Custom Clusters: Step Into Your Match’s Shoes

“Stepping into someone else’s shoes” is an idiom encouraging empathy to gain perspective for someone else’s lived experiences. Inspired by it, I recently applied this perspective to Ancestry’s new Custom Clusters tool obtaining incredible insights into a brick wall ancestor. You’re going to want to try this for yourself, too.

In a previous post, I described Ancestry’s new Custom Clusters tool, which permits users to organize a group of matches around specific ancestral lines. In advancing my Hill research, I created a Custom Cluster built around a mystery match who is part of a genetic network aligned with my Hill lineage.

Then, to “step into someone else’s shoes”, my mystery match shared her list of matches with me, and I also created a Custom Cluster within her match list built around me (technically, my dad’s first cousin whose matches I have been using as my surrogate throughout this blog post series).

Without thinking too much about it, you might be inclined to believe the respective Custom Clusters for my cousin and the mystery match might be the same. There were similarities, of course, but that was to be expected given their joint membership within the same Hill genetic network of shared matches.

Yet, there were major differences providing unique insights into how this match more directly fits into my family tree. To understand the differences, take note of the latter bolded red phrase in how Ancestry describes its Custom Clusters:

“Custom Clustering… [shows] you not just the matches you share with a match, but also who’s related to those matches.”[1]

Said differently and visually in the image below, the matches you share with a match of interest (mystery match) in a Custom Cluster are represented in green. The green arrow points to a larger block of shared matches and the dotted green lines represents how the match of interest connects to the shared match block (green). The red arrows show that the shared green matches are related to other clusters (red).

While you are likely aware of the matches you share with the match of interest because you can see them in your shared match list (large green block), the magic is in “who’s related to those shared matches” (the red blocks). However, I can’t see who is related to the green shared matches in the mystery match’s match list – unless I step into her shoes (she shares her match list with me). This is where the insights are!

Before I show you a good example, let me briefly elaborate on the above image:

• Not all red clusters will be related to the match of interest in both the Custom Cluster or genetically. Some smaller clusters will be associated one or the other parental lines of the green cluster.
• Some matches are not presented at all because they fall below Ancestry’s 20 cM threshold.
• You must use traditional genealogy to find which clusters may be genetically related to you and the match of interest.
• Not all Custom Clusters will have as many of the smaller red clusters as the one above, and some may even have more. It depends on the number of matches you have in this ancestral line, how many are above 20 cM, and how distantly related you are to the match of interest.

The Context: William Hill

To contextualize “stepping into your match’s shoes”, I want to identify the parents of my 4x great grandfather, William Hill (1775-1836), who was born in Pennsylvania. Previously, I created a genetic network of more than 100 shared matches representing William Hill’s Hill ancestry. In analyzing the shared matches, I identified several unlinked family clusters[2] that I could not determine their connection to my family tree (see the image below). I am currently working with the “pink” unlinked family clusters. The green clusters are associated with some of the pink clusters but are mostly distinct to another branch of my Hill line.

One of the unlinked clusters was a group of 13 matches descending through multiple child lines of Clay C. Harris (1856-?) and Rachel Brown (1867-1964). The matches ranged from 8 to 27 cM of shared DNA. While the two wed in Independence County, Arkansas in 1884, Clay was born in Kentucky, and his parents are unknown. Rachel was born in Tennessee with her parents being born in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Driving my use of Custom Clusters is the research question: how is the Harris/Brown unlinked family cluster related to me?

Creating the Custom Clusters

One of the Harris matches (26 cM across one segment) shared her match list with me. I created two Custom Clusters – one using her match list and the other from my cousin’s match list. For the Custom Cluster, I selected her in my cousin’s match list and my cousin in her match list. In both instances, I set the cM range from 20 to 100 cM and did not use any sidekick matches. While Ancestry recommends setting the threshold to 60 cM for this cousin level, I found my cousin’s clusters would not form unless the upper limit was 100 cM. This suggests a more distant relationship.

Their respective Custom Clusters are presented below. While it was easy to identify the ancestral lines associated with my cousin’s clusters, it was more challenging to do so for her clusters since I did not know her tree as well as my own.

Interpreting the Custom Clusters

The Custom Cluster for my cousin contained two clusters, which is somewhat disappointing as I was hoping for greater insight. As highlighted in green, the mystery match is placed within the larger cluster of the descendants of William Hill (1775-1836) and the Clark and Keel unlinked family clusters. I already knew this from my initial investigation of his match list. The Linn unlinked family cluster is separately presented, which I surmised to be a more distant genetic connection.

Thankfully, the Custom Cluster of my cousin within the mystery match’s match list is far more detailed. My cousin’s placement in her grid is in the lower right-hand corner and labeled “Pennsylvania Hills”. It is only linked to the Clay Harris and Rachel Brown cluster, which is expected given that this is what I saw by simply reviewing my cousin’s shared match list with the mystery match.

However, the insight comes from what was stated earlier. That is, Custom Clusters are constructed based on who’s related to the shared matches with the mystery match. My cousin is linked to her Clay Harris and Rachel Brown cluster, and this cluster is linked to all the other clusters shown.

I note that there is an adjacent cluster next to Clay Harris and Rachel Brown, which is for Joseph Harris and Susanna Brown. Joseph is believed to be Clay’s brother and Susanna is Rachel’s sister. However, my cousin does not match this cluster owing to the distant relationship to the Harris/Brown unlinked family cluster and the randomness to which DNA is inherited. It could also be that Clay and Joseph Harris have different mothers with Clay’s mother being associated with my Hill ancestry.

Immediately upon further reviewing the mystery match’s smaller clusters within the Custom Cluster, I make two observations that are quite interesting. First, the most recent common ancestors (MRCA) for several of the clusters have origins in Garrard County, Kentucky. This location is striking because I had previously identified an unlinked family cluster of Hills in the county. Y-DNA has confirmed that the Garrard County Hills share the same haplogroup as the Pennsylvania Hills. According to FamilyTreeDNA, the common ancestor between my Hill line and the Garrard County line is suggested to have been born about 1739.

Second, one of the smaller clusters has a Hill ancestor as an MRCA. This small cluster comprises of a mother and son with one of the mother’s parents being a Hill who descends from the Garrard County Hills. As exciting as this discovery appears, it is tempered by the observation that these two matches share an MRCA with the Wilson/Comley cluster positioned above it through its Denton line back to a Denton/Comley marriage in Garrard County. Further, in checking the mystery match’s entire match list, the other shared matches with the small Hill/Denton cluster confirm that its presence in the Custom Cluster is because of Denton rather than Hill. It is probable these two matches didn’t inherit any common Hill DNA segments that my cousin or the mystery match shares.

Within the Custom Cluster for the mystery match is another smaller cluster from Garrard County, namely Johnson/Tarrant. Interestingly, there is a common thread binding the Wilson/Comley, Denton/Hill, and Johnson/Tarrant clusters together besides the location of Garrard County. All three clusters share Comley ancestry (see image below). The MRCA couple for all three clusters is James Comley (1715-?) and Mary Paul (1718-?).

Drawing Conclusions

Genealogy research is incremental and rarely do you find the answer with a single effort. Indeed, Garrard County is only a relevant clue here because I upgraded a Y-111 DNA match to the Big Y last year. That Hill match descends from the progenitor of the Hills in Garrard County, John Hill (1755-1839), and our common Hill ancestor is estimated to have been born around 1739.

To provide greater context to the above observations and the theories provided below, the Garrard County Hills arrived the area around 1780 and most moved away by the 1850s. They resided in the northeast corner of the county around the confluence of Scotch Fork Creek and Sugar Creek,[3] which is also where the Comleys resided. According to the 1802 tax rolls, there was also a Harris family living on Sugar Creek, although it must be recognized that Harris is a relatively common surname.[4] According to an 1879 map of Garrard County, their homesteads were located within Precinct 2.[5]

At this stage of the research, I do have several working theories. Because I’m working with autosomal DNA matches from my strategically derived Hill genetic network, it is probable the Harris unlinked family cluster is related to the Garrard County, Kentucky Hills. It is further surmised that my cousin’s genetic connection is with the Harris side of the cluster rather than Brown. The progenitor, Clay Harris, was born in Kentucky whereas his wife, Rachel Brown, was born in Tennessee with further ancestry from North Carolina.

Whether Clay Harris was born in Garrard County remains to be seen. However, it is probable his parents were. Similarly, it is unclear whether my cousin is genetically related to Clay Harris’ mother or father. Regardless, the Comley family, which was identified in the Custom Cluster, resided in the same small community as my Kentucky Hill cousins. There is also evidence that the Hills and Comleys intermarried around the same time as Clay Harris’ birth,[6] but no connection to a Harris family is found.

In consulting the full match list for my cousin, I find no evidence of Comley ancestral matches despite both families originating from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Assuming Clay Harris has a Hill ancestor, it is probable that Comley represents a different parental line than his Hill ancestor. Indeed, as referenced earlier, each individual cluster is not necessarily aligned with the match used to create the Custom Cluster. Rather, the smaller clusters are aligned with those matches (i.e., Harris/Brown) who match the match of interest (i.e., my cousin).

In consulting the full match list for the Harris/Brown mystery match, I find no other evidence of Garrard County Hill ancestral matches. However, I note that several of the child lines for the Garrard County Hill progenitor, John Hill (1755-1839), are not fully known.

Another possible theory is that the Garrard County ancestors of the Harris/Brown mystery match is coincidental to where the Garrard County Hills resided. It is quite possible that my Hill connection to the mystery match is through the Brown line as elaborated in the next paragraph.

My prior research indicated that my Hill line originated from Dorchester County, Maryland. Interestingly, through the investigation of the mystery match’s clusters, I also discovered another family who migrated from Dorchester County to Garrard County around 1800 with a brief stop in Caswell County, North Carolina. This might suggest a possible chain migration route for those in Dorchester. This newly discovered family was headed by William Mills (1778-1846), who lived in the same Garrard County community as the Hills and married into families allied with the Comleys and lived near Sugar Creek. Back in Dorchester, my Hill line was associated with the Mills,[7] where an immigrant Hill ancestor left personal property to Mary Mills in 1730. However, it is unclear whether William Mills is a descendant of that line. A clue for another day.

Future Research Directions

Despite failed searches for finding Clay Harris (or his presumed brother, Joseph) in pre-1900 census records or an obvious Hill marriage with Harris or Comley in Garrard County, I have identified several future research projects. First, I need to build out the Comley family tree searching for a genetic path where the Harris, Comley, and Hill lines might intersect. Focus needs to be on those branches for the Comley matches who share more cMs with the mystery match suggesting a more recent connection.

Second, I need to consult books and other offline records covering Garrard County, Kentucky and Independence County, Arkansas for Clay or Joseph Harris specifically and/or any mention of Harris, Comley, or Hill in the same record. As we know, not all records are online.

Finally, I need to research William Mills’ family back in Dorchester County, Maryland to determine whether this is the same family to which my Hill ancestors were associated. Admittedly, this is a bit of rabbit hole given that no genetic connection between the Mills and Hills were found in Garrard County. Nevertheless, there is an association between the Hills and Mills in Dorchester that I have yet to figure out. The Garrard County Mills also stopped briefly in Caswell County, North Carolina before arriving Garrard. Caswell County is where my Matkins unlinked family cluster resided (see earlier Hill Genetic Network image), which is also associated with my Hill ancestry. Perhaps understanding the nature of the Dorchester County connection will become as enlightening as the Y-DNA link between the Garrard and Pennsylvania Hills in this phase of the research.

Conclusion

Stepping into your match’s shoes is not only a metaphor encouraging us to approach our genealogical research challenges from a different point of view, but it is perhaps more importantly a call for greater collaboration among the genetic genealogy community. As demonstrated here, sharing one’s DNA match list with others provided new research directions for the investigation into an unlinked family cluster.

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Sources

[1] Ancestry (n.d.), Custom Match Clusters, retrieved 25 December 2025 at https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Custom-Match-Clusters?language=en_US.
[2] An unlinked family cluster is a large group of matches who all descend from a single ancestor but for whom you are unable to establish a genetic relationship. Sometimes the common ancestor of the unlinked family cluster shares the same surname as the ancestor you’re researching. See for example, https://myfamilypattern.com/geneticnetworks5/.
[3] Garrard County, Kentucky, Clerk of Courts, land records, Malinda Hill to Harrison Ray (1853), book T, p. 428-429, Lancaster; database with an image (www.familysearch.org), film 8141321, image 220 of 622.
[4] Garrard County, Kentucky, Tax Assessor, James Cumbley (Comley, Sugar Creek, p. 5), John Harris (Sugar Creek, p. 10), and John Hill (Sugar Creek, p. 10); FamilySearch film 7834436, images 199, and 204 of 491.
[5] Beers, D.G. and J. Langan (1879), Map of Garrard and Lincoln Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia, PA: F. Bourquin. Accessed from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Library on 25 December 2025 at https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/11892/.
[6] Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records 1783-1965, Andrew Hill and Martha Comely [Comley] (1852), Garrard County, p. 64; database with an image (www.ancestry.com).
[7] Maryland, U.S., Calendar of Wills 1635-1743, Agathia Hill (1730), Dorchester County, Will Book 20, p. 120; database with image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com, accessed 26 December 2025).