“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 … Read more
Whether you’re using Ancestry’s new Custom Cluster tool or have simply identified an important DNA match, determining how a match fits into your family tree is why we review matches. Since the publication of my Chutes & Ladders blog post, I’ve received several requests to elaborate on the concept of DNA Laddering. I am pleased … Read more
I know this runs counter to our internal motivation for genealogy, but sometimes we need to pause our genealogical research. Taking a break from cognitively challenging tasks like correlating DNA evidence and documentary research gives our subconscious time to process the vast amount of detailed information and complex relationships between data points. As a marketing … Read more
Imagine finding a DNA match who has the surname you’re researching within their family tree, and their ancestor is a known descendant of your 5x great grandfather, who you have yet to identify. If only you knew this was the match you’ve been waiting for to break down that stubborn brick wall. Well, this is … Read more
Finding the right group of autosomal DNA matches is critical in moving your genealogy forward and breaking through stubborn brick walls. However, sometimes these important matches are not found within your match list but in the lists of other cousins who share the same ancestor. Search as you might, you can’t find a match that … Read more
If you’re of a certain age, you may remember Milton Bradley’s Chutes and Ladders game. Even if you don’t know it, its use as a metaphor to autosomal DNA research will not be lost on you. In this post, I demonstrate how to use Ancestry’s Enhanced Shared Matches to “ladder” back to an unknown ancestor. … Read more
I am honored to be a part of RootsTech 2025 with a presentation on Y-DNA testing strategies. Whether or not you have attended RootsTech, you can watch my prerecorded session on my YouTube channel, or the RootsTech 2025 website at no charge by logging into FamilySearch. There are also a great number of other online … Read more
In the last post, I presented a strategy for expanding a genetic network of shared matches all within a DNA testing website. The strategy is called Viewed Match Switching. Now, I present a similar but more holistic strategy using Gephi network graphs. This process is more demanding of our mental and computational resources, but it … Read more
If you’re using genetic networks to analyze your DNA matches, then you need to also use viewed match switching. This DNA analysis strategy helps you find more relevant matches for the ancestor being researched and construct a more robust proof argument. I first introduced viewed match switching in my genetic network blog series in its … Read more
Our ancestors left us clues in the documents they created to help us with our genealogical research. You just need to follow the “genealogical breadcrumbs” to discover that next elusive generation. However, sometimes the path they left is not so clear, and we can be deceived into jumping down rabbit holes of distracting, irrelevant, but … Read more