FTM2014 and DNA - Change in Strategy

The other day, I did a blog post on FTM2014 and DNA and really thought about what I was doing and wondering why some of the "dna features" on Ancestry wasn't working the way I had hoped. So, I stepped back a bit to re-evaluate what I was doing.

In FTM2014, I exported my Direct Line to a New FTM2014 file, and creating a New Ancestry Member Tree, making is public and see if that made any difference. On the same day, Ancestry made an announcement on a new feature they just rolled out. So, I checked. I selected my known 1st cousin and clicked on the NEW SHARED MATCHES link to see if there was any connection.

This 2nd cousin isn't a new one, but the Tree was Private, so I really hadn't followed up on it. Before I made contact I want to have a good idea about how we are related. This person wasn't in my new online tree BUT neither is my known 1st cousin. So, why don't I look at my full database, the surname on this 2nd cousin rang a bell, but couldn't, off the top of my head, remember the connection.

The "Duh" head slap moment arrived. Why not look at your full database. As expected, the surname was in my master file. The father of this DNA match was another brother of my Grandfather. So, this person is my 2nd Cousin, one time removed as is my "reported" 1st Cousin.

A private, internal Ancestry Message has been sent, hoping to actually make the connection and hope to be invited to view that Private Tree.

New entry for my full database Research Log.

Will now have to think about how to track my DNA connections within FTM2014.

Thank you AncestryDNA !!!

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Copyright © 2015 by H R Worthington