Stuck with your genealogical DNA research? Sometimes looking at our matches in different ways can give us new directions for our research. We discussed some ideas to turn your match list on its side!
First, I shared my upcoming webinar for Legacy Family Tree Webinars in August. See https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/5-questions-to-answer-about-your-dna-matches/ for more information and to register
News we discussed:
Library of Virginia’s new website: https://www.lva.virginia.gov/about/news/press/release/2025-06-30
23andMe sale approved by court: https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-receives-court-approval-sale-ttam-research-institute
FTDNA’s partnership with WikiTree: https://blog.familytreedna.com/connect-wikitree-dna-matches/
DNA Painter’s Matrix Tool already has improvements: https://dnapainter.com/blog/matrix-tool-improvements/
Ancestry’s new Matches By Cluster:
https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/dna/dna-matches-by-cluster https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Science-of-Matches-by-Cluster
Some other links we discussed:
Dr. Tom Jones discusses overturning a proved conclusion when we get new evidence: https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/when-does-newfound-evidence-overturn-a-proved-conclusion/
And with that in mind, I’m always a fan of revisiting genealogical puzzles from time to time, or even “everything I (think I) already know.”
We then discussed various tools that can help us look at things anew, starting with the Ancestry clusters. I’ll repeat these here:
https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/dna/dna-matches-by-cluster https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Science-of-Matches-by-Cluster
We talked about MyHeritage’s labeling and AutoCluster tools:
https://education.myheritage.com/article/how-to-use-labels-to-break-new-ground-with-your-dna-matches/
https://education.myheritage.com/article/autoclusters-for-dna-matches/
A little about 23andMe’s tree, which we hope survives the transition to “new” ownership:
https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036068393-The-23andMe-Family-Tree-Feature
Some discussion of using Ancestry’s custom groups:
https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Grouping-and-Filtering-AncestryDNA-Matches
https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/session/shared-dna-matches-the-only-dna-tool-you-will-ever-need
and their Enhanced Shared Matching: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/AncestryDNA-Shared-Matches
and their DNA Compare feature to compare ancestral regions and journeys among 10 people at once:
https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/DNA-compare?language=en_US
https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2023/03/12/about-those-origins
FTDNA’s Matrix tool: https://blog.familytreedna.com/family-finder-matrix-update/
Karen Stanbary’s webinar showing how to use Microsoft Word and Powerpoint charts: https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/weaving-dna-test-results-into-a-proof-argument/
Blog post about the McGuire Method: https://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2017/03/19/guest-post-the-mcguire-method-simplified-visual-dna-comparisons/
DNA Painter trees: https://dnapainter.com/blog/eight-ways-you-can-use-ancestral-trees-at-dna-painter/
Video about using BanyanDNA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjsyprsyQ6g