Ancestry Pro Tools Shared DNA

When I saw that ancestry was showing how many centimorgans, cM, your matches share with other shared matches like 23andMe and MyHeritage have been doing all along, I decided I needed to purchase the Pro Tools. One of the things I’ve been doing is to look at close shared matches and see how much they share with other shared matches. Then I built a matrix of these of these data. This allowed me to determine where additional cousins fit into my family tree. In one example, there was a cousin that I knew was one my mother’s paternal side, but he had a fake name and no tree, so I couldn’t tell exactly where he fit.  Seeing how much he shared with other known cousins provided the answer.

Jim Antley has a program that copies the shared matches from the Pro Tools. After viewing the page of shared matches select “Save Page As” from the ‘file’ menu on Chrome. Do not change the filename and save the file. Make sure that the little circle at the top right of Chrome has completed before leaving the tab, as shown in figure 1.

Next open “The Antley Method DNA Connections Display Tool” and choose the file that you just saved. Next ‘upload’ the file. When the page changed you can select various parameters if you want to limit the data. I have left all the defaults at this page. The resulting screen is displayed. There are two tables displayed. Figure 2 shows the beginning of the first chart that is at the top of the window. This is the list of shared matches for my cousin len and me. Len does not have a tree and I don’t know where he fits in my tree. Both cvr and Joseph are known cousins and in my tree. Being able to see how many centimorgans Len shares with them and the others in the table will allow me to place him in my tree.

The second table that is displayed in figure 3. This is the table that I use as I want to make a matrix with the matches relationship to each other as well as to me.

I ‘select all’ on the page, and then ‘copy’ it. Going to a new Excel file I ‘copy’ it. To avoid clicking on a link in error, while the data is all highlighted, I right click and select ‘Remove Hyperlinks’. Since I want the second table I scroll down the Excel file and either delete the top table or just work with the second table. The beginning of that Excel table is shown in figure 4.

I am interested in knowing about the trees and will add that data as a separate column, but I mainly want the cM values. To make it easy to get that information, I first turn off merge cells for columns B and C and then select columns A through C for the match name the shared cM for both myself and the other match, here that match would be Len. To turn off the merged cells I select columns B and C, then select ‘Format’ and ‘Cells’ and unclick ‘Merge’. Figure 5 shows the resulting file.

Now the match name and the cM that they share are on the same row. I select columns A through C for each match and then ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ to a new Excel file. Since I no longer need this Excel file I delete it. In the new Excel file I add a new row 1 and then copy the list of names in column A and paste them transposed in row 1 starting in column B. This gives me the beginning of the matrix. I add yellow color to the cells where each match would match themselves. Figure 6 shows the beginning to my matrix.

I know that cvn and Joseph are my second cousins, 2C, and that Jeffrey is cvn’s son. Andrew is second cousins twice removed, 2C2R, and G.P. is second cousin once removed, 2C1R to me. An important clue here already is that the amount of DNA G.P. shares with len would be that of a nephew. After adding all of the matches I look specifically at the amount of DNA I share with each match. For amounts less than 90 cM, I use the unweighted amounts of DNA and I add the number of segments. The unweighted DNA amounts agree with the amounts of shared DNA on other sites. The matrix now is shown in figure 7.

Adding all this information I can see that len fits in my tree, as shown in figure 8. This tree was generated using AutoLineage and included DNA matches from several different testing sites. The 65 cM is on the low side for a second cousin, but not impossible. Len is first cousin to Joseph and to cvr and uncle to G.P. He is second cousin to me. Even though we only share 65 cM with 4 segments. Both the Shared cM project and SegcM list it as possible.

Third or Fourth Great Grandmother?

I decided to try another problem that I’d not been able to solve for years. My second great grandmother was Mary Aide, born in County Kilkenny, Ireland. I have DNA matches to Dawn and several others on the Aide line whose third great grandmother was Mary Kilfoil. Is Mary Kilfoil my Mary’ Aide’s mother or perhaps grandmother? Using the Pro Tools I was able to see how several other matches were related to Dawn and her sister, Sheri. Perhaps knowing how more DNA matches were related to me and to them would help this problem. I used the same process as I described above. I started building out my matrix with known matches who descended from Mary Kilfoil and adding the amounts I shared with them and the amounts they shared with each other to try to build out a more complete tree for her family. There are several parent – child matches. My daughter Jenn, Dawn’s son Ryan, and Kath’s daughter Abby show up as matches to several of the others.

A couple days ago I saw a YouTube that Dana Leeds did on how she uses these Pro Tools. She has four steps when she reviews the shared matches; looking at trees, common ancestor hints, her notes and then looking at the highest match in the shared matches list. Dawn shared her tree with me years ago, and we’ve been trying to figure out the connection. Looking at common ancestors Dawn, Sheri, Kath, Ron, Dan, Matt, and Ryan all show Mary Kilfoil as common ancestor to me, and Through Lines show Mary Kilfoil as my third great grandmother. My notes all indicate that Mary Kilfoil is the common ancestor, and the highest match to Dawn is her sister Sheri.

If Mary Kilfoil is my third great grandmother Dawn, Sheri, Kath, Dan and Matt would be my fourth cousins (4C) and Abby and Ryan would be fourth cousins once removed (4C1R). Conversely is Mary Kilfoil is my fourth great grandmother they would be 5C and 5C1R. From either the Shared cM Project or SegcM it’s not obvious which is the case. Next I put the data into BanyanDNA, see figure 10, setting it up so that I was the hypotheses. Two my of second cousins who also descend from Mary Aide have done DNA tests but not at Ancestry. Jennie tested at FamilyTreeDNA and Fred at 23andMe.

Hypothesis 1 would have Mary Kilfoil as my third great grandmother and hypothesis 2 would say that she is my fourth great grandmother. The results are shown in figure 11.

Now that I know where Mary Kilfoil is in my family tree I added her to my tree on Genetic Affairs AutoLineage as well. Then I ran ‘Find Common Ancestors.’ Figure 12 shows my new reconstructed family tree which includes additional DNA matches of mine from other sites. Details of using AutoLineage can be found at my earlier blog post.

Conclusion

I have a number of other matches where I’m not quite sure where the match fits in my family tree. From these two examples it appears that using the new Pro Tools to see shared DNA matches will be very helpful. Now on to more complicated matches and finding new cousins!

If you have questions about how to get the most from Ancestry Pro Tools or any of your DNA results contact me at: info@patriciacolemangenealogy.com