that ProTools vastly increases your pool of Shared Matches (although Ancestry insists that is impossible).

[@advancedloiterer1820]

Great video, Connie. I thought that I would just mention that thru-lines and common ancestor hints do not appear on any kits/matches that have not linked their results to their tree profile (unlinked tree). Neither does the search menu or filters, show you these unlinked tree matches. You will have to view the unlinked tree individually and work out the MRCA yourself; I know just insert a face-palm here, LOL. Also, I thought that I would mention, that it is always useful to build a DNA "research" tree attached to your kit and not a "direct ancestor" tree. In other words, build your verified DNA cousin's branch into your research tree and connect their profile to the DNA match under "connect to tree". Even assign their cousin relationship on the DNA match screen. What this does is it assists ancestry's algorithms re side-view technology for your kit and also, gives other "shared matches" a common ancestor hint for this DNA cousin; if one does not already exist. I also build the sibling details into each generational level of the cousin's branch because there is a higher probability that shared descendants on this branch have been passed down the same DNA segments as you new match. I call if "future proofing" for any new match that may appear one day in the future. Oh, I also don't want to spoil their family history journey for my tested cousins, so, I always attach the minimum genealogical evidence to establish our family relationship. Let them enjoy their ancestor's as they build their tree. I have received many messages from my DNA cousins thanking me for this work and energising ancestry's algorithm's with thru-lines/common ancestor hints re their kits.

[@GeraldM_inNC]

Among my paternal grandfather's ancestors, I have an immense number of low-cMs matches to people I can't identify. All of them contributed their genes to me prior to the year 1700, as I have no gaps at all in my grandfather's ancestors after 1700. These fall into distinct groups by location. Over 300 matches descend from 19th century residents of Malta and the eastern Mediterranean; my guess is they fled to Sicily when it appeared the Ottoman Turns were going to conquer Malta. Another large group is from villages east and southeast of Palermo, whose Shared Matches clearly link them to my grandfather's Montedoro ancestors; prior to 1700 they must have moved southwards into Caltanissetta province and married into my grandfather's ancestors. Yet another large, distinct group lived in Agrigento province until emigrating recently; this group has Shared Matches not only to the known ancestors of my grandfather in Montedoro, but also to the Maltese group (unlike the east Palermo group, which never has Shared Matches to the Malta group). This makes me think that the Maltese moved specifically to Agrigento province of Sicily (as opposed to Sicily in general), where they intermarried with my unknown Agrigento ancestors prior to 1700. Then I have groups for locations for which I can't even come up with a wild guess. What's with those matches to families from Chieti on the Adriatic Sea? What's with the matches to families from Salerno, south of Naples? All I can do for the moment is to put them in their own groups. In short, for the matches that lead back to identifiable common ancestors (usually in Montedoro), I created four separate groups for the ancestors of my GG grandfather Montagna and his wife Guarneri and my GG grandmother Piccillo and her husband Mantione. All my other Italian matches are assigned to groups according to location where their ancestors lived. My Slavic ancestors are only assigned to two groups: the Mrvichins, the ancestors of my neer-do-well grandfather, and the Yovankins. It is pointless to break them down any further, because there's practically no documentation for any Slavic match prior to 1870. My number of Slavic matches is not much below my Italian matches, but I don't work on them because it's impossible to take any of them beyond 1870.

[@rondalewis5295]

I’ve been working on trying to group my matches but I have a whole slew of double cousins, my grandfather and his brother married my grandmother and her sister. Of course each couple had quite a few children so it gets very confusing very quickly! My parents also shared a common ancestor back in the 1700s so I have a number of people related on both sides.

[@Holy_Moley]

Great job on this one Connie. This video is worth sharing when people ask what to do on Ancestry. I use the star to show that I have connected a cousin into my tree. I have the categories divided up into GG Grandparents, although if the extra colors come through, I might be able to categorize an extra generation back, which should be good. I have 5 extra groups however. One for Unknown connection. 4 groups for Undefined Father's paternal and maternal and Mother's paternal and maternal. I've enjoyed taking it a step further again, and putting all my matches into a spreadsheet, to create clusters myself. It hasn't been so easy to create clusters using the apps available.

[@GenealogyTV]

Thanks

[@tinatieden8499]

Im looking forward to redoing my matches and adding new trees . Thanks for the video.

[@GenealogyTV]

Have fun!

[@christinehughes8110]

Thank you Connie for sharing your knowledge. I've been doing genealogy for over 35 years, and I always learn something new from your videos. I have DNA matches on both my parental side and maternal side. What is your suggestion?

[@GenealogyTV]

If it’s an issue for you consider Diahan Southard’s courses.

[@terryolson1962]

Hi Connie, I have watched some of these cousin matching videos, and while I do this on my tree, I cringe a little bit because you can run into problems. I have gone to a match in the past, and their matches will match my mom's side but then (as an example) there will be a blaring dad's side match in there. And I'm talking about matches with only one segment. I have even found matches where I go to their matches and they are all over the map, supposedly, on my tree. I have wanted to say something but wasn't sure what to say. This morning, I had an epiphany, and realized that with my mom or dad, the segments are the entire length of each chromosome. In other words, different matches can be on a single segment. So, the longer the segment, the greater the likelihood that there may be more than one part of the tree represented by that segment. I am starting now to use more caution with longer segments.

[@barbarasmiley1569]

Thanks for the videos. I always learn somthing! I downloaded the handout for this one hoping the pedigree chart you are using to group your ancestors by color was attached as a fillable pdf. Is there one of those available or if not, any instructions on how to recreate yours?

[@glenjones6980]

Better to spend a couple of minutes beforehand checking you have sufficient viable matches, there are lots of situations where the 4 group/Leeds method isn't suitable or even possible and basic grouping is more beneficial.

[@suzannemcclendon]

Hey there. Thanks for your great videos. What happened to the Ancestry + FamilySearch Powerhouse video? I had it loaded to watch, but when I went to watch it later, it said it was no longer available. It said something about bullying. How they could think that with any of your videos is beyond me!

[@GenealogyTV]

An edited version is back up on the channel.

[@suzannemcclendon]

@ Thanks!

[@staceybenson2259]

I only have 2 second cousin and 5 third cousin matches. Would it be best for me just to group my matches by my 4th cousins?

[@GenealogyTV]

Sure you can do that.

[@sandyd-h9563]

You are so very lucky. I don't have any matches that I know. My brother did a DNA test on another platform, as did my grandson. they aren't on Ancestry, so I can't add them. I have no idea WHO the people are in my DNA that match me.

[@TheDanEdwards]

"I have no idea WHO the people are"

[@sandyd-h9563]

@@TheDanEdwards don't know them. By name, not met, nor heard of them.

[@TheDanEdwards]

​@@sandyd-h9563 My DNA lists have tens of thousands of matches. Of my mother's match list I have met only a couple, knew of maybe a dozen more. All the other 40 thousand are strangers.

[@garylhaas2005]

do you have matches with COMMON ANCESTORS? These are pretty good known matches.

[@sandyd-h9563]

@@garylhaas2005 we can't figure out any of the common matches. Either others don't have a tree, or they were adopted and searching for family.

[@SAN563-bq2tj]

Interesting as always. On another Ancestry subject, why can't I always find the primary source records for an ancestor even if I drill down by date and location? If I then I go into an family tree and someone has a link to it. I've then looked it up in card catalog and it won't show up?

[@janshannon7906]

I enjoy your videos. I find myself rewatching specific videos to answer questions that I have. I have a question for you. How can you use best known matches when you are adopted? I am trying to find my maternal grandfather. Thank you for all that you do.

[@GenealogyTV]

Separate by parental sides. The whoever has the highest cM count is where you should start. Repeat for the other parent side.

[@janshannon7906]

@@GenealogyTV Thank you.

[@susanngobar3550]

Ok I'm missing something ,how do you get the colour into the actual tree and I see a lot of people use the DNA strand symbol where is that from please Thanks for great video as always

[@robarsenault1025]

You might want to check out the roots tech episodes from your DNA guide. They give more detail on finding your best known match. There were four episodes

[@carokat1111]

Read up on Leeds Analysis. It’s a clustering tool to sort your matches in to four groups, which relate to each of your grandparents. Very powerful tool. Anyone can do it with practice.

[@papoose0507]

Where is everyone finding these pictures of their ancestors. I can not seem to find any pictures

[@GenealogyTV]

Connecting with other family and in member trees.

[@dawnwhite3180]

Does this method work if you are not sure who one of the great grand parents was or if one or both of the great grandparents had multiple spouses or partners?

[@GenealogyTV]

It can help you figure it out.

[@staceybenson2259]

When you are grouping your matches, if you find that one of the matches is paternal but the shared match is in the maternal shared group, do you still add that paternal match to your maternal group and vise versa?

[@GenealogyTV]

This should be done for you. Look at the match and see if it says maternal, paternal or both sides. Sometimes it might be unassigned.

[@staceybenson2259]

@@GenealogyTV It is separated by maternal and paternal. My question is how do you handle that match when a paternal match shows up in a maternal shared match group or vise versa? Do you include them in that shared match group if it is a paternal in a maternal shared match group or skip them and only include the maternal matches for that group? Does that make sense?

[@JeffreyAdamGamble]

I been doing my family history and I just find out that we are cousin on this person Glenn Curry Henley. and found our common ancestor are

[@GenealogyTV]

Interesting.

[@LyndaHeines]

Great video. Connie, I do have a question. One of my best known match is a second cousin but he is related to me by just my great grandfather. His ggparents are my great grandfather and his first wife. In the past I had him in the group Heines/Knipper, and my gg parents are Heines/Kaiser. Do I need that extra group? When I pull the shared matches on him, I get some that I know are Heines/Kaiser. Does it matter or do I need to do a separate group for his side? Thanks.

[@GenealogyTV]

You could just create a Heines group and wait until you figure out the next generation back to modify the group name, because technically he is a descendent of the couple higher in the tree, right?

[@LyndaHeines]

@@GenealogyTV Connie, that makes sense. I know that couple so I'll do that. Thanks.

[@BonnieDragonKat]

My tree is so complicated that I've had to only do two sets of colors one for my paternal grandfather and grandmother and another set of colors for my maternal grandfather and grandmother.

[@annatomasso5226]

Do have any matches that show up as being from both parents? I am currently looking at my DNA because I just found out some new information and I just discovered I have 3 matches that share both parents. I am very familiar with the surnames they share Its just the first time I have seen individuals sharing small snips of both parents related to me.

[@GenealogyTV]

Of course it is possible.

[@PeterLJohnson55]

I am confused