DNA Tips
Remember
that DNA is an “essential” part of genealogical research.
While you are waiting
- Tests generally take 6-8 weeks to
process. Devote your time to
greatly expanding your tree. You
will need to get back 5-6 generations to find common ancestors.
- Read
everything you can to expand your knowledge of DNA. Read the instructions
or help articles. Use the help
functions. Find blogs, books,
magazine articles, etc. by googling or looking in the DNA Bibliography on
ferndalegenies.blogspot.com on the left sidebar.
Processing your matches
- Make your tree public rather than private to encourage
people to explore matches with you.
There are reasons to make it private but it limits the contacts you
make.
- Have only one tree at Ancestry since only one can be attached to
your DNA results. Some people have
a tree for their mother’s side and a tree for their father’s side and
these trees can only be attached one at a time. That may help separate your matches into
maternal and paternal.
- Reach out to your matches.
Make a sample contact message and save as a template. If you have more than one kit, identify
who they match.
- Keep track of correspondence from the beginning. That is, at least who you send messages
to, the date, and the results
- Focus on your strongest matches.
Don’t get distracted by distant matches. Answer everyone who writes to you but
use your template so you don’t waste time with weaker matches.
- Continue to build your tree, including siblings of ancestors
and their children. Your match may
not know your ancestor.
- People don’t respond or have a really small tree. First look at their profile on the testing service for hints about who they are. Sometimes you can google their username or email to learn more about them.
- Remember…There is no guarantee that trees are
correct. Just because a lot of people agree doesn’t make it right; maybe they
just copied each other. Trees are
just a clue.
- Spreadsheets you design yourself to organize
information you want.
Long-term Strategies
- Genealogists
say “fish in all three ponds”. That
is, test everywhere so you can be matched to more people. One strategy for this is to take the
autosomal test at Ancestry for $99, then transfer the raw DNA data to
Family Tree DNA for $19. 23andme
added for adoptions. They really
need to fish in all the ponds.
- Transfer
your raw DNA date to other sites.
You cannot transfer data into Ancestry or 23andme. Simple rule for transferring raw DNA
data: FTDNA and MyHeritage accept data transferred in; Ancestry and
23andme don’t.
- Strategically
test relatives in older generations. They have the largest segments of
ancestral DNA. Siblings don’t get all the same DNA. Strategically pick relatives to serve a
particular purpose. Examples: Test
people on your maternal and paternal sides to separate your own matching
DNA into sides of your family. Test
a distant relative to narrow matches down to a specific line. If you are going to do this, do it now
before older relatives become infirm.
Oldest DNA is the strongest connection to the past. Testing your children will not help you
find your ancestors.
- Keep track of how to use the various
websites. When you come back in 6 months, you will
have forgotten what seemed obvious the first time.
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