DNA Download: Ancestry Custom Clusters - Working with Unknown Matches - Nicole Dyer

Have you spent much time working with your DNA matches using Ancestry Clusters?

Ancestry Custom Cluster - UnknownMatch LD,
gather = 20-70cms. Red square includes known
clusters, Lower right cluster is consists of unknowns.

The clustering tool* is part of the add-on Ancestry Pro Tools subscritption. If you are working to validate your research or break through any major brick walls, this tool can be very helpful. If you choose to use the cluster tool, you may want to take a passing glance at your large personal cluster map for familiarity, but then take a look at the custom cluster layouts to work with specific lines and questions.

I confess that, as offered, I have found both of these tools a bit awkward. If you worked with the standard cluster map of your ancestors, you have likely realized how much information is provided on one screen. It is useful, but it is large and like eating the proverbial elephant.

If you have followed the Ancestry suggestion when creating custom clusters to use several other matches as "sidekicks," you may have found, as I did, the result about as clear to view as muddy water. I have used this several times without getting much traction from the results. Sure, there were matches sorted in groups, but with the add-on persons included, I could not decipher what the grouping was telling me. I played with the concept on and off over the past year, but found it to be more of a time suck than a help. 

Enter Nicole Dyer of Family Locket. In June of this year, she shared her free video on working with unknown matches and custom clusters. Her strategy ditches the sidekicks entirely and works with a well-chosen unknown match from the cluster grouping of a known match who already exists on her tree. This was like "lightning in a bottle" when I watched the video a few weeks ago, sparking ideas and strategies right and left. I shared the video with a few DNA buddies, and we have spent several sessions working the concepts to develop groups of matches that will help solve our brick walls. 

You can watch Nicole's video here: How to Create Custom Clusters with an Unknown Match

There is also a transcript that you can use if you want to make notes of some important steps and detailed cM ranges you will want to incorporate in your setup.

I have worked Nicole's suggested steps with two different match groups and had successes each time. First, I was able to confirm a "known" unknown cluster of matches went with the part of my tree that I thought it did. Second, I have identified a cluster of matches that very likely points to ancestor lines for the origins of my paternal surname line second great-grandfather. I know much less about this brick wall. This new information gives me at the very least some locations to search for his parents and some names to be alert for in any FAN club records I find.

My first effort, above: MU was the focus. My notes about knowns and unknowns are to the right. The yellow line at the left side of the cluster map relates to the last comment and is the illustration that confirms my hypothesis. I routinely use PowerPoint to create visual and text reminders of what I have researched. This keeps me from doing the same thing more than once and really fosters a deeper understanding of what I am seeing as I research.

Second effort, above: Unknown Match LD, gather = 20-70cMs. Red square includes known clusters. (This is the notes page the header image was pulled from.) This chart shows the known clusters I needed to work from and a very large, compact cluster of unknowns. These are the names I will research carefully back in time to the location that my second great-grandfather was purported to be from. Of course, if the DNA, locations, and ancestors tell me something different, I will listen.

If you are working with Ancestry DNA matches and already have Pro Tools, you should really try Nicole Dyer's strategy. You can add Pro Tools on a month by month basis if you just want to check it out for a short while. Just be sure to go in and cancel the subscription before the roll over date when you are ready to take a break from using it.

Have fun making your own amazing discoveries about unknown matches.

* Note: This is not a beginning DNA Strategy. If you are new to DNA testing and Match Sorting. Visit Diahann Southard's Your DNA Guide website. She had some good free content for beginners and several videos from RootsTech that are a good place to start your journey.

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - Homepage | WCGS Events | Join WCGS | Wake Genealogy Watch Newsletter | WCGS Facebook | Wake Cemetery Survey Images | Resources |  Contact - info(at)wakecogen(dot)org