A Fun Way To Sort Through Ancestry DNA Matches

Here’s how to sort through Ancestry DNA matches, eliminate all the extraneous results that you’ve seen time and time again and rekindle your interest in Ancestry.com!

It’s very simple using Ancestry’s new and improved search tools for your DNA matches. All you have to do is set the search parameters just like I’ll show you and you can put all of your new results up at the top and sort through your Ancestry DNA clutter in a matter of seconds.

I have to admit I’ve gone sensory blind to my Ancestry.com DNA results page. Have you? When you log in, if you still do, you find your closest cM (centiMorgan) matches at the very top, all of whom you’ve by now (if you’re an experienced user) have seen, trolled through, and researched out. We’re over it already!

So, here’s what you do to rekindle that Ancestry DNA magic that you initially had when you first looked at your results. You were like a kid at Christmas weren’t you? I sure was!

Go to your DNA Matches page

Observe the new tool bar with all of the upgraded search options. The first time you visit this page Ancestry will take you on a tour of them, do that if you like; opt out if you don’t want to. It’s all fairly intuitive. The image below is what it looks like

Select & sort the following options

You are going to select the following parameters to filter all of your NEW, UNVIEWED, CLOSE MATCHES that have TREES to the top. Just continue selecting options using the menu bar and sort them. Here, I’ll show you.

1. Sort By Date

Go to the right-hand side of the menu bar and select the sort option and choose “date.” This will put your newest matches first. Most of them should have blue dots – I say most of them because the blue dot actually is a function of #4 and not of when they’ve been added as a match. Go ahead and sort by date.

2. Sort By Close Matches

The next thing to do is to filter your matches by their genetic distance to you. Select from the drop down menu “Close Matches – 4th cousin or closer.” This will weed through Ancestry DNA like no other! If you want you can enter in specific centiMorgan values to get an even more exact range and even shorter list.

3. Sort DNA By Public Linked Trees

No sense in creating this new list if you don’t have a tree to peruse. You want to filter out all new matches that have not yet created a tree, hopefully you will get new results based on this alone as you continue to play with this. There is nothing more frustrating than finding new DNA matches with no available trees! Are you with me on that one?

4. Sort By Unviewed

Your list may not change much by selecting the “Unviewed” button; however, it will insure that you are viewing only people that you have not viewed before. You should still see a ton of results, only now you can sort through your Ancestry DNA matches and see just the new close cM stuff!

That’s it, now go and make it happen. Head on over to Ancestry.com and see what you can discover. Leave a comment about your experience when you’re done.