There are times when I think I don’t have a tree for a certain DNA match and will add one, only to discover that there was already a tree there. Especially if the tree was added automatically, and I can see how to add another generation or so to it. One way to check your trees and avoid having duplicate trees is to export the trees into Excel. At the bottom of the ‘Tree Management’ page is the selection.
Export trees to Excel.
In the Excel file sort into alphabetical order on ‘name’ in column A.
Excel list of trees from AutoLineage.
If you find a name appearing twice in the alphabetically list, it likely indicates that a tree has been added twice. One thing to be aware of here is when the match’s name is initials, as more than one match might have the same initials. I made a list of the duplicate names and initials and then went back to AutoLineage to look at the list of trees. Putting a name into the search field will show the duplicate trees and you can delete one of them. With the duplicate initials you can check if it’s one match listed twice or two different matches by checking the cM values. In the image below you can see that these are two different matches because of the different cM values.
Two matches with same initials.
This is a quick and easy way to make sure that you do not have duplicate trees in AutoLineage, which can cause problems when finding common ancestors.
Great news for AutoLineage users! You no longer have to use “Save Page As” to import your Ancestry matches and shared matches—there’s a faster way with simple copy and paste. Instead of saving files to your computer, you can now copy your match or shared match page in Ancestry and paste it directly into AutoLineage in another browser tab.
Log into AutoLineage, set up a profile, and select ‘Generic’ as the DNA test. Under Import Matches select ‘Copy Paste Wizard.
Select Copy Paste Wizard.
That brings up the Wizard.
Copy Paste Wizard
The Wizard can be used for Matches and Shared Matches. It will show the Existing Matches, and Existing Shared Matches. You will see these numbers change as you add matches and shared matches. After you select and copy your Ancestry data you add it to the Wizard with the blue ‘Paste Data’ button. The list of New Imported Matches or New Imported Matches will update.
Ancestry’s match page initially shows 20 matches. If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you can change that setting to 50 matches. To make things more efficient that number can be changed to 100 matches per page. At the top of the window is the URL for the match page and it says ‘ItemsPerPage=50’ That 50 can be changed to 100, which makes copying the match data twice as fast!
Match data set at 50 matches per page.
Changing that 50 to 100 makes copying the match data twice as fast!
After changing match collection to 100 matches per page.
‘Select All’ under the Edit menu, or Ctrl A in Windows, or Cmd A on Mac will highlight all the matches on the page.
With Dave’s 100 matches selected.
Select ‘Copy’ (Ctrl C or Cmd C) to copy all the data on the page and then ‘Paste’ it into the AutoLineage ‘Copy Paste Wizard.’
After pasting 100 matches into the Copy Paste Wizard.
You’ll notice both the ‘Total Imported Matches’ and the ‘New Imported Matches’ should 100. At this point you can ‘Save and Close Wizard’ or go back to the tab with Dave’s Match data and select another page of matches. If there are no (shared) matches appearing in the wizard, go back to the page and try to select and copy the data from the top of the page.
Next collect shared matches. Dave paternal Aunt Mary tested at Ancestry. She has 14 pages of shared matches. Each page can be selected, copied and added to the ‘Copy Paste Wizard.’
Shared matches added to the Copy Paste Wizard.
When shared matches are added to the Wizard, if a match hadn’t been collected before, the wizard adds that match to Dave’s matches as well. Four hundred of Dave’s matches had originally been added. The lowest cM for them was 25, but you’ll notice in the list of Mary’s shared matches several matches at 6 or 7 cM. The Wizard automatically adds these to Dave’s matches as well. Looking at ‘New Imported Matches’ shows there were 180 new matches that had values lower than cM that matched Dave and his Aunt Mary, that were added along with the shared matches.
Especially with Copy – Paste, it’s a good idea to backup the AutoLineage data after adding matches and shared matches. The backup option is at the bottom of the ‘DNA Test Overview’ page. This saves the data as a JSON file that can be loaded back into AutoLineage (under import matches).
Backup for matches and shared matches.
Once you have enough matches and shared matches you can run clustering. There are several new features in clustering.
Clustering Wizard
Unweighted clustering is the default cluster setting that AutoLineage (and Genetic Affairs in general) has always employed. Weighted clustering is a new way of clustering that considers the amount of DNA between shared matches. This first image is of Dave’s matches in an unweighted, dense cluster. The various lines of the family are labeled. You’ll notice the green, red, purple brown, and pink clusters have a lot of grey cells that connect to paternal Aunt Mary, and Dave’s full sister connects to the both the paternal and maternal clusters, as would be expected.
Unweighted, dense cluster of Dave’s data.
The graph images are clearer now too. This is the one for the unweighted cluster. You can clearly see how Dave’s sister connects their maternal and paternal matches and how all the paternal matches are connected to Aunt Mary.
Graph visualization for unweighted, dense cluster.
This next image is of the weighted, dense cluster of Dave’s data. In this cluster a lot more of Dave’s close family members are seen, and the paternal grandmother side splits into 2 clusters. The orange cluster’s most recent common ancestor (MRCA) are Dave’s paternal third great grandparents, while the green cluster MRCA are his paternal second great grandparents. Here again sisters and nieces have grey cells to both paternal and maternal matches.
Weighted, dense cluster.
When you have a cluster you can run the AutoKinship tool, which is able to reconstruct trees based on shared DNA (and optionally MRCA data). From viewing the clusters select ‘Matches’ at the top of the window. This brings up a list of the matches in the clusters, which you can download to Excel if you want. You can also select the cluster that you want to use for AutoKinship.
Matches list.
The brown cluster was selected for AutoKinship and again brings up the actual cluster.
Showing the brown cluster.
Clicking on ‘Matches’ again brings up the screen where you can select AutoKinship.
Setting up for AutoKinship.
The list shows that Dave will be included along with the people in cluster 5.
Ready to start AutoKinship.
You can choose to add known relationships, or provide generational information between matches, before running AutoKinship if you wish. Or import trees for the matches and search for common ancestors. Both known relationships and MRCA information will be integrated in the reconstructed trees. Five trees were generated. This one perfectly located the matches in their family relationship. The MRCA are Dave’s great grandparents, John Coleman and Mary Ann Duff.
An AutoKinship tree of the matches in the brown cluster.
Conclusion
The new Copy Paste Wizard is a real game-changer for AutoLineage users working with Ancestry data. No more saving pages or juggling multiple files ,with just a few quick copy-and-paste steps, you can bring in both your matches and shared matches directly into AutoLineage. It’s fast, simple, and surprisingly satisfying to watch those numbers update as new matches appear!
I tested the Wizard with my own Ancestry data and found it worked beautifully. Within minutes, I had all my matches imported, ready for clustering and AutoKinship analysis. The process felt seamless compared to the old ‘Save Page As’ method.
Combined with the new weighted clustering and improved visualization options, this streamlined workflow helps turn raw match data into clear, meaningful family patterns and reconstructed trees.
A new import tool has recently been added to AutoLineage, enabling the use of GEDmatch Tier 1 data. This powerful addition allows users to identify potential common ancestors based on tree data linked to up to 7,500 matches. Unlike existing tools (even the ones on GEDmatch) that typically only analyze trees for a small number of top DNA matches, this new capability dramatically expands the scope of common ancestor analysis.
Start by selecting the One-To-Many – Full Version.
The Tier 1 Tools.
Enter your kit number and select 7500 matches for the comparison. Click on ‘Search’ and a message will come up for you to wait while the data is collected. When the site has loaded completely, save this page using the ‘Save Page As…’ command. Make sure the complete site is loaded, it might take a while to fully process.
Enter kit number and select 7500 matches.
Next click on the ‘Select all with Gedcoms’ command. This will select all DNA matches that have a linked GEDCOM.
Select All with Gedcoms.
At the top of the list of matches and gedcoms is the ‘Visualization Options.’ Click on that next.
List of visualization tools for the matches and gedcoms.
Select ‘GEDCOM’ that I’ve circled in red in the figure above, which will bring up the tools.
The gedcom matching tools.
Select the ‘Find matching GEDCOMs’ which brings up a new tab with a detailed list of the gedcoms. This page will allow for linking the DNA matches (represented by the kit numbers) to their GEDCOM trees as well as which root person they represent.
List of matching gedcoms.
‘Save Page As….’ using the filename that GEDmatch gives it. Make sure that the page is fully saved before the next step. Then go back to the previous page and select ‘Find Matching GEDCOMs (anc)’. This step takes some time to come up. It will quickly display a heading, but you don’t want to save the page until after that X, that I’ve circled in the figure changes to a circle with an arrow and the table has been filled in.
The anc2 page before it has collected the data.The anc2 page when all the data has been collected.
Once the page is complete, save it using ‘Save Page As….’ again using the filename that GEDmatch gives it.
Now you are ready to add the matches and their trees to the AutoLineage profile. If you’ve not made a profile yet, log into Genetic Affairs, select AutoLineage (local) and click on register a new profile.
Creating a new profile on AutoLineage.
After the profile has been created, select the register DNA test.
Next select the GEDmatch as the DNA test.
Select GEDmatch as the DNA test.
Next select Import matches and the Wizard will appear. The ‘One to many HTML file’ is what you want to select.
Wizard to import the matches from GEDmatch.
Clicking on the blue question mark explains what you want to collect, which you’ve already done.
Instructions for collecting the 7500 GEDmatch match files.
The list of matches is then displayed.
List of Judy’s GEDmatch DNA matches.
The next step is to add the gedcoms that you collected. Go to ‘Tree Management’ and select ‘Import trees.’
Import Tree Wizard..
Clicking on the blue question mark gives the detailed instructions for using this GEDmatch import tool.
Detail instructions for import tool.Selecting the two files to import.After the files are uploaded.
The trees are now automatically linked to the matches and with the matches and linked gedcoms in place, you can run ‘Find Common Ancestors.’ Select Judy’s profile and go to the overview page. Select the find common ancestor button.
I know that Judy’s closest matches are her siblings and nieces. Then her next highest match is less than 100 cM. So I ran the ‘Find Common Ancestors’ wizard down to a birth year of 1700.
FInd Common Ancestors Wizard set for 1700 birth year.
After waiting for quite some time, a large number of trees where found. The first one, shown here, connects Judy and her siblings to their fifth cousins once removed. Judy’s mother was a Hocking, whose family was originally from Cornwall, England. Some of the Hocking family immigrated to Australia, and Judy’s side immigrated to the United States. The Hocking line is well documented by the Hocking Descendants Society based on Australia.
Judy’s family tree on the Hocking side..
In many cases when I find unknown matches and want to find the connection to the tester, I start building a private, unsearchable tree on Ancestry. After a short while Ancestry provides hints to records and other trees, and I also research other sources for records and information to make the connection. Luckily, a new GEDCOM export capability in AutoLineage can facilitate the tree building!
On the ‘Tree Management’ ‘Tree Overview’ Page scroll to the bottom to ‘Manage Tree Data’ and select ‘Export Trees to Gedcom.’ This option will generate a new GEDCOM file using all of the trees that have been found, and optionally you can add additional DNA matches that do not have trees. All trees and DNA matches are provided in the GEDCOM as floating trees or floating individuals. In addition, tree persons linked to DNA matches as well as the individual DNA matches are provided with the DNA match tag, allowing for easy retrieval when searching for people.
The Manage Tree Data menu.Wizard to export trees and DNA.
Profiles for Judy and another tester, Linda, are available. Judy’s profile has 898 trees that came from GEDmatch, which is the only test site I’ve added to Judy’s profile currently. The wizard shows trees linked to available profiles as well as showing all trees (the all-trees option). Moreover, it’s possible to deselect individual trees if they do not need further researching in Ancestry.
I’ve checked the ‘Integrate DNA matches’ which allows me to add up to 1000 additional DNA matches that are not associated to an existing tree. These would show up in the resulting gedcom as floating trees of one person.
Adding DNA matches.
I selected 100 additional DNA matches and clicked on the export. It takes some time for the wizard to finish and it puts the gedcom, named ‘example.ged’ into your download folder.
Next in your Ancestry ‘Trees’ menu, scroll down to ‘My Trees.’
Ancestry Tree menu.
Select ‘Upload a gedcom file’ and add the ‘example.ged’ file. You can then name the tree whatever you like. I unclicked the ‘make the tree public’ and after it was processed I turned off the ‘make tree searchable’ under the Privacy settings.
Upload Family tree dialog.
It took several hours for Judy’s large gedcom to finish processing.
List of all the people there were in the example.ged file.
Since I want to find details of Judy’s third great grandfather, David Coleman, who was born somewhere in Ireland around 1801, I searched Coleman.
David Coleman in the list of people.
It appears there are two listings for David Coleman born around 1801 in Ireland. David, born in 1835 is his son. Carefully review the trees before merging them, or all the people in the tree will be duplicated. David has 16 hints and potential parents that someone has found. In the list of hints there are several US Federal Census, homestead records in Michigan and a death record for his daughter.
David Coleman’s hints.
Summary
Using GEDmatch Tier 1 One-To-Many – Full Version, selecting 7500 matches and then finding the gedcoms that these matches have provides an easy way to find common ancestors using AutoLineage. This approach also works for profiles that do not have a linked tree, in that scenario, the common ancestors will be identified using only the trees of DNA matches.
The new export to GEDCOM functionality provides an easy method to boost your tree finding efforts, without the need to manually copy existing tree data.
Often your research is focused on a specific part of your family line. This was the case with Mary who wanted to explain her father’s Collins line. Where had the Collins family lived in Ireland? When did the immigrate to the United States? And could we find more cousins on the Collins line? She had her DNA on Ancestry where we could select and study only her “Paternal” matches on her father’s Collins line. Mary’s family tree provided the surname of paternal grandmother, and great grandmothers that we’d want to avoid.
Mary’s tree from AutoLineage.
We started out by selected “Paternal” matches on her Ancestry DNA.
Selecting Mary’s paternal matches on her Ancestry DNA.
After scrolling down the page, we set the number of matches on the page to 50.
Setting for 50 matches per page.
Recently Paul Weaver had commented on the Genetic Affairs Facebook page how that number could be changed to a maximum of 100, by editing the number in the URL of the page.
Ancestry URL where you can change the 50 matches to 100.
We saved several pages of the close matches first.
Saving page 2 of Mary’s matches.
Next, we added the “Common Ancestor” filter, which is found at the top of the match list.
Filter to find matches that say “Common Ancestor.”
We saved the pages of matches that said Common Ancestor. We added CA for Common Ancestors to the filename to help keep track of what we had saved.A
Saving Mary’s common ancestor matches.
Since AutoLineage keeps track of the matches that have been added, there’s no worry of duplicating a match.
I make a list of the matches when I start looking at shared matches. I write down the match name, the number of pages of shared matches, notes and cM. This helps keep track of which matches I’ve seen and having the name there makes it easier to spell the name correctly on the gedcom when I save it. If the match is on the grandmother’s side, and not one that I’m saving I still write it down and add grandmother in the notes. This avoids having to look at that match again.
Excel worksheet that is printed and used to document matches viewed.
By looking at the Common Ancestors that Ancestry had found we could determine which matches we wanted to save based on Mary’s tree. If they were on the Collins line, we wanted their tree and their shared matches. First,we’d click on “Tree” and then “Expand Tree” using right click to have the expanded tree open in a new tab.
Elizabeth’s tree that will be expanded in a new tab.
Then on the match’s page we clicked on “Shared Matches.”
Shared matches selected.
While those are coming up, we’d go to the tab with the tree and save the gedcom using One2Tree in my Chrome extension.
Elizabeth’s tree that will be saved to a gedcom.Gedcom in One2Tree.
After the gedcom is saved to the Download folder, we rename it with the match’s name, copy the name and add the gedcom to Mary’s gedcom folder.
Saving Elizabeth’s tree.
By then the shared matches were up. We’d sort the shared matches to show the closest match to this shared match.
Sorting shared matches to show Elizabeth’s closest matches.
Often that would give hints to the family relationship. Elizabeth’s closest matches are first cousins once removed, but often there are siblings or nieces and nephews which provide a lot of information for connecting the family trees.
Elizabeth’s closest matches.
Next, we’d scroll to the bottom of the page and record to the number of pages of shared matches on my list.
Number of pages of shared marches for Elizabeth.
Here Elizabeth only has one page of shared matches. Using Command S on Mac (Control S on Windows) and we saved the first page of shared matches, pasting in the match’s name that was saved when we named the gedcom, and adding p1 when there are multiply pages for this match.
Once a number of pages of matches and shared matches have been saved and added to AutoLineage, we ran clustering to get an idea of where things were. Under Mary’s profile we selected Generic to bring up the page of commands available and then scrolled down to Perform Clustering Analysis.
Getting ready to run Clustering analysis.
We ran the cluster with all the available matches and normal settings.
Cluster of a few matches.
The cluster gives us some ideas of where we want to collect shared matches to fill in more connections for the cluster and also which trees would be useful for when we run Find Common Ancestors on AutoLineage.
Back on Ancestry, after collecting all the matches that said “Common Ancestors” and were on the Collins line, we removed that filter and “Search” for matches that have Collins in their trees. This will exclude any matches that don’t have trees, but since trees are needed for Finding Common Ancestors in AutoLineage, the matches who don’t have trees are often not that useful.
Looking for trees that contain Collins.
Again, saving those pages of matches. It’s likely that we’ve already added some of these matches and trees. While AutoLineage will ignore matches I’ve already added, it would let us add a tree more than once, and that is something we want to avoid. We set up AutoLineage DNA matches page on one tab and the Trees page on a second tab.
Sean K is listed as DNA match and has 8 In Common With matches.Sean K has a tree already on AutoLineage.
Here we can see that Sean K match has already been uploaded to AutoLineage and he has 8 In Common With matches. His tree is also loaded, so we can skip over him to the next match that has Collins in their tree. This saves a lot of repeating something that has already done a few days earlier.
Once a good number of matches and trees have been added we can find Common Ancestors. Starting on the page of Mary’s profile, we scroll down to near the bottom of the page and select “Find Common Ancestors” on the left side of the page.
Page for Mary’s Profile.Find Common Ancestors.
Clicking on Find Common Ancestors brings up the Wizard where we can make any changes that we want. Since Mary’s ancestors were born before the 1800 birthdate that is in the wizard, we changed it to 1750.
Common Ancestors Wizard.
When the wizard completes its calculations the reconstructed trees appear. We obtain the beginnings of a nice reconstructed tree. In the tree below tester Mary, and matches Elizabeth, Doreen, and J have been connected back to their common ancestors, William Collins and Katherine Liston.
Reconstructed tree fo Mary’s family.
In conclusion if you are looking for Ancestry DNA matches that are on one specific line in your family, you can set up AutoLineage concentrating on that line. First select paternal or maternal depending on where the line of interest is in your family. Next look at matches that Ancestry labels “Common Ancestor.” You’ll want to compare the surnames found here to the names in your family tree to avoid common ancestors who are not on your specific line. Then remove the “Common Ancestor” filter and “Search” on trees that have the family surname or interest. AutoLineage will prevent you from adding a DNA match a second time, but you have to make sure that you don’t duplicate a tree. Checking for the match’s name in Trees under Tree Management before adding a tree can ensure that you don’t duplicate one.
Thanks to Mary for the use of her DNA data. If you’d like some help with your DNA contact me at info@patriciacolemangenealogy.com
If you have been collecting your Pro Tools shared matches for AutoLineage, you know it can take a bit of time. I’ve found another shortcut to speed up this collection. First I check if the match has a tree and look at the tree. If it’s only a few people and all are private, there’s no point in making a gedcom of that. But when there is a tree I make a gedcom on One2Tree. Before I save the match’s name on the gedcom, I copy the name. Then when I go to do the shared matches I’ve already got the name and then only have to add p for page. Since I was already on the match’s page, I select shared matches and am ready to collect them, as I describe below.
This is especially useful when the match has multiple pages of shared matches. The figure below shows match lists for Joyce, who has nine pages of shared matches and three of the pages of David’s shared matches. With these shared matches it is important to keep the folder as well as htm file that you add to AutoLineage. If you delete the folder, the htm file will also be deleted.
Directory showing some of the files of shared matches.
Tiffany is a match to Dave and she has 6 pages of matches. I start out by saving her first page.
Saving Tiffany’s first page of shared matches.
Before saving the file I copy the match name and p, which I’ll use for all of the matches other pages and just add the page number.
Copying the match’s name and p for the page number.
Then I watch as the circle, that is in the upper right bar of Chrome, fills in around the arrow to make sure that the file has been completely saved
On the left is the circle that is drawn as the file is being saved. On the right is the look after the file is saved.
Once the file is saved I position my mouse next to the arrow and change to the next page. I then leave the mouse there for the rest of the files. I also set my left hand so I can use Command S and Command V for the rest of Tiffany’s pages. I’m on a Mac and Command S saves the page in Chrome and Command V pastes the beginning of the filename that I copied earlier. On a Window computer the commands would be Control S and Control V.
Left hand positioned for Command S.
By just pivoting my fingers I can reach Command V.
Finger pivoted to reach Command V.
Once the file for the first page of Tiffany’s matches is saved, I mouse click to page 2. Then Command S brings up the ‘Save page as’ dialog. Command V copies in Tiffany p. I move my right hand and select 2, to make the file say ‘Tiffany p2’ and use the Return key to save the file. As the files are added to my directory I can see what has already been added which makes it easy to not overwrite a file.
Directory showing the files that have already been saved.
The figure below shows all six pages of Tiffany’s shared matches. The first five pages have twenty matches each and the last page has nine matches. You’ll noticed that all six pages were saved in under two minutes.
Directory showing all six pages of Tiffany’s shared matches.
Summary
I have found this to be a lot faster than having to go up to the File menu to get ‘Save page as’ and also to have to type the filename over each time. I’ve also found several matches with up to fourteen pages of shared matches. Especially when you’re trying to save a lot of shared matches to build out your clusters and subsequently the reconstructed trees, saving any time on the data collection is a bonus.
Patricia Coleman Genealogy LLC 