Happy to help! I wish I could have made this last year, but I want to provide quality content, rather than fast content. So, I sat on the idea until it made sense.

Ha. Ha. Well we just might be cousins!!!! Glad you enjoyed this video. let me know how it goes in color coding your DNA.

You bet!

It can be

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Well thanks for your videos, I coloured it just like you showed, and suddenly I was able to see exactly where certain people fit. Just like that.

Sorry it took so long to get this video create. Glad it makes sense and congrats on finding out as much as you have. I have a Mystery Swedish line and I keep chipping away at the DNA results hoping I'll find them.

I can see overlap between our strategies. Woo-hoo!

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Great minds!!!!!!

I'm just confused by this video. Care to give me some hints?

Here are three videos about surname tables. I thought I linked them in the description box, but if they aren't there, this will get you started Make a Surname Table To Quickly See Your Family Names kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pbWjm8eGyNnTe2g.html Create a Surname Cheat Sheet for Your Family Tree kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p6-PhdZy0tqpcYE.html Surname Cheat Sheet for Complicated Family Trees kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oNpopcZm2t3So4U.html

Thanks for sharing your system. Your first sentence is the key to color coding - people who match others should be color coded. How we determine their common reason for matching can be different. Thus, you have a valid system. For many, ethnicity doesn't help sort their matches. Firstly, the ethnicity results aren't necessarily accurate and secondly, there is too much migration on the maternal and paternal lines to keep them distinct. For those that it helps, you're shared a great tip.

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Thank you for your validation. For me ethnic groups help. Although I'm living in the US I am English and my family have lived in two specific regions for centuries. It helps to put relatives in either of the two groups as I can surmise whether they are on my father's or mother's side. My maternal side is from the Scottish Lowlands and North East England. My paternal from Yorkshire and East Midlands. Within the Midlands group they are from a specific region. Not having my relatives migrating helps. Of course this might not help someone whose family has lived in the US for centuries.

Give it a go and let me know. I like dividing folks into these 16 groups and 'ignoring' the lines that I'm not focusing on.

Click on the dot to see the option. You should find a prompt that allows you to edit the colors. You can then (if you haven't used up all your colors) change your colors. You should also be able to change the names.

GREAT question... I leverage notes like crazy. For instance, I will add the Geisler/Mack dots so I know which grandparents I'm working on. Then I'll find the common ancestor that's above that Mack/Pusecker and add that as a note and the name of the descendant beneath the them so Descendants of Jacob. Check out this video as a follow-up kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fZOieKuamq6oh6s.html

No, Ancestry doesn't have enough colors for all your common ancestor groups. I don't know that we'll be able to differentiate between all of the colors. Do you? I like the idea of having a searchable note section in the DNA match field. However, I have used tags for my DNA matches and that has helped me extended my 16 colors further. Have you tried that?

Tommy Buch. Have you tried the Chrome Extension MedBetterDNA? It might help you . chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/medbetterdna/gnbpjempamffbpppblmabeeimkppenla?hl=en-US

Paul Baltzer. No, I haven’t tried that extension. This is the first time I have heard about it.

Family History Fanatics . Because they don’t have enough colors, I had to think outside the box and use the Notes section. And no, I don’t think we will be able to differentiate among all the colors. I like my method and it runs in tandem with the Thrulines. Also, for the matches that don’t show a common ancestor, I can look at the shared matches of a particular DNA match and see if the match shows any other matches where I have entered a common ancestor in the Notes section. This is kind of a starting point to see if that DNA match matches a common ancestor in the Notes section.

Family History Fanatics . I also asked Ancestry if they would give us DNATags like they did TreeTags. This way they could do away with the predefined fixed color groups altogether.

Follow the instructions on this page under "Editing or deleting groups" support.ancestry.com/s/article/Grouping-and-Filtering-AncestryDNA-Matches?language=en_US

You can't add a color code until someone is tested. You color code your DNA matches based on the ancestral lines that you discover they belong to.

You are more fortunate than I am as I don't have any parental DNA. Both of mine died before I could test them. SO, that's a good thing. What that means is you can differentiate between your maternal line matches and your paternal lines (unless they were close relatives themselves). Now, as you look at a new DNA match, you'll look to see if they have your mother and/or aunts on the shared match list. If they do, you can add those dots, even though you don't have a confirmed relationship path. Then you can focus on trying to find out how the closest of these matches are related (you'll need to see the match's tree or contact them). When you do, you can be more specific with your colored dotes. With your father's line, look for the closests DNA matches (preferable 1st-2nd cousins). Contact them and see if you can figure out how you're related. Once you do, then you can add dots/groups. THen you can look at your shared match list and color code others from that paternal line with that color. You can compare or review trees on those lines and you might make your discoveries. In short, you're at the beginning of the journey and you can add dots step-by-step as you make discoveries. Does that help?

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Thank you, yes this helps a little. I was actually donor conceived so I didnt know my bio father until 3 months ago! Thanks to Covid I had the time to sit down and work through a close match from Ancestry that had a partial tree! :) I actually dont think I have enough close matches to really work it all out haha. Theres a few close matches but they are also people that dont know their father or another doesnt know their grandfather. They're both definitely from my mothers side though. That we know :) I think more digging has to be done really :D Maybe dots wont help me at this particular stage until more people test! Thanks for your time once again, I appreciate it :)

Dots are there to help you make sense of your matches. Perhaps the way I did it won't work for you. Andy did some videos that might help you try a different strategy than the one I used kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nJqGqcRhvrW5fYE.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p5eqjMuAsqjJXYk.html

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p6-PhdZy0tqpcYE.html

Great question. I visually eye-balled the colors available in Google Sheets. I think you can do the same in Excel.

Family History Fanatics I just created a Excel spreadsheet of the Ancestry DNA color dots. I shared it on a Facebook Group. Here is a link. facebook.com/groups/geneticgenealogytipsandtechniques/permalink/853408561789512/

@@paulbaltzer4745 I couldn't get this link to work for me.

@@shannonberry7968 Try it now.

@@paulbaltzer4745 Thank you, that worked!

Have you watched this video? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p6-PhdZy0tqpcYE.html

I couldn't agree more about the need for a Chromosome Browser. I haven't run out of colors because I use the main 16 colors to help me visually sort my tree, then I 'layer' the notes section with more specific lines as needed. Have you used the notes section?

That would be nice. If the colors had patterns on them, that could help us have 'more' colors without having more colors. Does that make sense?

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Yes! I am more interested in the females than the males, so I need lots of names.

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics If they could go to either 16 or 32 colors with an optional letter inside the color such as 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C,D or FF,FM,MF,MM

Looking back that is weird. I'm not sure why my brother is a 1st-2nd cousin and has fewer cMs in common. Today, Ancestry has us sharing 2,301 cM.

That is correct. In the description box I linked to the videos that teach you who to make them. In case you missed that, here's the link to the playlist. There are several options, find the one that makes sense to you. kzfaq.info/sun/PLcVx-GSCjcdm9rtHPlP00i59GWrwL972T

Here's the link. I'm so sorry that I forgot to add it to the description. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p6-PhdZy0tqpcYE.html

Which part is confusing? The color coding part or the surname table part?