Wow, your presentation was awesome and gave me the confidence and understanding I needed to try Pro Tools for a month. Within the first hour of the first day I was able to make huge cracks in a previous brick wall. I am amazed. Thank you!
You mentioned splitting out a person from the Family Tree to create their own separate tree to investigate. Is there a simple way to split out an entire branch of a tree? For example, if I want to separate my partner's branch of the tree into its own tree?
Do you mean on Ancestry? Not really. If you create a new research tree, you could put in a couple of people so that hints will find your other tree and then you can copy it across. An alternative is to download the gedcom to offline software, trim the tree, and then upload a new gedcom to a new tree.
I’ve learned not to discount my lower cm matches. Testing close family revealed to me that I might share a small cm but everyone else may have the predicted amount shared. For example my mom’s 2nd cousins once removed share as predicted with my aunts and siblings. All total there are about 10 people tested, they all share more or less as they should, I share with one person only 6cm. My best advice is test as many people as you can, that is my greatest tool.
You do need to be careful with small matches. They may be a false positive or from a very distant ancestor, and as such, you can't be positive about which ancestor they come from. However, when you can see what a small match shares with other close family members, that definitely does strengthen a theory of how you are related.
Nice explanation. The problem I have is understanding the layout of the shared matches and how people are related to each other. I am really struggling to get my head round it and it is always just briefly mentioned in the videos I have watched, including this one. I guess I will just have to bite the bullet, pay the money, and hope I can figure it out.😢
It's one row of your matches and one row of the shared match's in common matches. Yours are in descending order but theirs are not. You can sort yours in oldest to newest as well. Be careful of the relationship labels on the in common matches, they are not necessarily a confirmed relationship but a most likely. You should still consider other possibilities even for close relations.
It basically now tells you how many cM you match shares with the person in your shared matches, so say you have a match that matches you at a predicted 2nd cousin distance, and in the shared matches for that match you have someone with and the same number of cMs, they might be sisters or they might be 1st cousins, or 2nd cousins to each other (or any other possible relationship), which previously we'd never been able to know unless maybe they had trees or matched or didn't match other people themselves, but it was basically a bit of a guessing game, without doing a lot of work and then, having done this it can almost be impossible to work out. Also they tell now, the new Pro Tools feature, they give you all matches not just the ones over 20cM, so ones all the way down to 8cM, which really helps if you're looking for distant ancestors, in my case where a great great grandfather came from, and identify and contact distant cousins through him.
@GenealogicalStudies this is very exciting and because I have no subscription I only just found out about the June update. Is the 20cM matches longest segment also 20cM? I am anticipating using the enhanced matches tool to solve a brick wall although some of the vastly different inheritance are 20cM or thereabouts with some 6-8cM longest segment and will be very interested to see the relationships
Wondering if the pro tool reflects more than one segment shared, that would be helpful to know even if they are not giving us a browser. I have one match that is on both my mom and dad’s side, it would be helpful for Ancestry to show us the matches based on segments as well
It doesn't show that information on the main table of shares, but when you click into the match of the match (e.g. person b), you should be able to see the number of segments + the longest segment. It would be useful if they gave us a little more in the initial table, but I think it will evolve with time and feedback.
I do not yet have Pro Tools. I have been using both Family Tree Maker (FTM) and Ancestry (without Pro Tools) and have been adding my DNA Match Notes to FTM. Most of my matches are back in the 70 Cm or lower range, most of which I have identified MRCA. Given that I have both FTM and Ancestry without Protools and have identified most of my matches between 70 and 25 Cm, any idea what benefit it would be at this time to obtain Pro Tools. Many thanks, Lindley in Western Canada
Hi Lindley, I'll forward your question to Claire. However, she is out of office for a holiday. I'm sure she will check in as soon as she can. Thank you for your question. Angie
You can use them to flesh out your tree by perhaps seeing people who are close matches to each other. I've noticed a big variance between siblings and how they match people. A man who matches my brother at 11cM matches me at 89cM - he's our 3C1R. One of the good things about Pro Tool is the monthly sub, so you can try it at a low cost for one month and see if it gives you value, then cancel if you don't want it any more.
Wow, your presentation was awesome and gave me the confidence and understanding I needed to try Pro Tools for a month. Within the first hour of the first day I was able to make huge cracks in a previous brick wall. I am amazed. Thank you!
Thank you!
You mentioned splitting out a person from the Family Tree to create their own separate tree to investigate. Is there a simple way to split out an entire branch of a tree? For example, if I want to separate my partner's branch of the tree into its own tree?
Do you mean on Ancestry? Not really. If you create a new research tree, you could put in a couple of people so that hints will find your other tree and then you can copy it across. An alternative is to download the gedcom to offline software, trim the tree, and then upload a new gedcom to a new tree.
I’ve learned not to discount my lower cm matches. Testing close family revealed to me that I might share a small cm but everyone else may have the predicted amount shared. For example my mom’s 2nd cousins once removed share as predicted with my aunts and siblings. All total there are about 10 people tested, they all share more or less as they should, I share with one person only 6cm. My best advice is test as many people as you can, that is my greatest tool.
You do need to be careful with small matches. They may be a false positive or from a very distant ancestor, and as such, you can't be positive about which ancestor they come from. However, when you can see what a small match shares with other close family members, that definitely does strengthen a theory of how you are related.
Nice explanation. The problem I have is understanding the layout of the shared matches and how people are related to each other. I am really struggling to get my head round it and it is always just briefly mentioned in the videos I have watched, including this one. I guess I will just have to bite the bullet, pay the money, and hope I can figure it out.😢
We'd love to have you in classes with us. :)
It's one row of your matches and one row of the shared match's in common matches. Yours are in descending order but theirs are not. You can sort yours in oldest to newest as well. Be careful of the relationship labels on the in common matches, they are not necessarily a confirmed relationship but a most likely. You should still consider other possibilities even for close relations.
It basically now tells you how many cM you match shares with the person in your shared matches, so say you have a match that matches you at a predicted 2nd cousin distance, and in the shared matches for that match you have someone with and the same number of cMs, they might be sisters or they might be 1st cousins, or 2nd cousins to each other (or any other possible relationship), which previously we'd never been able to know unless maybe they had trees or matched or didn't match other people themselves, but it was basically a bit of a guessing game, without doing a lot of work and then, having done this it can almost be impossible to work out. Also they tell now, the new Pro Tools feature, they give you all matches not just the ones over 20cM, so ones all the way down to 8cM, which really helps if you're looking for distant ancestors, in my case where a great great grandfather came from, and identify and contact distant cousins through him.
15:48 just wow.
@GenealogicalStudies this is very exciting and because I have no subscription I only just found out about the June update. Is the 20cM matches longest segment also 20cM? I am anticipating using the enhanced matches tool to solve a brick wall although some of the vastly different inheritance are 20cM or thereabouts with some 6-8cM longest segment and will be very interested to see the relationships
Wondering if the pro tool reflects more than one segment shared, that would be helpful to know even if they are not giving us a browser. I have one match that is on both my mom and dad’s side, it would be helpful for Ancestry to show us the matches based on segments as well
It doesn't show that information on the main table of shares, but when you click into the match of the match (e.g. person b), you should be able to see the number of segments + the longest segment. It would be useful if they gave us a little more in the initial table, but I think it will evolve with time and feedback.
I have found it when notes/groups aren't saving on the shared matches page to do it from the main DNA profile page and it will save.
I'm noticing fewer bugs like this a month on from launch.
I do not yet have Pro Tools. I have been using both Family Tree Maker (FTM) and Ancestry (without Pro Tools) and have been adding my DNA Match Notes to FTM. Most of my matches are back in the 70 Cm or lower range, most of which I have identified MRCA. Given that I have both FTM and Ancestry without Protools and have identified most of my matches between 70 and 25 Cm, any idea what benefit it would be at this time to obtain Pro Tools. Many thanks, Lindley in Western Canada
Hi Lindley, I'll forward your question to Claire. However, she is out of office for a holiday. I'm sure she will check in as soon as she can. Thank you for your question. Angie
You can use them to flesh out your tree by perhaps seeing people who are close matches to each other. I've noticed a big variance between siblings and how they match people. A man who matches my brother at 11cM matches me at 89cM - he's our 3C1R. One of the good things about Pro Tool is the monthly sub, so you can try it at a low cost for one month and see if it gives you value, then cancel if you don't want it any more.