So, if you have received your DNA results you may be wondering what on earth you do with them. You will be seeing lots of names (DNA matches) and numbers (centimorgans). Some sites use percentages too. It all looks a bit daunting, but if you stick with it, things will become clearer. In this instance patience is a virtue and putting on your Sherlock detective hat will help too.

One question you could have asked yourself Is “where do I fit in with all these people”? Hopefully many of your matches will have built a tree (as you may have also done too) and you can see where your family lay within them. But some people don’t have a tree, or they may have changed their settings to private. There are ways that you may be able to get around this. Such as building a tree from their details. That is if you are lucky enough to be able to identify them from other matches.

I find it helps to set aside a day getting the feel of your DNA results and who they relate to. Any less time, and you will end up going back over the DNA results already covered. If you are using Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23&me etc. it’s a good idea to add notes to your matches.  They will help and be a reminder when you look back at the records. Ancestry also has a good system for colour coding too. MyHeritage has its own DNA tool used for clustering your matches together.

You may want to learn about X and Y Chromosomes and how these can help you separate your matches into maternal and paternal lines.  A great place to look at your X matches is on Gedmatch. This can be done by downloading your raw data from Ancestry and uploading it to Gedmatch. You can subscribe to Tier 1 on Gedmatch and gain access to extra tools such as a cluster report or the ‘One to Many’ report for the X Chromosome data.

Some of the other applications that you may find useful in your quest to unravel your DNA are; DNApainter, their ‘What are the odds’ (WATO) tool can be very useful if you have an unknown DNA match and want to figure out where they fit in to your tree. Or where you fit in to theirs. DNApainter also has other tools to utilize and is well worth a look.

For those of you who have used the site 23andme or FamilyTreeDNA you can also use the tools on the GeneticAffairs site to gain further insight to your DNA.

The Dana Leeds method is also a good tool and is a manual way of creating a type of cluster sheet. Using a spreadsheet, you colour code each match with their shared matches within a certain centimorgan range. When finished each colour block should be one line of your Family Tree.

Your Ancestry Family Tree will start to become clearer the more you stick with it. But if you would like a helping hand to start you on your way then I am here to help. No question is too silly to ask.

Someone once asked me “what will my DNA show?” and my reply was “the sins of our forefathers is always a risk”. So be prepared, not all may be as expected in your Ancestry Tree. Like many others and I have discovered. It can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride and a history lesson too.