The Only DNA Tool You Will Ever Need

If you have spent any time at all trying to make sense of your DNA tests your initial excitement was likely quickly replaced with overwhelm and frustration. In this video, Shared DNA matches are explained.

[andrehill]

Ya know, I'm 10 months in and this lady makes good sense. I've had to watch this video several times to really comprehend what she's saying, but it makes sense to me.

[b.s]

I did this! I made a huge discovery. Thank U!

[jyoung]

I unfortunately missed RT this year. Stumbled onto this session. Wow! It made me so excited. Can’t wait to get started jettying my dots and starting over and working the plan. If I get stuck I’ll buy the book. Great presentation!

[LatashaCarter]

I feel so excited...I was doing this without even knowing that was what I was doing 🎉

[badhairdaylady]

My brick wall is my maternal great grandmother. The thing of it is, she's also my paternal great grandmother because my parents are 1st cousin 1x removed. My research is about 25 years in and still have not broken through that brick wall! My test was done at Ancestry, and I manage 25 DNA kits. This great grandmother is the 2nd wife of great grandpa so there are also half cousins!

[kapmanrich]

What a great job of teaching us about this plan. You have a gift!

[jthadrick]

I have been researching my family a long time and I've built a pretty significant tree. This one hour video has probably been the most helpful advice for getting pass brick walls that I have ever received.

[Christycat]

This works for most people it seems like... but, it can be extremely hard to break out groups when there are double/triple etc cousins that cross over both sides of the families and cross over between best first matches. It's basically a nightmare if you have families that stayed in tight nit groups like in the Appalachians or if siblings married neighbor siblings of another family... It is very hard for me to break out other "leftovers" when generally the whole groups leads back to the same people... and everyone has the same information and thus we all have the same brick wall.

[PeterStawicki]

Thank you for giving me another way to look at my DNA results. I have basically been treating them as find a name and match. I will be trying to break these down into the dots and seeing what kind of results I get.

[lisaquigley-moon]

My husband's grandfather was adopted in the 1890s. I am in a southern state & he was in Michigan Detroit's surrounding area. So I don't have much opportunity to go there. So I kept thinking he might have been an orphan train baby. My husband is passed but if still like to solve the mystery for his children.

[TrevorEMayo]

One of the primary problems leading to 19th century genealogy gaps for most American descendants of slaves is the impact of slave breeding farms. Many women trapped in those environments didn't know who the fathers were of their children. And the fathers especially if they were white didn't care to know.

[BonnieDragonKat]

I am trying this! Exciting. Thanks Diane!

[mikeh]

KEY POINT: "Whoever it is that you want to find (with this method) should be your 3-times Great Grandparents or closer. Using this technology to find someone more distant than that, just won't work very well."

[marklazaroff]

A constant frustration is that the vast majority of matches I have are 1 or 2 person trees. I suspect this is the result of marketing ethic profiles.

[bec]

So well explained. I'm going to use this with my husband to find out who his grandfather is.

[AmyWest-nrgi]

Is there a study sheet to print out anywhere?

[julieaskew]

I'm in the UK and what you say makes total sense, so much so I've just lashed out on your book from Amazon £27.99!
My Mystery ancestors are Pauley 3rd gt and Miller 4th gt. On one line I have gone as far back as 7th gt grandparents recently so I'm buoyed up after this achievement.

[IowaKim]

I'm 23 minutes in and excited because I had already used the dots to mark my 3g ancestor couples in 15 DNA tests. Now to listen further to see what Diahan has to say.

[maxiculture]

Very much US-centric as usual, but I expected that. What bugs me is the discussion of matches from about 500 down to 150cMs as being most My top mystery match is 138. I'm not American and I don't have 70, 000 matches to play with, I have 16, 000 total.

[geoffallan]

I used Ancestry for my DNA test and I get matches a wide range of countries. So I'm not quite sure of the validity of the comment about indicating international if there are small numbers from one side of the family. I was born in NZ, my ancestors came from Scotland and England, and I get matches from USA, Canada, and Europe because that's where some ancestral links migrated too.