If you've taken a DNA test, it is time to ignore your
ethnicity matches and start processing your DNA cousin
match. The most fun in genetic genealogy is not fine to figure
out what percentage of DNA you have from Ireland or wealth but
rather to figure out how your genetic relatives are related
to you and each other. Now, if you're just beginning in
genetic genealogy research, I hope that you will find the
tools on Ancestry fairly easy to understand and use. So let me
walk you through what I do when I'm working on my DNA matches.
So first I go to the Ancestry website and then I click on DNA
and I click on DNA matches. There's other things you can
look at. This is what I want to focus on. So when I come to the
DNA Matches I first try to see do I recognize anybody on this
profile. Now this is a profile for my cousin and notice you
see me. So, let's go fix that profile to say, yeah, my cousin
knows how I am related to them. So, what I want to do is I
want to click on this button that says, do you recognize
them? Yes, yes, I do. So, the next thing I need to do after I
recognize somebody is say, are we related on the maternal side
or the paternal side? Well, this is actually a relative
from my maternal side from my maternal side and my match, I
am a match through her maternal side. So, we can go ahead and
do that. So, if it's you to that person you need to decide
which way it goes. If that's person to you you need to make
sure it goes because if this match I if I was related
through her father then I would have to click father side. You
could do both sides and there is times when you're related to
both sides and there is the option of I'm not sure. And to
me that confuses me at this stage a little bit. So if
you're not sure just don't do this. So I'm going to go ahead
and click mother side. Now I can select the relationship
assignment. So I have a number of options here that I can
choose from. And our relationship could be first
cousin but that's not exactly how we are related. So I'm
going to click down here and I'm going to choose something
differently. This is actually that relationship. And go ahead
and click confirm. Now there are sometimes when you're
going to be related to somebody so I'm a first cousin one time
removed with this person. Why is it less than 1%. I can tell
you that as I have begun using this tool on my family tree, I
know genealogically and genetically that a number of
these people are related to me in these lower percentages,
these less 11%, this all of these different relationships
that seem a little small. Now, the closer you are to that
person, you really should be up here in the 99% tile. but with
your second, third, fourth, and fifth cousin or cousin
equivalent designations then that the the percentages were
smaller and that is okay. If you know that's how that
relationship is, go ahead and select it. So, here's a
different one. They're definitely quite far removed.
Um the predicted relationship with fourth to sixth cousin and
as you can see, well, there's a 33% chance this is your third
cousin and then it gets smaller and smaller but let's say
they're a fifth cousin once removed or something like that.
Then, you would have to select this option of distant
relationship but typically, as I'm going through the do you
recognize, I recognize for closer relationships. So, I go
ahead and do the people I recognize first. Now, the next
thing I do is I go through and I begin analyzing my DNA matches
that have trees online. It's really hard to figure out how
people are related if they don't share their trees online
with you. Um you actually can try to figure out how they're
related if the trees they share are fairly small but it's best
if we start with the people who have shared their trees so we
can see how we're related. So, I have a match and I'm going to
click on common ancestors. I'm going to go ahead and click on
that. So, I'm on the tree of the first to second cousin and
the first thing I'm going to look for is this common
ancestor toolbox. When I click view relationship, it looks
very much like this. That DNA match is matched through her
mother to George Joseph Geisler and back down through her uncle
to her first cousin. If that looks accurate and I can
validate it with other sources in addition to DNA, then I can
go ahead and go to the next step. Now, for more complicated
ThruLines, where you pass through multiple people and some of
these people say evaluate, evaluate, evaluate, and then
there's actually another another person down here. Um if
you pass through the evaluation, that's going to
take a little bit more genealogical research for you
to go through and that's fine but once you have decided,
yeah, I know how these people are related. Then, the next
thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go and I'm going to do
the add relationship and just like we did earlier. So once
again I can come in and because that was a maternal ancestor I
can click on maternal and then I can click on first cousin and
then there will be a confirm button for me to use. So the
next thing I can do with this match is I can add a note.
Okay? For my closest matches I tend not to do any notes. But
for the more distant matches I do notes and we'll come back to
that in just a moment. As you can see here I began processing
a lot of my close relatives. Um I do put dots and we'll come to
that in just a moment. After I get through the list of close
matches then it's time to work on the extended family. So one
of the things I do next after I do the who do I recognize. I go
to filter by common ancestors with trees and then I go find a
more distant relative. So I'm going to pick this one. Now
what's really exciting about this tree is the relative is
connected through my German immigrant ancestor Joseph
Geisler and his first wife Caroline Mack yes and because
this is my cousin I'm able to go pick up DNA matches that I
don't match so I don't actually match this person so I'm
going to go ahead and click the relationship my cousin in a
room match are related through Joseph Kleitzler so in my tree
this my cousin's mother. This is our shared ancestor George
Joseph Geisler. I'm related to my cousin through here. And
then all of these people are already in my tree. That's
because they're all white. Okay? And this is a through
line. Right? But it's not the massive ThruLines where we
would see all the extra people and how they're related. But
this is just a ThruLine between two people. Because
what happens is the DNA match has Thelma in their tree and I
don't have Thelma in my tree and so we would have to go
evaluate and see if Thelma works. If that relationship's
right and once we do that, then we have some work to do. So,
I'm going to go back to the profile and I'm going to add a
relationship. This is Nancy's mother side. This is a third
cousin down here and I'm going to confirm. So now, I
know that they're related through the Geisler and the
Macks. So, I'm going to start color coding and if you want to
learn more about color-coding, then, I have a full video about
that but she's related through the Geisler Macks but not the
Geisler Hoppes because that's one generation below. So, I go
ahead and do the Geisler/Macks and now they're in a group and
I can add a note. So, what I like to do is I like to have
the ancestral couple surnames simply because there's not a
lot of repeats. If you have to, if have a lot of repeats of the
surname couples, then, maybe put the first names on it and
then, I also like to put descendant of So, I know the
common ancestors. So, which aunt or an uncle are they
descended from? This one is Mary Elizabeth. Now, if you're
using the Ancestry Table Maker to download your DNA Matches
and do processing, you might want to add even more notes
there. I invite you to watch that video about the Ancestry
Tablemaker and then see some of the notes about people, what
they put in those column file to keep track of their notes.
Click save and now one final things I can do is I could send
a message to DNA match if I so desire and let them know hey
I've made a discovery or hey I have a question for you
whatever so that's the last thing I do with relationships
that have shared trees. Now there's one more things I want
to highlight for our relatives who are second color citizens
and farther removed in particularly if they descend
from one ancestral couple. We can click on the shared match
list. And what's going to happen is my cousin in her DNA
match they all descend from the Geisler Mack shirt. We don't
have any in this branch. There's not any inner marriage
that we know of. So everybody that matches my cousin and her
match through Mary Elizabeth. They're all going to be
descended somehow from Joseph and Caroline. So what I can do
is now add everybody to the Joseph a Caroline Mack group
and it's relatively easy. So, let's scroll down to a match
that's not in the group and notice they don't even have a
tree linked. Uh there is a public tree here. We might be
able to figure this one out. Uh this has a private tree but all
of these people are going to be Geisler Mack Descendants. So,
I'm going to click on add to group and I'm going to click
Geisler Mack and then, I'm going to go and I'm going to
put a check mark next to every single one of these matches.
What's really great about these match because my cousin took a
DNA test is I don't have these matches on my tree but she does
and they are all related to that geyser Macks so we're
going to add to the group and then in one fell swoop I have
the color coded dots for all of these relatives so once I've
processed everybody who has a tree and I can find the common
ancestors and then I go through and I look at the second to
fourth cousins up to 40 cent of Morgans shared Senna Morgans
between myself and them between my cousins and them. I do all
of that filtering and then I assign everybody to a group
using the second cousins and more distantly that are from
one particular line. Then the next thing I do is I go and try
to do specific group research. So what I do there is I click
on this filter by groups and then I pick a specific group.
So let's say Comfort Moots. After I click on the Comfort
Moots I'm going to get all of the folks that are related to
the comfort moots that I've identified. Not anybody who's
still on process. But all the ones that I've identified and
now I'm going to go and try to figure out how they are
related. So this one is a granddaughter of Allison and
Mary Snyder. This one is a and seven Dorothy Newt you can tell
that I need to go back in and do what I did for this match up
here I need to make mother father side and say
specifically how related but now I can start working on
these on link trees. And try to figure out how they're all
related to me. Um in the show notes I have a little bit more
guidance for those who want to step by step process of
everything I do as well as some tips on how to go about looking
for those living relatives. We like to call it hashtag cyber
stalking but for genealogy. We don't actually want to stalk
anybody that is in a not appropriate way. Now if you're
ready for more tips on how to do genetic genealogy research
then I invite you to look at the playlist up above. It has
lots of videos from Andy. And if you're ready for something
new check out the one down here. You can't see that. Oh
you can't see that.