Category Archives: Relationships

The New Family Finder NGS Test Results, Comparison, and Preparation

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This article is focused on two things.

  1. Comparison of my new NGS and the earlier Family Finder tests
  2. How to prepare for yours if you’ve ordered the upgrade

I compared my results from my older Family Finder test with my new NGS Family Finder test results. As an early beta tester, I have two separate tests, a strategy that is not recommended because it causes duplicate matches for people within the database. Additionally, multiple kits for one person doubles the results and could skew future ethnicity research for myOrigins.

Therefore, FamilyTreeDNA has announced very attractively priced upgrades at $29 for both:

  • People who have taken Family Finder test directly at FamilyTreeDNA
  • People who have uploaded their DNA files into Family Finder from other companies

After seeing my comparison, you may want to compare your own results when they arrive, so I’ve documented that process. Warning: this took between 4 and five days because I was working with a spreadsheet with more than 15,000 rows, and I had to write scripts to perform multiple functions. It was NOT fun and I do not recommend it.

Personally, had I known then what I know now about how reliable the new NGS test is, I wouldn’t have bothered with the comparison. However, I would have downloaded my original match list for posterity, just in case.

If you purchase an upgrade to the new NGS Family Finder, your new test results will replace your older Family Finder test results, but will preserve important account features such as linked matches, any notes you have taken, and more. That’s another reason to upgrade rather than order a separate new test. They’ve done the heavy lifting, not to mention that you’ll save about $50 when compared to the price of a new test.

Why is the New NGS Family Finder Test Better?

The new NGS test holds immense promise for the future. This includes better matching, beginning now. Essentially, FamilyTreeDNA is skating to where the puck is going to be (hockey analogy) and preparing for future tools. That future is not far away!

An amazing new set of tools is goaled for release around the end of the year. And I do mean amazing. They are being beta-tested internally now.

Dave Vance spoke about the new Family Finder NGS test at the ECGGC conference in late August, which you can view through the end of 2026 if you register for the virtual  conference, here, and watch the recorded sessions. You’re looking for the DNA Academy on Saturday evening. I can’t share specific preview slides with you as they are noted in his presentation as “not for distribution,” so my pen is capped for now.

All I can say is that after seeing what’s in store, people were literally throwing their billfold at the folks at the FamilyTreeDNA booth – and I do mean literally. “Here – take my money, please!” as the billfold went sailing. We all had a good laugh, but he was serious.

One presenter (not me, just in case you are wondering) left her credit card and a list of tests to upgrade while she was presenting.

They ran out of swab kits at the conference shortly after Dave’s presentation about what the future holds.

Additionally, you will also be treated to THE absolute best presentation I’ve ever seen about what NGS testing is, how it works, and how it compares to traditional tests, low-pass whole-genome tests, and medical-grade whole-genome tests.

You’ll be a passenger on the Genome Valley train, so climb aboard!

So, without spilling any beans, what’s so great about the NGS test?

To begin with, the older Family Finder tests won’t be able to provide everything the new NGS test will be able to offer – and those completely new tools are in active development today.

Why?

The NGS test targets over 280 million base pairs, up from the currently available 700,000.

That’s more than 400 TIMES the coverage.

This increases coverage in the human genome from about .02% to about 9%.

To quote FamilyTreeDNA, “This change allows us to deliver more precise autosomal results today while creating a strong foundation for future reports and tools.”

You can read the FamilyTreeDNA FAQ here.

Before we move on to the comparison, let’s talk for a minute about test types and uploads from other vendors.

Tests and Uploads

All new Family Finder tests purchased at FamilyTreeDNA since March 2, 2026 have been tested using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), so the following matrix does not apply to those tests. Those tests don’t need to be upgraded.

If you sign on to your account, on the Family Ancestry dashboard, and see that your NGS button is grey, then you have not upgraded. Click on that grey button to read more and to upgrade. Right now the upgrade is $29, but I don’t know if that is a promotional price or permanent.

If you tested at FamilyTreeDNA prior to March 2, 2026, or uploaded a DNA file from another vendor, your test will fall into one of the following upgrade path categories.

Tested at FamilyTreeDNA before March 2, 2026 Uploaded and purchased the Unlock Uploaded but did not purchase the Unlock
Upgrade Path Can use sample stored in lab if enough DNA remains* If you purchased any other type of test at FamilyTreeDNA, they will use DNA stored in the lab if enough remains. Otherwise, you will be sent swabs. If you purchased any other type of test at FamilyTreeDNA, they will use DNA stored in the lab if enough remains. Otherwise, you will be sent swabs.
New Swabs* If needed, they will notify you Yes, if needed, will notify or send swabs if you have not taken a direct test at FamilyTreeDNA Yes, if needed, will notify or send swabs if you have not taken a direct test at FamilyTreeDNA
NGS Results Will replace existing results Will replace existing results Will replace existing results

*You will be notified if enough DNA does not remain, and you will be sent new swabs. Be sure your address is current.

One of the reasons the NGS test performs better, even with existing matches from earlier tests, is because less imputation is involved. Let’s talk for a minute about imputation and how it works.

The Concept of Imputation

Most vendors change chips internally from time to time, and FamilyTreeDNA is no different. The difference this time is that the new NGS test covers exponentially more DNA than any earlier test, and all earlier tests combined. This means more than 400 times greater coverage, which in turn means less imputation is needed to compensate for the inevitable no-reads and to be compatible with files that tested different DNA locations.

Imputation is also used when comparing DNA files between vendors who don’t test the same locations.

Click to enlarge any image

Here’s an illustration of the concept of how imputation works.

All of the FamilyTreeDNA chip versions over the years have included about 700,000 locations, as have most other vendors. But the locations tested are not universally the same.

In our simplified concept example, FamilyTreeDNA’s tested “locations” are shown with blue cells.

The total of 20 squares shows the maximum amount of DNA tested by any of the three vendors shown, combined.

Green Vendor 1 in our illustration tests the same amount of DNA that FamilyTreeDNA tests, 12 squares, but some locations are the same and some are different. Of the 12 colored squares for both vendors, seven are the same locations, and five are not. The locations that are the same can be compared directly, but the locations that are different have to undergo special handling called imputation.

Looking at any location in our DNA, one of four nucleotides, or letters, can be present: T, A, C or G on each strand of our chromosomes, although we are only looking at one strand in our example.

Using a very simplified model of imputation, think of imputation as “filling in the blanks” using clues from surrounding letters – kind of like a crossword puzzle.

When two vendors’ data doesn’t overlap, imputation is used to fill in the blanks, as accurately as possible, for the missing data.

Using a word analogy, for vendors one and two only, we see that blue location three has no Family Finder data, where green Vendor 1 does, and the same with location five. If blue locations two and four are C and T, and three has to make a word, then there are few options. In this case, let’s say it’s cat, and location five is imputed to an A too.

Now moving to green Vendor 1, their locations two and five need to be imputed. Moving away from the word analogy, let’s look to the human genome, and let’s say that most of the time, location two is a C if location one and three are Gs. So green location two is imputed to C.

If there’s not enough quality surrounding data, imputation can’t be performed reliably. Hence, location six is still in limbo here.

You can see that in our scenario, location three is the only mismatch, out of three imputed locations. Does location three mismatch because imputation was wrong? We don’t know. Do locations two and five match because imputation was wrong? We don’t know.

All things considered, imputation is based on the science of probability, and is usually relatively reliable, but it’s still not the same as comparing actual data. The more locations that have to be imputed, and the longer the stretch, the greater the possibility of error. Every vendor implements imputation differently too. Even vendors who don’t and have never accepted uploads still use imputation internally to equalize their own legacy files from earlier test versions.

Stepping back once again to compare the four vendors, you’ll notice that pink Vendor 3 only tested half as much DNA as the blue Family Finder test and green Vendor 1, and again, not all of the same locations. That’s exactly what happened with one of the vendors last December – they dropped the number of DNA locations tested to about 400,000 from about 700,000. In our example, you can see how much would have to be imputed. Locations 11, 15, 19 and 20 can’t be imputed for the pink vendor’s file because there’s no surrounding DNA. Location 17 can’t be imputed for the green vendor for the same reason.

When vendors impute to match multiple versions of other vendors’ uploaded files, it can quickly become messy.

The answer, of course, is a “supertest,” which tests all of the locations that overlap everyone, including that vendor’s own earlier tests.

Welcome to Family Finder NGS, shown in orange at the bottom of our example comparison.

As you can see, the orange NGS test covers all of the locations tested by all of the other tests.

NGS is targeted testing for a specific set of locations that are known to undergo mutations in the human genome and provides extremely high-quality results. Imputation for the NGS file is rarely necessary, although imputation for the other vendors’ and earlier file versions is still required for them to match to each other.

This is exactly why the upgrade is recommended, and why there’s no benefit to retaining your old test. The NGS test tests far more data and provides much more reliable matching.

NGS is the great equalizer.

NGS Test Comparison Process

I took my NGS test during the initial R&D development and testing phase, so my original Family Finder test was not upgraded. This afforded me the opportunity to compare the two results.

I downloaded the match files for both of my tests, the original Family Finder and the new NGS Family Finder test, color-coded the background of the cells, not the text inside the cells, and dropped them into a single combined spreadsheet.

It doesn’t matter what colors you choose, but be sure you can easily see the difference. I used apricot for the original Family Finder test matches and light purple for the new NGS test.

As we walk through these results together, you’ll notice that I continue to refer to them by color. In part, that’s so I can maintain my own sanity as I compare results. When I write these types of articles, I have to check and recheck results.

When the same person showed as a match to both tests (meaning they had both an apricot and purple row), I calculated the difference in matching amounts of DNA (cMs) between the match’s results on both tests. I added several calculation columns, which are not shown above.

I’ll tell you, this was not a trivial exercise. It was painful and I really don’t recommend it.

Let’s take a look at the results.

Total Matches

I have some matches with the new NGS test that I do not have with the legacy Family Finder, and I have some matches on the older test that are no longer present on the NGS test.

  Old Family Finder (apricot) NGS Family Finder (purple) Difference
Total Matches 9014 7719 1,295
Maternal 1665 Not linked
Paternal 3783 Not linked
X-Matches 2198 1849 349

I have not yet linked the same matches in my NGS test, so I can’t compare the number of maternal and paternal matches. Fortunately, when you upgrade an existing test, FamilyTreeDNA preserves your linked matches, so you won’t need to relink.

Relationship Estimates

  Old Family Finder (apricot) NGS Family Finder (purple)
1st-2nd cousins, Great/Half Uncle/Aunt/Niece/Nephew, Great-Grandparent/Grandchild 6 6
1st-3rd cousin 1 1
2nd-3rd cousin 5 4
2nd-4th cousin 127 132
3rd-5th cousin 1937 1900
4th to remote 6938 5676
Total 9014 7719

The closest relationships remained the same. One 2nd-3rd cousin moved to the 2nd-4th cousin range by losing 10 cM, 194 cM to 184 cM, but they were apparently on the threshold anyway. That match is actually my second cousin, so both ranges are accurate. It was also a transfer kit, so they did not test at FamilyTreeDNA. This revised match is probably the difference between actual reads and imputed reads in some regions, meaning the match is now more accurate.

275 matches had a predicted relationship change, but not uniformly in one direction, and no one moved more than one category in either direction. This all makes sense.

Match Differences

  Number
Matches found in both the apricot and purple spreadsheets 7,352
Unique (comparable) matches in both spreadsheets 7,174
Matches in original Family Finder apricot only 1,681
Matches in NGS purple only 400

A total of 7,352 matches appear in both spreadsheets, meaning the apricot and purple names matched exactly.

Unfortunately, some people had multiple tests, so I couldn’t always compare apples to apples because they appear three times or more on the combined spreadsheet, and I don’t know which of their kits are which.

If someone with the same exact name had more than one match for either or both tests, I did not compare them because their matching amounts were different, and I didn’t know which one(s) my old test matched, versus which one(s) my new test matched. Usually, one was an upload and one was a test at FamilyTreeDNA, but not always. I excluded those 178 match rows from the analysis.

Therefore, 7,174 matches could be directly compared.

There were 1,681 people who match ONLY on the old Family Finder test, and 400 that match only on the new NGS test. And yes, I downloaded the match files at the same time on the same day, so this comparison was controlled for any time difference.

cM Differences

  Number
Largest apricot match not in purple (NGS) list 26.3 cM
Largest purple (NGS) match not in apricot list 27.63 cM
Largest difference 69.86 cM NGS kit more
NGS detected greater over 10 cMs 19
NGS detected less over 10 cM 7
Total NGS greater 2,924
Total NGS less 3,040
No change 1,090

The largest value difference where a match appeared in the original apricot Family Finder test, and not in the purple NGS test, was 26.3 cMs.

The largest value difference where a match appeared in the NGS purple Family Finder test, and not in the apricot original Family Finder test was 27.63 cMs.

The largest difference between the two tests was 69.86 cMs larger detected by the NGS test. This match was a known second cousin whose matching cMs went from 373.06 to 442.92, but the longest block only increased a negligible amount from 87.47 to 87.69.

The next largest difference was with a 1C1R with a 41.56 cMs difference, also with the NGS-detected value being larger.

In all cases where the number of differing cMs was 16 or greater, the NGS had detected more.

There were very few tests that differed more than 10 cMs. In 19 cases, the NGS test detected a greater difference of 10 cMs or higher, meaning if the original test value was 100 cMs, in the NGS test, it was 110 cMs or greater.

In 7 cases the NGS test detected a smaller difference of 10 cMs or more, meaning that if the original test value was 100 cMs, in the NGS test, it was 90 cMs or smaller.

Out of the 7,174 tests being compared, 19 tests with greater than a 10 cM variation isn’t very many, around 0.26%.

In total, 1,090 matches had no change at all, while 2,924 NGS matches had more matching DNA detected, and 3,160 matches had less.

All but 287 of those differences were less than 5 cMs, and 6778 were less than 1 cM. In other words, literally not worth counting.

myOrigins Ethnicity

We all know to expect changes in our ethnicity from time to time at all vendors. The NGS test is exciting because it covers a much larger portion of our genome. As more people test, the reference library also becomes larger, which means that the ethnicity predictions can and will become more refined too

myOrigins Old Family Finder (apricot) NGS Family Finder (purple)
Central Europe 57% 52%
England, Wales, Scotland 28% 33%
Ireland 15% 14%
Magyar <1% <2%
AmerIndian Andes and Caribbean <1 (see below) N/A
AmerIndian North America <1% (chr 1 & 13) <1 (chr 1 & 2)
Anatolia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, North Africa <1 (chr 13) <1% (chr 10)

None of my major categories changed, but the amounts attributed to each category changed somewhat.

Trace regions, which are less than 1%, shifted some as well, as did their chromosome locations.

For me, this is particularly interesting, because I paint my ethnicity segments at DNAPainter in order to overlay my Native American segments over the matches with whom I’ve identified common ancestors.

Those segments, matches, and ancestors, taken together, help identify the source of the Native American segments.

My Native segment on chromosome one stayed essentially the same, but the Native segment on chromosome 13 is not present on the new NGS test. However, a new Native American segment is now shown on chromosome 2 in the same location that 23andMe also shows a Native American segment.

Chromosome one has already been proven to a Native American ancestor on my mother’s side, but I have hit a brick wall on the chromosome 13 segment. Now, I’ve painted the Native Segment on chromosome 2 and it aligns with the same ancestral line as my Native American segment on chromosome 1.

My Middle Eastern/North African segment still exists, but the location has changed. This segment was adjacent to my Native American segment on chromosome 13 before, on my father’s side, which suggested a history of enslavement. I thought I knew which ancestral line they both descend from, but now I need to review my matches and reconsider.

Unfortunately, my parents are both deceased and there’s no DNA available, so I cannot upgrade their tests or purchase new ones for them. No aunts or uncles are available either. In this case, cousin matches and their associated genealogy on those segments become critically important.

Native American and African American segments are often the best, and sometimes the only hints we have to find and identify those ancestors.

Preparing for Your NGS Results

To be very clear, you don’t necessarily need to compare or prepare, BUT, if you order an upgrade to an existing test, your old match list will be replaced with the new one. Your old match list will not be preserved unless you do it.

What may change?

  • Your ethnicity results will probably change somewhat
  • You will have matches you did not have before
  • Some existing matches, especially at low matching levels, will no longer be there
  • The amount of DNA you share with some people will change

Important: Any notes you have recorded on your matches and any matches that you have linked will be preserved and carried over to your new results when your new test is complete.

If you want to preserve your matches from your earlier test, or your myOrigins results, you’ll need to download your match list, and either download or take screenshots of your ethnicity information.

Ability to Download Tested at FamilyTreeDNA before March 2, 2026 Uploaded and purchased the Unlock Uploaded but did not purchase the Unlock
myOrigins Can download Can download Cannot download
Chromosome Painter (ethnicity) Can download Can download Cannot download
Match list with segment and other information Can download Can download Cannot download
Raw data file Can download Cannot download* Cannot download*

*On tests you uploaded, you don’t need to download the raw data file because you already have it from the originating vendor.

What information is included in your Match List download file?

  • Match name
  • Relationship Range
  • Shared Data cMs
  • Longest Block cMs
  • Linked Relationship (if you linked them in your tree) – this feature is what allows FamilyTreeDNA to assign your matches maternally, paternally or to both sides using triangulation
  • Ancestral Surnames that they’ve entered
  • Y-DNA Haplogroup if applicable
  • mtDNA Haplogroup if applicable
  • Notes
  • Paternal/Maternal or Both side(s) match (if you’ve linked people and this match can be assigned using triangulation. (This is why it’s important to link as many people as possible to their place in your tree.)
  • X-Match cMs
  • Autosomal Transfer yes/no

If you match the same person on the NGS test, this information is preserved for that match.

Where to Download

You must have 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) enabled for all downloads.

The files you may want to download are found on your dashboard in two locations.

  • Family Finder Matches
  • Chromosome Painter (ethnicity)

Family Finder Matches Download

To download your list of matches with their complete information, click on Family Finder Matches on the dashboard, then on “Export CSV.”

This download provides all the fields mentioned above, whereas the Chromosome Browser segment download provides only your matching segment data, without the additional information.

Download MyOrigins Ethnicity Segment Data

To download your myOrigins ethnicity segments, click on Chromosome Painter on your dashboard, then on “Download Segments.” You can also view or copy those segments by viewing the Detailed Segments tab.

I paint these segments at DNAPainter so that I can correlate my ethnicity regions with my ancestors’ segments.

To assign segments accurately, it helps immensely to have at least one parent’s DNA results too, and preferably both.

You may also want to take a screenshot of your myOrigins map. Note the left-side scroll bar when you’re taking screenshots.

What’s Next?

What else can you do at FamilyTreeDNA to benefit your genealogy?

  • If you haven’t already, upload a GEDCOM file or create a tree at MyHeritage, and link your Family Finder test to your results.
  • Link your individual matches to their place in your tree. This allows FamilyTreeDNA to use segments triangulated with linked matches to assign other matches to either the maternal or paternal side of your tree, or both.
  • Add your line to WikiTree. It’s easy. Begin with yourself and add ancestors until you connect with someone who is already in WikiTree. For me, it was the grandparent level.
  • Add your WikiTree link to your FamilyTreeDNA account under the gear in the upper right-hand corner, then Genealogy, then Family Tree. This gives your matches an easy way to identify common ancestors by using WikiTree’s Find Relationships feature, and provides two types of tree resources for you and your matches – MyHeritage and WikiTree.
  • Make sure your Earliest Known Ancestor information is correct and up-to-date with your most recent research, including a specific map location. You’ll find that under the gear too, then Genealogy, then Earliest Known Ancestors.
  • Add your surname list to your profile under the gear, Genealogy, Surnames tab.
  • Use the Matrix tool at FamilyTreeDNA to see how much DNA your shared matches share with each other.
  • Y-DNA – If you’re a male, test your Y-DNA, which is your father’s direct paternal line. The Big Y-700 test provides you with matches and the most detailed information possible.
  • mtDNA – Everyone can take a mitochondrial DNA test, which shows matches and provides information about your mother’s direct matrilineal line.
  • Use Advanced Matching, found under Additional Tests and Tools on your dashboard page, near the bottom, which allows you to select from multiple tests to see who matches you on both types of tests. For example, those who match you on both your full sequence mtDNA test and your Family Finder test.
  • Join projects relevant to your family surname, geography or broader interests. You’ll find Group Projects in the top banner of your dashboard page after signing in.
  • Utilize the Discover tools for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA results.

Check your matches often to see who is new and what might have changed as people upgrade to the new NGS test and more people test.

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What is a Quick-and-Dirty Tree, and When Might I Need One?

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You may have heard genealogists talk about creating a quick-and-dirty tree.

What is that, exactly? When and why would you want one?

Good questions.

Matches and Trees

DNA matches don’t always have useful trees.

They might have:

  • No tree
  • A partial tree with only a few people in the closest generation or two
  • A tree with some lines built out, but others not so much

What’s a genealogist to do? After all, it’s your match’s tree, not your tree, and you have no way to expand their tree.

Except, you do.

It’s called a quick-and-dirty tree.

Quick-and-Dirty Trees

A quick-and-dirty tree is essentially a “throw-away” tree that you construct at Ancestry with the express purpose of obtaining hints, including potential parents, in order to quickly build your matches tree backwards in time until you (hopefully) reach a common ancestor.

And yes, of course trees, hints and suggestions of any kind can be wrong – but that doesn’t mean they’re always wrong, and you’re not adding anything from your quick-and-dirty tree to your tree – or even displaying it publicly.

You’re simply trying to find a common ancestor by using what your match has provided in their tree. Think of a quick-and-dirty tree as a scratch pad of sorts.

Let’s work through an example.

Initial Analysis

In this example, Ancestry has already told me that this match is most probably my half-second-cousin (half 2C) or second-cousin-once-removed (2C1R) based on the amount of DNA that we share, although the full relationship range includes several more options.

Ancestry also tells me that this match is on my maternal side. There’s no information provided about whether this match is on their maternal or paternal side, or even both.

A second-cousin (2C) relationship means that we share great-grandparents, and once removed means that one of us is one step further down the tree than the other person.

In other words, I’m 2C with my match’s parents, or my match is 2C with my mother. I wrote about this in the article, Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean?

I see that my match has a public linked tree with 7 people, which probably isn’t going to be terribly helpful.

Of course, the first thing to do is to review my match’s tree and see if I recognize either their surname or the names in their tree.

This tree only reaches back two generations, and our common ancestor, based on the relationships predicted by shared DNA, would be another generation, or two, further removed.

I don’t recognize any of these names, although I’ll review each person for a location to see if I can narrow the scope to the couple most likely to lead to our common ancestor.

On my mother’s side, one of her parents is from northern Indiana, and one is from southern Indiana, but not everyone enters locations in their trees, and they aren’t necessarily accurate.

The list of “all people” in my match’s tree, under “Find in tree”, at far right, provides additional information. Unfortunately, this tree shows Earl Townsend’s wife’s name as Mildred Ideal Thorstenson Townsend Smith here and in her profile, but the name order differs. To begin, I’ll enter Thorstenson Smith, not her married name of Townsend, in the quick-and-dirty tree I’m building. You can refine this shortly.

In this case, it looks like the Townsend line is most promising to find a common ancestor, given that Fulton County is in northern Indiana, but we’ll find out that this isn’t the case when we construct our quick-and-dirty tree.

Building the Quick-and-Dirty Tree

You need to build a new tree, NOT add to your “real” tree.

At Ancestry, go to Trees in the top banner, then click on “Create and Manage Trees.”

You’ll see the list of trees that you own. This is where all of the trees that you create live.

At the far bottom, you’ll see the prompt to create a new tree. Click there.

Next, you’ll see a blank tree.

For the home person, you can enter your match’s name, but be sure to list them as living so you’re not revealing private information.

After adding one parent, you’ll be prompted to save and name the tree. Both the tester, who is designated as male by the Ancestry icon, and his father are either both living, or private, so I’m simply entering the surname of Robinson based on the grandfather’s surname. That could be incorrect of course, but it’s all I have to go on – yet.

Ironically, their grandfather’s surname was spelled Robison, without the “n”, not Robinson, but I accidentally entered Robinson and still got where I needed to go.

Clearly, I’m not going to allow this tree to be viewed by others, aka public, so I’m not checking that box. If it’s checked by default, uncheck it.

I don’t make my quick-and-dirty trees public because they are entirely unproven and unverified. I’m literally quickly searching for hints with every intention of abandoning the tree when I’m finished. If you want to clean the tree up later, you have the option to change the tree’s privacy settings.

Information in Your Match’s Tree Might Be Wrong

Complete the tree to be the same as your match’s tree. After saving your tree, click on the individuals you’ve added to view their hints.

Let’s start with Earl Townsend who appears to be our best candidate based on location.

Earl Russell Townsend has 13 hints, including a marriage license that confirms his birth date and location and provides the names of his parents, plus his wife’s name as Mildred Thorstenson. Based on what we know already, this is probably the correct Earl Townsend.

Of course, the wife’s surname could be incorrect. It could be her first or second marriage, or she could have been a widow when they married, so this surname might not be her birth surname.

Look for additional records in Earl’s hints.

Russell’s death certificate confirms that information, as do the birth and death certificates of their children.

Accept those hints.

If you determine that the original information in your match’s tree is incorrect, you’ll want to correct it in your quick-and-dirty tree. Remember, this is a scratch pad – you can’t hurt this tree.

Let’s change Mildred’s name to reflect her birth surname.

I refined Earl’s wife’s name to Mildred Thorstenson, which then produced 12 hints for her, including her marriage and Social Security record, with her birth and death dates, and her parents’ names. Her name in my match’s tree of Mildred Ideal Thorstenson Townsend Smith had produced zero hints.

Additionally, census records showed Mildred with her parents.

These seem to align, so accept those hints.

Looking at the pedigree view of my quick-and-dirty tree, we now see that both Russell and Mildred’s parents identified in the records are suggested as their potential parents.

Review each suggestion. If they look accurate based on the records identified, accept those potential parents in order to view the next generation.

Based on these names and census information, I can eliminate the Thorstenson line. It’s Swedish, not German or Dutch, which comprise my mother’s northern Indiana lines, My mother has no known Swedish ancestors, and we have proven her Indiana lineage in this timeframe.

Accepting the hints for the parents of both Earl Townsend and Mildred Thorstenson, parent hints appear for John Townsend and Eva Martin.

Now we’re viewing the next group of hints, which would be the great-great-grandparent generation. If these are our common ancestor, that would mean that I’m third cousins with my match, which is beyond the predicted relationship range. Third cousins is not impossible, but it’s beyond the probable match level based on the amount of shared DNA. furthermore, I don’t recognize any surnames.

So, let’s move to the Robison (incorrectly spelled Robinson) line and step through the same process. We can always come back and work with more parental hints on the Townsend/Martin line if we need to.

Rolland Robison only has a death year in my match’s tree, and that combined with the misspelled surname meant he had no hints on Ancestry, so I clicked on “Search” in my quick-and-dirty tree.

I’m searching for a man by this name, with a wife whose first name is Chloe.

AHA!

There it is! Note that Ancestry found Rolland Robison, not Robinson, married to Chloe.

Chloe was a Ferverda. My mother’s father was John Ferverda, and the location is correct for this family.

I saved this record to Rolland Robinson and added Ferverda as Chloe’s surname in our quick-and-dirty tree. This provided Rolland with 12 hints.

Adding Ferverda as Chloe’s surname provides her with a dozen hints too, including potential parents, Hiram B. Ferverda and Evaline Louise Miller – my great-great-grandparents who are indeed the 2C generation.

These common ancestors fall within the expected amount of shared DNA for second cousins, so this aligns well.

My quick-and-dirty tree has revealed at least one pair of common ancestors. Could there be more common lineages? Yes. I would continue building out this quick-and-dirty tree for (at least) another couple of generations on the other lines just to be sure.

What Next?

That depends on what you want to accomplish and your genealogy goals.

I used a DNA match at Ancestry in this example, but your match might be at a different vendor. Regardless, you’ll still want to use Ancestry to build your quick-and-dirty tree based on how they present hints and potential ancestors.

Now that you know how your DNA match connects:

  • Minimally, make a note on the match that indicates the most recent common ancestor(s) identified. I include a link to the quick-and-dirty tree I’ve created.
  • You can add your match and their ancestral path to your common ancestor into your own tree at whichever vendor where the match occurs.
  • If you match at either FamilyTreeDNA or MyHeritage, both of whom provide segment information, I suggest painting your matching segments to DNAPainter.

Painting your segments identifies your matching segments as descending from those ancestors and makes it easier to identify the shared ancestral lineage of anyone else who shares that segment on the same side of your tree (maternal or paternal).

Word of caution here: You can potentially share multiple ancestral paths with any match, so different segments with one match can descend from different ancestors.

  • If your match is at FamilyTreeDNA, you’ll want to link your match to their place in your tree.

Using triangulation, FamilyTreeDNA utilizes linked matches to assign matches who share the same segments to the maternal or paternal side of your tree (or both) using triangulation.

  • You may be trying to break through a brick wall by identifying common ancestors BETWEEN your shared matches that aren’t in your own tree.

This approach is obviously easier the closer your brick wall is in time to the present. Great-grandparents, at the second-cousin level, and great-great-grandparents at the third-cousin level are much easier than 5th- or 6th-generation ancestors who lived before birth and death certificates and detailed census records existed.

Furthermore, the further back in time, the more likely that you may encounter:

  • Pedigree collapse, where the same ancestors appear more than once in your tree
  • Or you share multiple common ancestors with your matches

Of course, there’s always the possibility of endogamy too, where you descend from a historically heavily-intermarried population, such as Ashkenazi Jews or the Amish, for example, which means you may share segments passed down within the population from distant common ancestors you won’t be able to identify. While endogamy in your lineages may increase the amount of shared DNA, which in turn can skew relationship estimates, it won’t prevent you from using quick-and-dirty trees to locate common ancestors.

And finally, unexpected parentage or issues like record destruction may impede your progress, but you’ll never know if you don’t try, which brings us back to the purpose of quick-and-dirty trees.

Building a quick-and-dirty tree is the easiest way to grow your matches’ trees to reveal your common ancestors.

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RootsTech 2026 – The Wind Beneath Our Wings

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I started writing this article on Sunday evening, the day after RootsTech ended, and I’m basking in the afterglow. Also, my back and feet may never forgive me.

As a tongue-in-cheek comment, I think someone coined the word “exhausterwhelmulated” and defined it as being exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at once. Yep, that’s me.

However, I need to add another couple of words to this – gratitude and joy.

Gratitude and Joy

I’m going to try to express this without sounding too sappy.

Do you recall the joy you used to feel when you spotted a relative you loved dearly but didn’t get to see often? Think of the unbridled joy as you piled out of your parents’ car and spotted your grandmother coming out of the door because she saw the car pull up. You ran as fast as your little legs could carry you directly into her arms, and got hugged so tightly it nearly squeezed the breath out of you.

I don’t know what the word for that would be, but it’s similar to how RootsTech feels.

Let me explain. Continue reading →

AutoKinship by Genetic Affairs Builds Family Trees from Your Matches at FamilyTreeDNA, and More

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Genetic Affairs released a new AutoKinship tool designed for FamilyTreeDNA’s autosomal Family Finder matches, which also incorporates information from other sources. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel, because AutoKinship has been available for more than six months now.

I’ve been testing this tool with my matches, and it’s an immense help to those of us trying to untangle complicated family relationships using DNA evidence. I don’t know about you, but I have a long list of brick well where I could use help!

How to Use This Guide

This article is long and there are many steps involved – but it’s well worth it at the end.

My suggestion for using this article effectively is to read it through, at least once, to see what you’re going to be doing, and why.

Then, after you get things set up at Genetic Affairs, and any files you want to include, come back and use this article as a step-by-step guide to navigate these new tools.

Here’s the bottom line. The Genetic Affairs tools use matches, along with shared and bucketed matches at FamilyTreeDNA, plus their archived trees, in addition to external GEDCOM files and other information that you can provide in order to create customized, focused clusters and potential family trees for your clustered matches.

These tools combine DNA matching with internal and external trees for the composite best of both types of information.

So grab your favorite drink and let’s get started.

FamilyTreeDNA

AutoKinship works in conjunction with FamilyTreeDNA’s tools, such as Shared Matching, the Matrix tool, and Family Matching, also known as bucketing, which assigns parental sides to your matches using linked matches.

Linked matches are your matches whose relationship to you is known. If you haven’t already, link them to their profile card on your tree by clicking on “Link on Family Tree.” This allows FamilyTreeDNA, by using triangulation, to “bucket” your matches either maternally or paternally – meaning if they are related to you on your maternal side, paternal side, or both.

In my cousin Patricia’s case, the little pink icon by her profile picture shows that she has been bucketed maternally. That occurred when I linked my mother’s DNA to my tree because Patricia matches us both, plus other linked maternal cousins, on the same segments. For bucketing to occur, you don’t have to do anything except link known relatives to their proper place in your tree. FamilyTreeDNA does the rest by assigning your matches either maternally or paternally if they match on common segments.

Upload DNA Files to FamilyTreeDNA from Other Vendors

If you have not taken the Family Finder test at FamilyTreeDNA or uploaded your DNA file from 23andMe (Dec 2010 to present), Ancestry (May 2012 to present), or MyHeritage (March 2019 to May 7, 2025) to FamilyTreeDNA, you should do so now to take advantage of their tools, plus AutoKinship at Genetic Affairs.

What is AutoKinship and Why is it Different?

AutoKinship takes traditional clustering and kicks it up several notches. Instead of just showing you which matches cluster together, it actually attempts to build family trees based on the shared DNA amounts between your matches.

AutoKinship looks at how much DNA your matches share with you, and with each other, and uses that information to predict their relationships. Then AutoKinship builds potential family trees showing how everyone might connect. Additionally, you get to provide input in the process.

The timing couldn’t be better, especially since FamilyTreeDNA recently launched their updated Matrix tool, showing how your matches are related to each other. I wrote about that, here.

Two Steps

There are two primary steps in the AutoKinship process that build on each other. However, within these steps, there are many stepping-stones, so I’ve documented each one.

We’re going to use these tools, one at a time, in order.

I suggest that you join the Genetic Affairs User Group on Facebook for additional support and information.

Using AutoKinship with FamilyTreeDNA

The AutoKinship functionality for FamilyTreeDNA provides an automated approach using both AutoCluster and AutoKinship, together, then AutoLineage, where you can refine the information in a number of ways.

🔹 Step 1: Automated AutoKinship via Genetic Affairs

The first step involves running the AutoKinship tool directly from the Genetic Affairs members’ site. This process is fully automated:

  • It starts with the FamilyTreeDNA AutoCluster option, which groups DNA matches into shared clusters based on their connections to each other.
  • AutoKinship is then automatically launched on each cluster, adding the DNA tester and generating relationship hypotheses among the group.
  • Several family tree models are produced, showing how the matches and the tester could be connected based on shared DNA and cluster structure.

This step is ideal for getting quick insights into how groups of matches may relate.

🔹 Step 2: Refined Clustering & Relationship Analysis Using AutoLineage

After the automated run, downloadable files for AutoLineage are generated. These files allow you to re-import the match, shared matches, and tree data into the AutoLineage web application for further analysis.

This second step offers greater control and customization:

  • You can redo the clustering, optionally tweaking parameters to fine-tune how matches are grouped.
  • You can redo the common ancestor analysis, optionally tweaking parameters to fine-tune the discovery of MRCAs
  • The AutoKinship tool within AutoLineage becomes available again, this time with additional functionality:
    • Define known relationships between matches, such as parent-child or cousin relationships
    • Define generational information, for instance, if you know certain matches are not on the same generational level
    • Integrate MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) data from reconstructed trees, e.g., from the Find Common Ancestors module.

This enhanced phase is especially useful for integrating genealogical trees for targeted clusters.

By combining both steps, automated clustering with AutoKinship, and manual refinement with known or tree-derived relationships using AutoLineage – you can leverage your FamilyTreeDNA data for in-depth relationship exploration.

Let’s Take AutoKinship for a Spin

As always, I’ll walk you through this process step by step, using my own DNA results as an example.

Getting Started

First things first – you’ll need to be a member of Genetic Affairs, so sign up for their free membership, here. Genetic Affairs’ customers purchase “credits” to spend on various features and reports, but you receive 200 free to start.

The automated AutoKinship analysis available on the Genetic Affairs website can be run using credits from the free tier – perfect for exploring the tool without any commitment. This allows users to generate relationship trees for FamilyTreeDNA clusters right away.

To access the more advanced features in the AutoLineage desktop application—including refined clustering, manual relationship input, and integration of MRCA data from reconstructed trees – you’ll need an active subscription.

To get started, sign in to the Genetic Affairs member site, here.

Let’s walk through the process step by step.

We’ll begin by registering a FamilyTreeDNA profile at Genetic Affairs. Click on “Register a new website” to get started.

FamilyTreeDNA account passwords are not stored at Genetic Affairs.

After clicking “Register profile,” you’ll see a message asking you to double-check the credentials for the kit you’re about to use. This is also a good time to log in to your FamilyTreeDNA account directly to make sure there are no pending actions — such as enabling two-factor authentication or accepting updated terms of service.

Once you click “I understand, continue,” you’ll see a list of all registered FamilyTreeDNA profiles at Genetic Affairs.

Locate the kit you want to analyze and click the blue “Start analysis” button.
This opens a guided wizard that walks you through each step of the setup.

First, select AutoKinship and click “Next.”

You’ll then be asked to define several thresholds:

  • Minimum and maximum shared cM
  • Minimum size of the largest segment
  • Minimum cluster size

A quick word of caution here: selecting a very low minimum cM value may actually reduce the number of usable matches. That’s because the system must download shared match data until it either reaches that threshold, or a preset timer expires, which can limit how much data is downloaded. When in doubt, start conservatively. You can always rerun the analysis later and change the parameters. Unfortunately, there’s no way to simoly “get everything” in one run which is, of course, what everyone would do.

Click “Next” to continue.

This section determines which matches will be included in the analysis.
For your first run, I recommend using the top matches within the selected range. This provides a strong foundation and usually produces the clearest results.

Later, once you’re more familiar with the output, you may want to experiment by analyzing only the shared matches of a specific person or group. For now, keep it simple and click “Next.”

Here, you’ll enter your FamilyTreeDNA password (twice) so the system can retrieve the required data.

If you use two-factor authentication, you can enter the 2FA code here, as well. To do that, log in to your FamilyTreeDNA account, retrieve the code from your email, and paste it into the wizard.

Then click “Next.”

You’ll now see a summary of all the settings you’ve chosen. Take a moment to review everything. When you’re ready, click “Perform analysis” in the bottom right corner.

At this point, the Genetic Affairs servers take over and begin processing your data.

The Results Arrive

When your report is ready, you’ll receive an email with a download link. You can also access it through the notification panel in the top right corner of the Genetic Affairs site.

Downloading the report will result in a zipped file. Save it in a location on your computer where you can find it.

Critical Step

This step is critical and will save you a great deal of frustration: If you’re using a PC, you MUST extract or unzip the files before you can properly use them. I can’t tell you how many people skip this step and then wonder why they’re receiving error messages. Ask me how I know!

This is your zipped file.

If you try to open the HTML file while it’s still zipped, it might appear to work at first, but when you click on any links within the file, you’ll receive an error.

If this happens to you, close everything, right-click on that yellow zipped folder, select “extract all,” and then try again.

Now you’re set up, so on to the fun part – viewing the results.

Exploring Your Results

Once you have everything properly extracted and open the HTML file, you’ll watch your AutoCluster literally fly into place on your screen. I love this part. It’s like watching my family fly into place. I wish the actual genealogy research was this easy.

The new Genetic Affairs reports include significantly more information than previous versions.

You can change what’s displayed using the dropdown menu.

By default, you’ll see the shared cM amounts between your matches, but you can change this to show paternal or maternal information if you’ve identified those lineages by linking your matches.

In my case, my maternal line has fewer matches because my mother’s ancestry includes both recent Dutch and German immigrants, so the majority of my high cM matches are US-centric on my father’s side. My father’s ancestors have been in this country since colonial times, and a lot of testers in the US are looking back to the old country for their origins.

Therefore, in my first several clusters, I see squares with the symbol P, indicating they are paternal matches – designated as such through linked family matches, aka bucketing.

You can see the faint Ps inside the orange cells.

Here’s a close-up so you can see the “P” for paternal. If you haven’t linked your matches, you won’t have bucketed matches. Your Genetic Affairs results don’t require bucketing – it’s just a really beneficial feature.

You can change your AutoCluster settings in several ways. I tend to start with the defaults and then modify from there.

Genetic Affairs functions based on the amount of server time a particular tool takes, so it’s not possible to just “run everything,” or trust me, I would.

The Common Ancestor Magic

In your report, scroll down several sections, and you’ll find Common Ancestors – my favorite feature.

This section shows you the common ancestors that have been identified between your matches’ trees.

Looking at the Common Ancestors cluster report, you can click on three things for each cluster:

  • FamilyTreeDNA Trees of Cluster #
  • Common Ancestors of Cluster #
  • Common Locations of Cluster #

Let’s examine the reconstructed trees based on the common ancestor analysis. The first cluster shows some of my close DNA matches that are descendants of my Vannoy line.

You can see that there are six testers, in addition to me, who descend from Joel Vannoy.

Next, scroll down to the AutoKinship section of your report.

The AutoKinship Analysis

The real treasure lies in the AutoKinship analysis, which is presented in a small table on the main HTML page. When you click on the AutoKinship results for any cluster, you’ll see reconstructed trees based on the shared DNA amounts between matches, meaning between you and each of them, and between each other.

You can see that I have 10 reports available based on the cluster numbers indicated.

I clicked on Cluster 1, which shows some of my close DNA matches who are Vannoy line descendants. This includes testers both with and without trees.

Since the AutoKinship algorithm doesn’t have access to age information, it sometimes struggles with generational differences – but the relationship predictions are still remarkably useful.

Alternative trees are also provided, giving you multiple hypotheses to investigate.

Some matches may not be integrated because of incompatible relationships.

The Next Step with AutoLineage – Adding Genealogical Trees to the Mix

We’ve seen AutoTree and AutoKinship. The new upgraded AutoLineage adds genealogical tree information to genetic information by allowing the user to:

  • Import other trees
  • Integrate most recent common ancestors (MRCAs) in AutoKinship trees
  • Set known relationships
  • Provide generational information.

AutoLineage, Genetic Affairs’ online clustering and tree-building tool, has been around for several years but was recently upgraded to create trees based on shared DNA and incorporate genealogical evidence.

This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

Setting Up AutoLineage

Return to the home page at Genetic Affairs and select AutoLineage.

If you’re new to this tool, you’ll see a simplified workflow on the start page that walks you through the process.

First, create a profile representing the DNA test taker – in my case, that’s me.

After creating the profile, you’ll be redirected to the landing page of the profile. From there, you can register DNA tests linked to the profile. From the home page, you can see the different profiles.

You’ll register a new FamilyTreeDNA test specifically for each user whose kit you manage and who took a test.

FamilyTreeDNA is the only DNA testing company for which Genetic Affairs runs automated analyses on their site.

Additionally, you can:

Importing the Data

After registering a FamilyTreeDNA test, you are redirected to the overview of this DNA page, where matches are imported.

Click on “Import matches” and select the CSV file from Genetic Affairs. Here’s where that AutoKinship report we generated earlier comes in handy. The unzipped report contains match and shared match information that we can import directly into AutoLineage.

Navigate to the gephi folder in your report and select the nodes.csv file to import your matches.

After importing the matches, a short dialog shows how many matches were imported.

After closing the dialog box, the DNA matches pane is opened.

You’ll see your DNA matches that were downloaded.

Next, import the shared match information from the edges.csv file in the same gephi folder.

Once both data sets are imported, you’ll see that the ICW (In Common With) column has populated, showing how many shared matches are available for each DNA match.

Clustering in AutoLineage

Now, with the shared match data loaded, you can perform your own clustering analysis.

The wizard allows you to set parameters for which matches to include based on:

  • The amount of shared cMs
  • Weighted or unweighted clustering
  • How much DNA is shared between shared matches

You can also define the cluster characteristics, from sparse to very dense clusters.

Last, you can select the coloring scheme. After setting the parameters, click on “Start Clustering,” at bottom right.

After clustering is finished, the clustering chart is displayed. It looks fairly similar to the ones obtained automatically from Genetic Affairs, but with some differences.

The first thing I noticed is that the large orange cluster 1 in the automated clustering is now mostly represented by the purple cluster 4.

Let’s zoom in on this cluster. By looking more closely at the numbers contained in each cluster, you can already make an estimated guess about the richness in relationship information for cluster members. This cluster has lots of close relationships. Clusters whose matches only share a small amount of DNA with each other are not the best candidates for an AutoKinship analysis because they most likely share a distant common ancestor. Unless, of course, it’s a distant ancestor you’re searching for. (Hello brick wall.)

Adding and Importing Tree Information

Now that we have the new clusters, we could continue to directly run the tree reconstruction on these clusters using the shared DNA information, but let’s wait  since we want to include the tree information as well to guide this process.

To use common ancestors, we need to import the available trees that are linked to the DNA matches. Luckily, just like (shared) match information, the tree information is provided with the automated analysis as well. Let’s import the data.

First, navigate to the tree management page. As you can see, no trees have been created or imported. Let’s start the wizard by clicking on the “Import Trees” button.

An “Import tree” wizard pops up, providing different ways to import tree information. It’s also possible to import GEDCOM files or tree data from other resources, but for now, I’m only using the archived trees at FamilyTreeDNA.

Click on the last option and select the files.

Navigate to the matches folder and select the HTML files contained in the folder.

Each file represents a DNA match report, some of which have a tree associated with them.

After importing the trees, they are automatically associated with the concerned DNA matches (using the unique identifier present in each file name). The tree overview page shows which tree is linked to a profile or DNA test, and the amount of DNA shared with the linked DNA match.

If you have created trees for your matches based on your own research (like quick and dirty trees), now is the time to import these using the “Import Tree” wizard again. This is a wonderful feature, because it means you’re not entirely dependant on your match having uploaded a tree themselves.

If you don’t import trees from GEDCOMs, you don’t need the linking wizard.

Click on the “Import Tree” wizard and select the GEDCOM option.

Now that we have imported additional trees, we need to associate them with DNA matches.

You can use a wizard to link the unlinked trees to the DNA matches, or link them from each DNA match. The wizard will try to guestimate, based on the content of the tree file name, which DNA match could be associated with the tree. Change the search criteria if it does not provide the correct results.

TIP: Save the GEDCOM files with the name of the linked DNA match as well the shared cM, which speeds up the importing process

Don’t forget to import your own tree. I imported my GEDCOM file from my computer genealogy software and associated it with my profile so it’s included in the common ancestor identification. You can easily upload your GEDCOM from your computer software, or download your tree from either Ancestry or MyHeritage to upload here.

Visit the profile, and select the tree pane. The tree pane only shows a single individual and allows you to add ancestors to it manually. To associate that individual with an existing tree, click on “Link to Existing Tree”.

A wizard will be displayed, which shows all available trees on the left side. Sort by clicking on the “Created” column to display the most recent trees.

Next, you need to select the root person.

I selected my tree.

Next, the right side of the wizard fills with the people in the selected tree. Select the root person, which is me, and click on “Save” in the lower right corner.

Finding Common Ancestors

Now that we have associated a tree with the profile and imported trees for the FamilyTreeDNA matches, it’s time to locate some common ancestors. Fingers crossed!

Go back to the profile and select the profile overview. Scroll down to the “Find common ancestors” section and click on the “Find common ancestors” button.

The “common ancestors” wizard shows trees that are associated with this profile in the table on the left and provides information about the different steps on the right. You can change the settings to make the search more restrictive or more relaxed.

After running the common ancestor identification, a dialog shows the number of trees and tree persons that were used, and the number of common ancestors that were identified.

After the analysis runs, you’ll be able to view all reconstructed trees or filter them based on common ancestors, trees, or linked DNA matches.

Common ancestors, not surprisingly, often align closely with what the automated analysis discovered.

All six testers are now shown descending from our common ancestor, in the approximate location where they will fit in our common tree.

But we aren’t quite finished yet.

The Final AutoKinship Analysis

Finally, we’ve arrived. The earlier steps were necessary to pave the way.

We have the common ancestors and clusters, and it’s time to go back to the clusters to begin the reconstruction of trees using trees combined with DNA.

Click on the profile and go to the clustering results pane. Select the 1x view, which will show the clustering chart.

Now select the matches pane that shows the different matches that are contained in each cluster. Scroll down until you reach your cluster of interest, which is four for me.

After clicking on any cluster, you’ll be redirected to a cluster view with only the information for that particular cluster.

Let’s view purple cluster 4, which looks fairly dense, with only a couple of empty cells, indicating that these shared matches with white cells did not share (enough) DNA with each other to be included in the cluster. Now select the matches pane in the dashboard at the top of this cluster, which displays the matches linked to this specific cluster. As you can see, a button is now available that allows us to run the AutoKinship analysis. Click on the button.

Single cluster matches are displayed.

Now back to the wizard.

The wizard provides several important parameters:

  • Maximum number of generations between DNA matches
  • Number of trees to analyze in each iteration
  • Final number of trees to keep
  • Whether to include known relationships and/or MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) relationships

In this example, MRCA relationships were found because we performed the common ancestor identification that resulted in common ancestors between the matches of this cluster.

If you know specific relationships between matches, you can set those manually. Sometimes you might not know the exact relationship, but if you can estimate that a match is one or more generations older or younger than yourself, you can set that too.

In addition to setting the relationship between the test taker (indicated in green in the table) and the DNA matches, it’s also possible to set the relationship between shared matches, if known.

The Hybrid Results

After the analysis has finished, an overview of the identified trees is presented.

The final result is a blended tree where DNA evidence fills in the blanks for matches who haven’t uploaded trees, or you haven’t provided a tree, and known genealogy supports the structure where it exists. This hybrid approach gives us the best of both worlds – the precision of documented genealogy combined with the discovery power of DNA analysis.

I particularly like this approach, because when I identify how a DNA match is related to me from any vendor, I enter their lineage in my desktop genealogy software. Therefore, using that GEDCOM file is the most complete source of my identified relatives.

Testers 1-6 were shown using the regular AutoTree, without the integrated tree, but an additional 11 matches were placed for consideration using all available tools.

I was using this as an experiment because I know how most people in this cluster are related, and those are all placed accurately. There is one person, located on the branch between 1 and 5, who I had no idea how they fit into this puzzle. Now, at least I know where to look.

I can’t imagine trying to do all of this manually.

Why This Matters

For those of us dealing with unknown parent or grandparent situations, poorly documented lines, non-existent trees, or just plain stubborn brick walls, this combination of tools is nothing short of amazing. You can now explore relationship hypotheses even when traditional documentation is scarce.

The reconstructed trees show how common ancestor information provides the template, while the AutoLineage tool fills gaps using shared DNA information. The updated AutoLineage is the genealogical assistant that never gets tired and can deal with relationship possibilities much more effectively than traditional hand-based methods.

In Summary

If you haven’t explored Genetic Affairs recently, give it a look. The integration between AutoKinship and AutoLineage represents a significant step forward in DNA analysis.

While AutoKinship offers valuable insights on its own, its full potential is truly unlocked when you export the data into AutoLineage. The combination creates a comprehensive analysis that was previously impossible.

For researchers dealing with complex family relationships or challenging genealogical puzzles, this hybrid approach that combines matches at FamilyTreeDNA with DNA evidence and genealogical trees could be the key to breaking through stubborn brick walls that nothing else has budged.

Last but not least, I suggest reading Dr. Patricia Coleman’s blog articles about these tools and her methodologies here and here. Patricia works extensively with these tools, and I often recommend her for private autosomal research consultations. Patricia’s 2026 RootsTech Session, DNA Case Study: Finding an 1877 Birth Father with Genetic Affairs, BanyanDNA, and No Birth Record, details her work solving a long-standing problem for my cousin in the Speaks family.

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Share the Love!

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Subscribe!

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Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small commission when you click a vendor link in my articles and purchase that item. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the affiliate links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

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2025 Genetic Genealogy Retrospective: Wow – What a Year!

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2025 has been quite a year in genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy, per se, really isn’t a separate “thing” anymore. DNA testing is now an integral part of genealogy, with the potential to answer questions that nothing else can!

The 76 articles I wrote in 2025 fall into multiple categories and focus on different topics based on what was happening in the industry.

From my perspective, here are the most notable announcements and trends in genetic genealogy, and genealogy more broadly.

#1 for 2025 – Mitochondrial DNA: The Million Mito Project Released the New Mitotree, Updates, and mtDNA Discover

The biggest genealogy news items this year, both industry-wide and genealogy-changing are definitely the release of the new Mitotree, plus two tree updates. But that’s not all.

In addition, full sequence mitochondrial DNA testers received new Mitotree haplogroups, if appropriate, and everyone received a haplotype – a new feature. Along with Mitotree, FamilyTreeDNA introduced mtDNA Discover which provides 13 individual reports based on your haplogroup and matches.

It’s no wonder that mitochondrial DNA articles led the pack with the most views based on the eleven articles about that topic. If you haven’t yet tested your mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA, there’s no better time! You never know what you’re going to discover and the more testers, the more matches for everyone.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you’ll never know if you don’t test. Remember, mitochondrial DNA is for both males and females and tests your mother’s direct matrilineal line (mother to mother to mother, etc.) – reaching beyond known surnames.  Click here to order or upgrade.

#2 – MyHeritage Low Pass Whole Genome Sequence Test Charges into the Future

Another big hitter is the new MyHeritage low-pass whole genome test (WGS) test. It’s new and innovative, but we haven’t seen comparative results yet.

My results from the new low-pass whole genome test just came back, and I haven’t had the opportunity to review them yet, as compared to the earlier tests. That said, I do have roughly the same number of matches, but I need to determine if they are the same matches, and how well they track. I’ll be working on that review soon.

The new whole genome test may be more about future proofing and preparedness than additional current benefit – but we will see. I definately wanted to take the whole genome test so I can receive and benefit from whatever new is coming down the pike.

MyHeritage allows you to maintain multiple DNA tests on your account, so the new whole genome won’t “replace” your older or uploaded test. That way, you can easily compare the results of the whole genome against any DNA test that you curently have at MyHeritage.

Click here to order the new test.

#3 – 23andMe Experiences Problems

On a less positive note, but still quite newsworthy is the bankruptcy of 23andMe and subsequent repurchase of 23andMe by the original founder after setting up a new nonprofit. I have real mixed feelings about this topic. However, 23andMe was really never about genealogy, and now, matching segment information is no longer available. Those searching for unknown parents or family may want to test there if they are unsuccessful elsewhere.

Best Genealogy Tool

The FamilySearch full text search continues to have a HUGE impact for genealogists. This tool is not one-and-done, but provides increasing amounts of rich information as more records are added to the “fully scanned” collection. If you haven’t tried it, please do. It’s a game-changer and continues to improve.

A Cautionary Word About AI – Artificial Intelligence

AI is such a hot topic right now that I feel it needs to be included.

The FamilySearch full text search uses a form of AI. However, you’ll quickly notice that it can’t read everything, gets words and names wrong, and if you actually need to fully depend on it for accuracy, you cannot. (That said, it’s still an amazing tool, and I’m not picking on FamilySearch.)

Aside from FamilySearch, AI in its current form is both wonderful and terrible. I’ll be writing about AI in the new year, but for now, don’t ever rely on AI for anything that you can’t verity. It’s your assistant, not an expert, no matter how insistent it is. Never trust and always verify.

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN RELATED TO GENETICS and genetic related topics. I can’t even begin to tell you how very wrong it has been, and how much people fall in love with inaccurate results. No, just no – at least for now.

You need to know your AI tool, your skill set, your understanding of AI broadly, the tool’s limitations, and yours, and that’s all before verifying the actual AI results. If you want to educate yourself, and everyone should, treat yourself to anything, anyplace by either Mark Thompson or Steve Little, the dynamic AI duo. They offer YouTube videos and classes in a wide variety of places – but keep in mind that AI tools and technology literally change every few weeks.

AI is, indeed, a specialty all unto itself, much like genetic genealogy. And right now, it’s not soup yet, but it is cooking.

Tried and True Genetic Genealogy Staples – DNAPrint and Genetic Affairs

I haven’t written about either one this year, but I use both DNAPainter and Genetic Affairs regularly.

I consistently paint segments from matches at both MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch that are newly identified to an ancestor or ancestral couple at DNAPainter.

Unfortunately, neither Ancestry nor 23andMe provide matching cM location information for your matches (chromosome browser), but you may find some people who have tested at those companies at both FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch if they have uploaded to either of those vendors. Both vendors provide segment information and a Chromosome Browser, enabling you to paint that information to DNAPainter when you can identify your common ancestor.

MyHeritage also provides a Chromosome Browser, but unfortunately, no longer accepts uploads from any other vendor. You can paint segments from MyHeritage, but no longer upload DNA files to MyHeritage.

Thanks to DNAPainter, I have 90% of my segments identified to specific ancestors – which is actually rather remarkable given that my mother’s grandfather was a Dutch immigrant, and her great-grandparents on her other side were German immigrants, meaning we don’t have many matches on either of those lines.

Genetic Affairs continues to develop new, advanced clustering tools, one of which I’ll be reviewing soon.

Major Vendor Releases

Aside from what’s listed above, most of the major vendors released new features.

MyHeritage released a VERY COOL new tool called Cousin Finder that finds your relatives in the MyHeritage database, whether they match you on a DNA test, or not. They may not have even taken a DNA test. Cousin Finder identifies your common ancestor and shows your relationships. It’s a wonderful way to initiate communications, discuss your common ancestors, and ask about DNA testing.

Of my 378 Cousin Finder matches, only 23 (about 6%) are on my DNA match list, so that leaves 355 people to message, several of whom represent Y-DNA and mtDNA lines I don’t have. You can bet I’ll be offering testing scholarships.

Additionally, MyHeritage released a new ethnicity version.

FamilyTreeDNA, in addition to the new Mitotree, Discover, and associated features, released a new match matrix so you can see if and how selected matches are related to each other in a grid format. In other words, you can create your own cluster.

A new built-in “Share” feature blurs private information to make sharing easier both on the website and in Discover.

Discover improvements include thousands of new Y-DNA and mtDNA tree branches, plus thousands of new Ancient DNA samples. Discover is evergreen, so once you’ve taken that Big Y-700 test or the mitochondrial DNA test, your learning never stops as more content is added.

Tree integration with WikiTree is super-easy and means you don’t have to choose between trees. You can choose to retain your archived tree at FamilyTreeDNA, or move your tree to MyHeritage, PLUS link yourself to your family at WikiTree.

Ancestry released match clustering and a new beta pedigree view of ThruLines, but that’s back in the shop for more work. I’d expect to see it rereleased in 2026.

Conferences

RootsTech is the granddaddy of genealogy conferences, and it’s always fun to attend and write about the experience. Many vendors release new tools or products during the conference.

The ECGGC (East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference), held in the fall, is the only conference that focuses entirely on genetic genealogy, new tools, how to use existing tools, and more. The 2025 conference was virtual and provided a great deal of focused content. Attendees particularly appreciate the deep dive in a particular topic presented in DNA Academy.

I’ll be at RootsTech in 2026, will write about that soon, and hope to see you there.

Concepts, Techniques and Plain Old Genealogy

In the past, my Concepts series and genealogy “how to” articles have been very popular, so, in 2025, I penned a half-dozen articles focusing on frequently asked questions about relationships and DNA.

For example, how does one go about finding DNA testing candidates? The number of options may surprise you and includes both Cousin Finder and Relatives at RootsTech.

By testing ONE PERSON for either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA that represents an ancestor, you actually receive information about that entire lineage of ancestors. So, on my Estes line, by locating an Estes male from my line to test, I received relevant information for every Estes male in my line, back to and beyond the progenitor.

Eventually, we hit a brick wall in every line, and those tools are the perfect way to break through those brick walls.

Other articles discuss things like how to use Discover’s Ancient Connections, and the difference between half and full relationships, both in your tree and genetically. Plus, what does a cousin “once removed” mean anyway? And why do I care?

Another question I receive is how far back, based on the shared amount of DNA, should I look in my matches’ trees for our common ancestor? In other words, how many generations back should I click? That article was fun and produced some unexpected results.

Memorial Articles

Because we are part of a community, I write memorial articles when one of our friends passes on. This year, sadly, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, well-known Jewish genealogist, and another very close friend joined the ancestors, so I’ve recognized the best in both of their lives which constitutes their legacy.

Be the Storyteller

Last, but not least, I wrote about my ancestors in the “52 Ancestors” series, which launched several years ago with Amy Johnson Crow’s challenge to write about one ancestor per week. She hosts this every year, and you can join (free) now.

I’m now on ancestor #467, so yes, it’s addictive, but it’s also AMAZING how many wonderful cousins I’ve met who have information that I did not. Not only that, but after publishing about an ancestor, I’ve discovered that I’m related to people I’ve known for years. We were SOOOooo excited!

I’ve been writing about the lives of my ancestors for several years now, and the articles include attempts to identify Y-DNA and mtDNA testers for each ancestor, where appropriate. There’s so much to learn that can’t be revealed any other way.

Plus, people seem to like the “mystery” and “short story” aspect, and I salt each story with the history of the region and relevant historical events of the timeframe. You might find your ancestors here too, or other helpful information.

Find a way to share about your ancestors!

Do You Have Suggestions for 2026 Topics?

Do you have suggestions or requests for article topics in 2026? If so, please comment on this article and let me know.

Check Out the 2025 List

Here’s the list of the 2025 articles. Did you miss something fun? Enjoy!

  Title Category Date Link
1 Welcome to 2025 – Opportunities and New Genetic Genealogy Articles Welcome, general 1-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/02/welcome-to-2025-opportunities-and-new-genetic-genealogy-articles/
2 Anne Doucet (1713-1791), Oceans, Rivers, and Perseverance – 52 Ancestors #438 52 Ancestors 1-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/04/anne-doucet-1713-1791-oceans-rivers-and-perseverance-52-ancestors-438/
3 Register for RootsTech 2025 Now RootsTech 1-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/16/register-for-rootstech-2025-now/
4 What IS the McNeil Family History, by George Franklin McNeil – 52 Ancestors #439 52 Ancestors 1-19-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/20/what-is-the-mcneil-family-history-by-george-franklin-mcneil-52-ancestors-439/
5 Jean Garceau dit Tranchemontagne (c1785-1711), Soldier from Saint Marseault – 52 Ancestors #440 52 Ancestors 1-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/29/jean-garceau-dit-tranchemontagne-c1785-1711-soldier-from-saint-marseault-52-ancestors-440/
6 Memories Resurface When the Old Family Home Gets a Facelift Genealogy 2-3-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/03/memories-resurface-when-the-old-family-home-gets-a-facelift/
7 MyHeritage Introduces Ethnicity v2.5 MyHeritage 2-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/06/myheritage-introduces-ethnicity-v2-5/
8 Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates RootsTech, techniques 2-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/08/relatives-at-rootstech-reveals-cousins-and-provides-dna-candidates/
9 FamilyTreeDNA’s New Matrix Shows How Your Matches Are Related to Each Other FamilyTreeDNA 2-12-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/12/familytreednas-new-matrix-shows-how-your-matches-are-related-to-each-other/
10 René Doucet (c1680-c1731), Lifetime of Incessant Upheaval – 52 Ancestors #441 52 Ancestors 2-15-2024 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/16/rene-doucet-c1680-c1731-lifetime-of-incessant-upheaval-52-ancestors-441/
11 Lineages Versus Ancestors – How to Find and Leverage Yours Techniques 2-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/23/lineages-versus-ancestors-how-to-find-and-leverage-yours/
12 Mitotree is Born Mitochondrial DNA 2-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/25/mitotree-is-born/
13 RootsTech 2025 – The Year of Discover and the New Mitotree RootsTech, Mitochondrial DNA 3-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/15/rootstech-2025-the-year-of-discover-and-the-new-mitotree/
14 Pierre Doucet (c1621-1713), Walking History Book Lived to Nearly 100 – 52 Ancestors #442 3-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/16/pierre-doucet-c1621-1713-walking-history-book-lived-to-nearly-!100-52-ancestors-442/
15 Welcome to the New FamilyTreeDNA mtDNA Group Mitochondrial DNA 3-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/17/welcome-to-the-new-familytreedna-mtdna-group/
16 23andMe Files for Bankruptcy – What You Need to Know! 23andMe 3-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/25/23andme-files-for-bankruptcy-what-you-need-to-know/
17 New “Share” Features at FamilyTreeDNA Blur Match Information and Make Sharing Easy FamilyTreeDNA 4-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/01/new-share-features-at-familytreedna-blur-match-information-and-make-sharing-easy/
18 The Chauvet Cave: Trip Back in Time with Prehistoric European Humans – Are We Related? History, DNA 4-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/06/the-chauvet-cave-trip-back-in-time-with-prehistoric-european-humans-are-we-related/
19 DNA for Native American Genealogy Webinar & Companion Book Native American 4-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/08/dna-for-native-american-genealogy-webinar-companion-book/
20 Marie Levron (c1686-1727), Tragedy from Cradle to Grave – 52 Ancestors #443 52 Ancestors 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/marie-levron-c1686-1727-tragedy-from-cradle-to-grave-52-ancestors-443/
21 Mitochondrial DNA: What is a Haplotype Cluster and How Do I Find and Use Mine Mitochondrial DNA 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/mitochondrial-dna-what-is-a-haplotype-cluster-and-how-do-i-find-and-use-mine/
22 New Mitotree Haplogroups and How to Utilize Them for Genealogy Mitochondrial DNA 4-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/23/new-mitotree-haplogroups-and-how-to-utilize-them-for-genealogy/
23 Sir Francois Levron dit Nantois(c1651-1714), and Acadia’s Pirate – 52 Ancestors #444 52 Ancestors 4-26-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/27/sir-francois-levron-dit-nantois-c1651-1714-and-acadias-pirate-52-ancestors-444/
24 Catherine Savoie (c1661-c1722/25), Whispered Threads Weave a Tapestry of Life – 52 Ancestors #445 52 Ancestors 5-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/04/catherine-savoie-c1661-c1722-5-whispered-threads-weave-a-tapestry-of-life-52-ancestors-445/
25 Discover’s Ancient Connections – How Are You Related? Discover, Ancient DNA 5-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/08/discovers-ancient-connections-how-are-you-related/
26 Mother’s Day and Legacies 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 5-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/11/mothers-day-and-legacies/
27 The Mystery of the Blue Fugates and Smiths: A Study in Blue Genes and Pedigree Collapse Genetics, Genealogy 5-18-1015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/the-mystery-of-the-blue-fugates-and-smiths-a-study-in-blue-genes-and-pedigree-collapse/
28 Regeneron Wins Bid for Bankrupt 23andMe – Wedding Planned 23andMe 5-19-2023 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/regeneron-wins-bid-for-bankrupt-23andme-wedding-planned/
29 Francois Savoie’s Homestead Rediscovered – 52 Ancestors #446 52 Ancestors 5-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/24/francois-savoies-homestead-rediscovered-52-ancestors-446/
30 Memorial Day – Some Gave All Memorial 5-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/25/memorial-day-some-gave-all/
31 Mitotree Webinar – What It Is, How We Did It, and What Mitotree Means to You Mitochondrial DNA 6-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/04/mitotree-webinar-what-it-is-how-we-did-it-and-what-mitotree-means-to-you/
32 Catherine LeJeune (c1633-1671/1686), Meet Your Grandchildren – 52 Ancestors #447 52 Ancestors 6-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/07/catherine-lejeune-c1633-1671-1686-meet-your-grandchildren-52-ancestors-447/
33 Mitotree Q&A for Everyone Mitochondrial DNA 6-11-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/11/mitotree-qa-for-everyone/
34 Father’s Day: Bravery and Love 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 6-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/14/fathers-day-bravery-and-love/
35 Francoise Bourgeois (c1659-1693/1697), High Drama in Beaubassin and Terror at Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #448 52 Ancestors 6-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/16/francoise-bourgeois-c1659-1693-97-high-drama-in-beaubassin-and-terror-at-port-royal-52-ancestors-448/
36 Requesting Suggestions for RootsTech 2026 Topics RootsTech 6-18-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/18/requesting-suggestions-for-rootstech-2026-topics/
37 FamilyTreeDNA and WikiTree Collaboration – In Two Easy Steps!! FamilyTreeDNA, WikiTree 6-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/25/familytreedna-and-wikitree-collaboration-in-two-easy-steps/
38 Jacques Bourgeois (c1620-c1700), Surgeon of Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #449 52 Ancestors 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/jacques-bourgeois-c1620-c1700-surgeon-of-port-royal-52-ancestors-449/
39 TTAM, a Nonprofit Formed by 23andMe’s Founder Now Plans to Buy 23andMe 23andMe 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/ttam-a-nonprofit-formed-by-23andmes-founder-now-plans-to-buy-23andme/
40 Jacques Bourgeois: Complex Acadian, Founder of Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #450 52 Ancestors 7-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/06/jacques-bourgeois-complex-acadian-founder-of-beaubassin-52-ancestors-450/
41 How to Use Ancestry’s New Match Clusters and What They Mean Ancestry 7-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/10/how-to-use-ancestrys-new-match-clusters-and-what-they-mean/
42 Walk with Your Ancestors: Peace, Light and Healing in an Abandoned Medieval Village History 7-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/21/walk-with-your-ancestors-peace-light-and-healing-in-an-abandoned-medieval-village/
43 Jeanne Trahan (c1629-c1699), Life in Chinon, La Heve, Port Royal, and Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #451 52 Ancestors 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/28/jeanne-trahan-c1629-c1699-life-in-chinon-la-heve-port-royal-and-beaubassin-52-ancestors-451/
44 Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Ancestor – New Generation Tree Chart Suggests Where to Look in Your Matches’ Trees Techniques, Genetics, Genealogy 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/02/wherefore-art-thou-oh-ancestor-new-generation-tree-chart-suggests-where-to-look-in-your-matches-trees/
45 Guillaume Trahan (c1601-1625), More Than Meets the Eye – 52 Ancestors #452 52 Ancestors 8-13-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/13/guillaume-trahan-c1601-c1684-more-than-meets-the-eye-52-ancestor-452/ 
46 The East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference – ECGGC – Register Now for the Best of the Best ECGGC Conference 8-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/14/the-east-coast-genetic-genealogy-conference-ecggc-register-now-for-the-best-of-the-best/
47 Schelly Talalay Dardashti – May Her Memory Be a Blessing Memorial 8-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/17/schelly-talalay-dardashti-may-her-memory-be-a-blessing/
48 Francoise Corbineau (c1609-c1665), Bride in Chinon, Founder of Acadia – 52 Ancestors #453 52 Ancestors 8-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/23/francoise-corbineau-c1609-c1665-bride-in-chinon-founder-of-acadia-52-ancestors-453/
49 Nicolas Trahan (c1570->1632), Life in the Heart of French Wine Country – 52 Ancestors #454 52 Ancestors 8-31-2015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/31/nicolas-trahan-c1570-1632-life-in-the-heart-of-french-wine-country-52-ancestors-454/
50 Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover Mitochondrial DNA, Discover, Genealogy, Techniques 10-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/02/mitochondrial-dna-a-z-a-step-by-step-guide-to-matches-mitotree-and-mtdna-discover/
51 Renée Desloges (c1570-1627/1632), Fragments of Life in Montreuil-Bellay – 52 Ancestors #454 (this is actually 455) 52 Ancestors 9-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/06/renee-desloges-c1570-1627-1632-fragments-of-life-in-montreuil-bellay-52-ancestors-454/
52 Best Mitochondrial DNA Presentation EVER – You’re Invited to DNA Academy!! Mitochondrial DNA 9-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/09/best-mitochondrial-dna-presentation-ever-youre-invited-to-dna-academy/
53 Unfillable Shoes Memorial – Douglas Rhodenbaugh 9-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/14/unfillable-shoes/
54 Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean? Concepts, Genealogy 9-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/24/concepts-what-does-a-cousin-once-removed-mean/
55 Daniel Vannoy (1752-after 1820), “Lived in the Boundary of the Cherokee Indians” – Say What??? 52 Ancestors 9-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/29/daniel-vannoy-1752-after-1820-lived-in-the-boundary-of-the-cherokee-indians-say-what/
56 Daniel Vannoy and the Strange Case of the Two Sarahs – 52 Ancestors #457 52 Ancestors 10-5-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/06/daniel-vannoy-and-the-strange-case-of-the-two-sarahs-52-ancestors-457/
57 Cousin Finder – MyHeritage’s Innovative New Tool Finds Your Relatives MyHeritage 10-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/09/cousin-finder-myheritages-innovative-new-tool-finds-your-relatives/
58 Sarah Hickerson Vannoy (c1761 – after 1826), Threw More than Shade – 52 Ancestors #458 52 Ancestors https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/13/sarah-hickerson-vannoy-c1761-after-1826-threw-more-than-shade-52-ancestors-458/
59 MyHeritage Introduces a Low-Pass Whole Genome Autosomal DNA Test & Why It Matters MyHeritage 10-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/14/myheritage-introduces-a-low-pass-whole-genome-autosomal-dna-test-why-it-matters/
60 Henriette Pelletret (c1640 – before 1694), Life Death in the Shadow of the Fort – 52 Ancestors #459 52 Ancestors 10-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/21/henriette-pelletret-c1640-before-1694-life-and-death-in-the-shadow-of-the-fort-52-ancestor-459/
61 Cheat Sheet: Mitochondrial Matches, Haplotype Clusters, and Haplogroups Mitochondrial DNA 10-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/22/cheat-sheet-mitochondrial-matches-haplotype-clusters-and-haplogroups/
62 Simon Pelletret (1610-1642/1645): A Walk Through Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #460 52 Ancestors 10-27-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/27/simon-pelletret-c1610-1642-1645-a-walk-through-port-royal-52-ancestors-460/
63 Perrine Bourg (c1626-1693/1698): Phoenix Rising from the Ashes – 52 Ancestors #461 52 Ancestors 11-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/02/perrine-bourg-c1626-1693-1698-phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes-52-ancestors-461/
64 Concepts: What is a Half Relationships, Life Half First Cousins, Anyway? Concepts, Genealogy 11-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/04/concepts-what-is-a-half-relationship-like-half-first-cousins-anyway/
65 Marie Broussard (1686-after 1752), Life Across the River from Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #462 52 Ancestors 11-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/10/marie-broussard-1686-after-1752-life-across-the-river-from-port-royal-52-ancestors-462/
66 Francois Broussard (1653-1716), Intractable Acadian – 52 Ancestors #463 52 Ancestors 11-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/22/francois-broussard-1653-1716-intractable-acadian-52-ancestors-463/
67 Mitotree Sprouts 12,773 New Branches and Includes Ancient DNA Mitochondrial DNA 11-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/24/mitotree-sprouts-12773-new-branches-and-includes-ancient-dna/
68 Catherine Richard (c1663 – after 1714), Mother of Beausoleil, Acadian Freedom Fighters – 52 Ancestors #464 52 Ancestors 11-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/29/catherine-richard-c1663-after-1714-mother-of-beausoleil-acadian-freedom-fighters-52-ancestors-464/
69 Ancestry’s ThruLines Has a New Pedigree View Ancestry 12-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/03/ancestrys-thrulines-has-a-new-pedigree-view/
70 Ancestry Reverts ThruLines to the Original View Ancestry 12-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/06/ancestry-reverts-thrulines-to-the-original-view/
71 Michel Richard (c1630-1686/1689), Carefree Acadian – 52 Ancestors #465 52 Ancestors 12-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/08/michel-richard-dit-sansoucy-c1630-1686-1689-carefree-acadian-52-ancestors-465/ 
72 Mitochondrial DNA: How Do I Know if I’m a Candidate to Receive a New Haplogroup? Mitochondrial DNA 12-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/09/mitochondrial-dna-how-do-i-know-if-im-a-candidate-to-receive-a-new-haplogroup/
73 Heavens Ablaze: the 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm and Your Ancestors History, Genealogy 12-15-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/15/heavens-ablaze-the-1833-leonid-meteor-storm-and-your-ancestors/
74 Madelaine Blanchard (c1643 – 1678/1683), Gone Too Soon – 52 Ancestors #466 52 Ancestors 12-20-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/20/madelaine-blanchard-c1643-1678-1683-gone-too-soon-52-ancestors-466/
75 Soar Inspiration 12-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/24/soar/

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Concepts: What is a Half-Relationship, Like Half First Cousins, Anyway?

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Pretty much everyone knows what a half sibling is – someone who shares one, but not both parents with each other.

If you and your sibling share the same mother, but not the same father (or vice versa), you’re half-siblings. Only one parent is shared between half-siblings.

If you share both parents, you’re full siblings.

Step-Siblings

Step-siblings are often confused and used interchangably with half-siblings, but they aren’t at all the same. And yes, it matters.

If your parent married someone who already had a child, but both you and that child were born to prior (or future) marriages/relationships of your respective parent – you’re step siblings.

In other words, your parents are married to each other, and you may live in the same household, but you don’t share a genetic link with a step-sibling because you don’t share any parent in common.

By way of example, my mom married a man who had a son from a prior marriage, and his son is my stepbrother. The man my mother married is my stepfather.

My mother is my stepbrother’s stepmother.

The real message here, other than clarifying confusing relationship terms that are often used incorrectly, is that:

  • There is a biological relationship between full-siblings and half-siblings
  • There is no biological relationship between step-siblings, unless one exists due to ancestors someplace in the past

I wrote about how much of your ancestors’ DNA you can expect to inherit in the article, Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?.

Genetically, Half Versus Full Matters

The amount of autosomal DNA that is expected to be shared between full-siblings and half-siblings differs. Throughout this section, I’m using words like “expected” and “about” because in reality, after parents, “exactly” half of the ancestral DNA in a specific generation does not get passed to the next generation. Random recombination is a factor and therefore, the expected inherited percentages are approximate.

Full siblings share both parents, while half-siblings share only one parent, so full siblings share about 50% of their DNA, while half-siblings share about 25% of their DNA – and only from one parent.

Therefore, every descendant relationship from full or half relationships varies by 50% between the two types of relatoinships.

Half-siblings can be expected to share, on average, half as much autosomal DNA as full siblings – because they only share one parent – not two.

For example, first cousins (1C) share about 12.5% of their DNA, but half first cousins (half 1C) share about 6.25% of their DNA.

In other words, the “half” designation literally means that those two people share half a relationship – one parent (or grandparent, etc.), not both, in the founding generation, and their descendants continue to share half as much DNA as a full relationship in the same generation.

Subsequent Generations

Extending those relationships down the tree generation by generation, we see that in each subsequent generation, the descendants can be expected, on average, to share one-fourth as much DNA with each other as the preceding generation. That’s because two transmission events have taken place, one in Child 1’s line, and one in Child 2’s line.

The same as in full sibling lineages, each subsequent half-sibling descendant generation can also be expected to share one quarter as much autosomal DNA as the preceding one.

“Removed” Relationships

If you encounter a situation where one side of the descendant tree is “longer” than the other by a generation or more, then you’re dealing with a phenomenon known as “removed,” such as first-cousin-once-removed (1C1R), or, in the example above, a third cousin (3C) once removed (1R).

The same concepts still apply. A half 3C1R would share half as much DNA as a 3C1R.

I wrote all about “removed” relationships and their genetic genealogy effects in the article Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean.

Summary

In this final chart, I’ve combined the full-sibling and half-sibling charts into one so that you can compare them easily. I’ve also removed the “other” parent that the half-siblings don’t share to conserve space.

I wrote about how much DNA each type of relationship can be expectd to share, both centiMorgans (cMs) and percentages, including relationships not detailed here, such as half-uncles and half-aunts, in the article Shared cM Project 2020 Analysis, Comparison & Handy Reference Charts.

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Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean?

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What is a first-cousin-once-removed (1C1R) or a second-cousin-once-removed (2C1R)? In these abbreviations, “R” means “removed.”

Once you understand what “removed” means, it’s really simple, but until then, it’s confusing.

Let’s start with first cousins.

First cousins share common grandparents. Jane and Mark are first cousins. Their parents are siblings.

“Once removed” means one generation offset, or the child of someone in that cousin generation.

Let’s say you’re Jane.

Your child, Jim, is the first cousin once removed to your first cousin, Mark. Said the other way, Mark is a 1C1R to Jim.

Jim and Mark are first cousins once removed.

Flipped around, so that we are comparing Mark’s child instead of Jane’s – Mark’s child, Maurice is a 1C1R to Jane.

Julie and Maurice are both the children of people who are first cousins to each other. They share Steve and Shirley as great-grandparents, so they are second cousins to each other.

Now let’s say that Julie has a son, James.

James and Maurice are second cousins once removed, because they are a generation offset from one another. James is the child of someone who is second cousins with someone else. In this case, James is the son of Julie who is a second cousin (2C) to Maurice.

Now, James has a child, Jill.

Jill and Maurice are second cousins twice removed, because they are another generation offset, or on down their branch of the tree..

Calculating “Removed”

Taking this one step further, Jill is a first-cousin-three-times-removed (1C3R) to Mark.

Cousin relationships are easy to calculate.

Look at the two people you wish to compare. In this case, Jill and Mark.

Find their common generation level. Looking back up Jill’s tree, we find Jane at the same generational level as Mark. Jane and Mark are first cousins (1C). That’s the base relationship before calculating the number of generations your target people, Jill and Mark, are “removed” from each other.

Beginning with the generation below Mark, count how many generations below first cousins Jill is “removed” from Mark.

In this case, in the column at right, you can see that the Julie/Maurice generation is “1”, followed by the James generation at “2” and Jill is generation “3.” Hence, Jill and Mark are 1C3R to each other.

Don’t confused a first-cousin-once-removed (1C3R) with third cousins (3C).

Third cousins would be James and Matthew. Fourth cousins would be Jill and Madison.

It’s easy to calulate the relationship of any two people in your tree.

I wrote about my “chicken scratch” method of calculating relationships in the article, Quick Tip: Calculating Cousin Relationships Easily.

DNA

As you might expect, the amount of expected shared DNA between two people who are second cousins (2C) and second-cousins-once-removed (2C1R) is different, because the DNA has been divided once more in James than it has been in Maurice.

In first-cousins-three-times-removed, the DNA has been divided once again in Jill.

I wrote about DNA and relationship predictions, including half relationships and “removed” relationships in the article, Concepts – Relationship Predications.

You can view expected amounts and ranges of shared DNA for various relationships using DNA Painter’s Shared cM Project tool, here.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the affiliate links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

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