[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hello, welcome to "Advancing Your Genealogy with DNA." Is that why we're here? Yeah! Yes, excellent, we're all in the right place. All right, my name is Anna Swayne, and I'm very excited to be here to talk with you today about one of my favorite things to talk about, which is DNA, and how do you use it to help you understand a little bit more about yourself and how you fit into your family tree. So how many of you have taken an Ancestry DNA test? Wow, quite a few of you. How many have not? Oh, a few of you. OK, guys, this is your chance. You might be sitting next to a cousin, so you could find all that out through DNA. Quick intro about myself. Also, I also want to welcome those who are watching online, yes, the live stream. Welcome. Hopefully, my family members are tuning in from Washington and Idaho and Nevada. I bribed them that they should watch me and see what I do. I'm like, "That's OK, you don't have to come to RootsTech. You can watch it online." So welcome to everyone online. And for all of you, I know it's Saturday, and you probably have learned a ton at RootsTech. How many first timers? Awesome, that's great. So, hopefully, we'll see you again next year. So a little bit about myself. I work at Ancestry. I've been there for almost five years. And before Ancestry, I worked for a company that was trying to figure out how the world was connected. It was a nonprofit research company that was doing genetic research, and they wanted to be able to see if DNA testing really could work--you could take a DNA test and you could find something out about yourself. And I started doing that in college. And when I heard about the project, I was like, "Wow, this is amazing. I want to be a part of this." And so I started it, and that's taken me on this path. So I've seen how the power of DNA has advanced through the years and where we today can talk about it specifically about certain family lines and what we can really find out about our own story. So we'll jump into it. This is our quick agenda. We're going to talk about genetic inheritance. I think this is one of the most important things to understand when you're trying to advance your research and using DNA to do that. Genetic inheritance, we're going to do a quick overview of that. We're going to do just a brief review of what you get from your DNA tests. So I know some of you have already taken the test, but we'll do a quick review for those who haven't. And then we're going to understand your DNA matches. This is really where the rubber hits the road when you're trying to use DNA to advance your genealogy or use it for your research. How many of you have brick walls? Hopefully everybody, right? That's why we're here. Yeah, we can use DNA matching to help break through those brick walls, find out who our great-grandfather was or who he married. We'll do that through DNA matching. And then what specific questions you should have about using DNA for your research, and next steps. So, hopefully, all of you came to this conference with a question in mind. What do you want to find out? What do you want DNA to help you discover? If you haven't had a question, think about it, because the more questions you have, the more you're going to get out of your own DNA results. So, quick review of genetic inheritance. Here are my fourth great-grandparents Timothy and Agnes. So we're just going to do a simplified version of what their DNA looks like. What you're looking at is a pair of their chromosomes. And you have blue for Timothy; you have purple for Agnes. So what happens when they have a child? Their daughter Hazel inherits DNA from them. Now, we don't know which segments of DNA or which parts of the DNA she gets. It just gets shuffled down and then passed to her. And this is what happens from generation to generation as more people have kids. So my grandmother gets a little bit of their DNA. My mom gets a little bit of their DNA. And then they pass it down to me. So a segment of their DNA, Timothy and Agnes, gets passed on to me. I am a living, walking record of these individuals because I can test my DNA and unlock that. I have that DNA from my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents. And so when I get my DNA tested, I'm getting my DNA that I inherited from them. But if I look at my sister's DNA results, that same piece of DNA that I inherited from my grandparents may not show up in her. This is very important to understand. And so this is why siblings' DNA results can look a little different, because maybe she didn't inherit that same piece of DNA. Or you're matching--if you've had other family members tested, you may match to a fourth cousin that maybe another family member doesn't, or vice versa, because of this concept of, you're only inheriting so much DNA, but sometimes it's not the same pieces. And so getting additional family members tested helps you unlock that. And so when I look at genetic inheritance and you're looking at how the DNA gets passed on from generation to generation, it gets mixed up before it gets passed. So when you look at two siblings, you know, mother and father have a child, it gets passed, they look at another sibling, and then it could look a little bit different. Doesn't mean they're not related. A lot of people say, "Well, Anna, does that mean maybe your sister isn't really your sister if your ethnicity results look different?" And you share about 50 percent of your DNA with a sibling, OK? So there's that whole other 50 percent that you don't share that could then match you to other cousins, or it could tell you, you know, a different region, that you didn't inherit that segment of DNA or you didn't inherit that piece of DNA, but your family member did, and that gives you that unlock. So here are my three sisters. They've all taken the DNA test. I'm the fourth. I'm still waiting for my brother to take that test. He has it at his house, and I really hope he's watching so that he feels pressure from all of you, right? You guys all want him to take it, too. Huh, see, yeah? All right. He has it. And so we get our DNA from our two parents, again, 50 percent--50 percent from Mom, 50 percent from Dad. Now, sometimes people come up to me and they're like, "Anna, I inherited way more DNA from my mom's side of the family than my dad's side of the family." And I said, "Impossible. You actually get 50 from Mom and 50 from Dad." But when you go back a generation, yeah, maybe Mom gave you a little bit of her mom's DNA more than her dad's DNA. So the statistic probability is that you get about 25 percent of your DNA from your grandparents, but it varies depending on what you got. Again, showed you that example, it gets just gets shuffled down and passed on, and we have no control over that. And so this is really important to understand when you're evaluating your DNA results. When you have a specific question in mind, you're like, "I want to solve my DNA question," but maybe your DNA alone will not be able to answer that question. So getting other family numbers tested might unlock that for you. So that's genetic inheritance. Now, what we're going to go forward talking about, we're really going to dive into the experience. And you're going to probably have questions like "How do we do this? How does Ancestry provide me this, and how do they know about this and this and this?" And that's great; I hope you do have those questions. And I just want to give a shout-out to our science team because it's a lot of what they're doing that powers this, that powers the matching, powers ethnicity. You talk about these regions; how do we know these people came from these different places? Well, our science team is growing and growing, as you can see--quite a few members on the team and a lot of brainpower. Some of you might not know that we actually have a scientific advisory board. These are individuals in academia who review some of the research that we do, so when we're publishing in scientific journals and things like that, they help review some of that information. So you can trust the fact that a lot of what we're doing behind the scenes is coming together because of the brainpower of our science team. OK, so let's get into it and let's do a quick review of what you get from your DNA results. We'll jump into your ethnicity estimate. So here we have my results. So you can see on the screen, 67 percent Great Britain, 22 percent Irish, and 10 percent Scandinavia. I'm sure a lot of you have already looked at your own results, and you're thinking, "OK, yeah, it might be a little bit different than mine," or "How do you interpret this information?" So the reason why Ancestry can tell me that I'm 22 percent Irish is because they have population data from 150 different regions, and even more when we get into specific migrations. So if you think about it, and you're like, "OK, so you take my saliva sample, and you compare it to those different regions that we have data on, and then you give me my unique ethnicity estimate. So this is what I inherited from my two parents, my four grandparents, and so on and so forth. But what does it look like when I get another family member tested?" So I'm going to show you my aunt's--my, well, she's my great-aunt, so my dad's mother's sister, my maternal--my paternal maternal grandmother's sister. She took the test, and her results look a little different than mine. To be expected, right, as you think about genetic inheritance. So we can tell her she's 31 percent Irish and she's 27 percent Great Britain and 21 percent Scandinavian and Europe West, and so on and so forth. But I want you to look at the region right underneath Ireland, Scotland, Wales, this Connaught, Ireland. We don't only just tell her she is 31 percent Irish, but where in Ireland she came from. And if you click on that, it takes you even deeper into where in Connaught, Ireland. She actually is from Galway, so her family somehow is connecting to this region. Now, I don't have any documentation into this when I first got the results. Thankfully for DNA, it's actually unlocked this for me. But this is only on her DNA are we telling her she's from Galway, OK? Using tree data from my aunt's DNA results, this is through the DNA alone. And so all of a sudden you're opening up this new world of finding how we're connected to this particular part of Ireland. It's not just a percentage anymore; this is actually a place in a city and with people who are connecting me. How many of you saw the keynote today? Yeah? We talked a lot about DNA, and it's getting--this is an advancement. This is a huge advancement. Not only does it tell you you're Irish, but to tell you where in Ireland is very, very powerful. So now I can look at this and I can learn a little bit more about, not only looking at the DNA, but looking at, specifically, that highlighted area that you can see on the screen--that is the area the people that I'm connecting to strictly through DNA. So you can click on--just really explore this. You can see the time line at the bottom; you can go into specific time periods of what was going on with these individuals, who were they, and why were they moving around, or maybe why didn't they move around. And it has this really rich experience of a lot more information to give you that insight. So I use that, I leverage that to look at why I would potentially be connecting to this part of Ireland. And I went, actually, to my tree, and I saw that in my tree I had this census record. And I didn't look at it really before. You know how sometimes you're just evaluating certain research. And I saw that there was a discrepancy in the census data. On one census it said they were born in Ohio, and in another census they were born in Ireland. And I thought, "Oh, wow." OK, well, maybe trying to evaluate those two documents and looking at the DNA, now I can say, "OK, this particular family line is connecting me to Galway. I'm going to go look there. I'm going to start looking at the cousins that I have from there and see how I connect to them." So when you're evaluating all this information, like I said, you can click on the different time lines, and then we pull in historical context. So we partnered with researchers, experts in the field, to pull in this historical content to give you this rich experience of not just your DNA and not just your own tree information, but also this historical information all on top of one, with each other in one place, to view this whole experience. And so really spend some time going into your own regions, clicking on the time lines, and exploring this. So I want to take you back. So I'm looking at this page. There's actually a way for you to directly see how many matches you have to this particular region. And when you click on the highlighted box, you can actually see how many matches you have. And I have over 400 DNA matches. Now you're thinking, "Whoa, do I have to go through each one of those matches to see?" Some of these are going to be more distant matches, but still connecting you. You share DNA because you're connecting to this particular area. Well, so I clicked on it. I was like, "I'm going to explore this. I'm going to see what I can find out." So when I click on it, it shows me by region--so I'm just looking at Galway; you can see the filters at the top, and I'll get into the filters in a little bit. You can see I'm just looking at cousins who also connect to this region in Galway, and my three top cousin matches. Actually, when I look at their tree and I look at the ancestors born in Galway, I get these three different maps from each of those ancestors. And if you feel like you're getting a little lost, it's OK. We're going to take this step by step as we go on. But I wanted to show you this complete picture of how I used my DNA story, my ethnicity, these regions to help me connect to the different places. And so I can now go explore these DNA cousin matches and see who are those people, try to find the common ancestor, and then bridge it back to my own tree. OK, so by getting other--as you can see, hopefully this is a good example--this was how you can get other family members tested and the value that it provides as you do so. I did a quick chart, just a quick chart in Excel, and I took all the family members that have been tested--my mom, my dad, and my aunt, my mom's first cousins, and my great-aunt, so the sister to that grandmother that I was just showing you. And they all have provided me with different regions based on the DNA that they've inherited. So my mom and my dad, they add their two regions. They're bolded because those are actually regions I inherited, but one of my sisters didn't inherit one of them. And so you have to play that game of, certain family members are going to give you certain pieces to this big picture you're trying to figure out how you fit into. My other aunt, her DNA connected to the central North Carolina region, which I know we have. And so my mom's DNA results confirmed our connection to Virginia; my dad here and Mormon pioneers; my aunt, the central North Carolina region; then my mom's first cousins. Look at all those regions that they gave us. So by having them tested, looking at their DNA, these are the regions that they added, too. And I didn't have any of these regions in my DNA alone, but my mom's first cousins did. And then you look at my great-aunt; she provided the Galway region that was a huge unlock for us to figure out how we were connected to jumping across the pond and getting our connection to Ireland. Because oftentimes we think, OK, how many of you--think about your tree for a second, and think about, "OK, how many different places does my family come from?" Right? She laughs; she's like, "A lot." And it's an interesting game to play, because then you think, "OK, now what's the DNA telling me?" And I can say that the DNA is confirming a lot of these different regions. But then getting a few key members of my family tested has unlocked new regions that I hadn't thought about before because my tree doesn't go back that far, or I haven't discovered that from a particular family line. So getting additional family members tested is very valuable into providing you more pieces to your own personal story, because maybe your DNA alone isn't going to give you the complete story for each one of your family lines. So in this case, you can see a lot of value was added by getting other family members, and they're all testing within the same database so that you can cross-compare and see that for each region. All right, so we talked a little bit about the matching. You know, I was able to look into Galway and see, how many of my cousin matches were matching there, where were they from, what were they doing, what information can I learn from that to help me with my own family tree? So let's do a quick review of how matching works, just so that we're all on the same page as we go forward. So those of you who have taken a test, you remember the little saliva sample that you provided. Those who haven't taken a test, super easy--you provide a little saliva, you send it in to us. We take your DNA, and then we compare it to the seven million people who are also in the Ancestry database. That's a lot of people. When I stood up here last year at RootsTech--so it was almost a year ago--guess how many people were in the database? Three million? Ooh, good job, who said that? [INAUDIBLE] DNA kit for you. Come see me afterwards. Impressed. Yes, so we had three million people in the database. We've almost--yeah, we have doubled; I can do math. We've doubled in a year, and that's impressive. So those of you who said you had taken the test, you're in the database, and anybody new coming in will get compared to you. And so you could constantly get new matches every week, every month, every year. So it's very valuable to continue to come back and see who's come in, what information did they have, and you might be helping others as well. So seven million people in the database. We look at and compare the DNA that you have to each one of those individuals. And so we're looking at that shared DNA, so if we find someone that you share DNA with, then we just estimate a relationship based on how much DNA you share with any other individual. And that's when you get your list of cousin matches, and we estimate that relationship. So once you're in the database, you're in the database, and anybody coming in new will get compared to you. And how we make these comparisons? The science team tells me, a lot of science, a lot of math. And here it is to demonstrate. A lot goes into this. Because you think about it, when you match with a fourth cousin match, you share DNA with this individual. Now the question is, who? Who in the past gave DNA down through the generations that matches you today? And that is the power of using Ancestry, because we have the tree data to help us figure that kind of thing out. So we'll jump into this--we'll jump into matching and evaluate, because I want you to think about--for the next 10 minutes, think about these tools, how you can use these tools, what questions you have that are going to help you use these tools to figure out how you're related to your cousin matches. Because you can find connections on any one of your family lines, you know; it can be on your mom's side of the family this month, and it can be on your dad's side of the family next month, as long as you're staying engaged. But if you can learn these quick little principles, it will set you on a path of being able to just continue and manage your matches and, hopefully, break down brick walls or discover something new that you didn't know before. Doesn't always have to be an earth-shattering breakthrough on a brick wall. Sometimes you just find the cousin that has something new that you didn't have. So I'll show you how that works. All right, here's a list of my cousin matches. So you have my parents. They showed up, so, good news, right? When I was younger--so I'm the youngest of five. And when I was younger--my brother and sister were closer in age to me--they would always tease me that I got dropped off on the porch. So I know it was a joke, right, you know, that siblings do. So when I got my DNA results, I was like, "Look, there's proof. There's proof right here." So my parents got a DNA test done; they show up as my parents. I showed you the three sisters that I had tested. So how did they show up? They show up as immediate family members. So my sisters have taken the test, and they show up as immediate family members. Now, a couple months ago, I think it was, I got a close family member match. And I thought, "Oh, my goodness, who's taking this test?" I'm the one that's usually trying to recruit people. I am that person that always has a DNA kit in their bag. Anybody else? Yes, all right, so we're not alone. Yeah, when I show up to family holidays, events, I'm looking at who else can take the test, because you can see the value of having one on hand where you can get more value from someone's saliva sample. So this close family member popped up, and I thought, "Oh, my goodness, who's taking this test?" And you can see, it's C.L. You can have any kind of username out there, and so I didn't know much. But then it says "managed by Jeanne," and you guys remember my sister's name, Jeanne. So I knew it was her son who took the test. And I said to him, I was like, "Hey, why didn't you let me know? I would have helped you get the test," and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, "I wanted to make sure that you weren't going to tamper with the results." I was like, "Hey, what are you saying about me here?" No, you know, I'm always talking about this. People are always asking me questions. He was like, "I just wanted to make sure." And I was like, "Look, it worked." He's like, "I know. This is cool." So he's taken the test, and then I--so that's my nephew. So close family members are--oh, sorry, we'll back up--so close family members can be nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles; they can drop into that category. So even though we say "close family members," keep that in mind of the different relationships. And this is really valuable to keep in mind when you think about first cousins. I've gotten a lot of questions here at the conference where people are saying, "I got this first cousin match. I don't know how they're even related to me." Because you think "first cousins," OK, you probably shared grandparents. And I say, "Well, it could mean several other different reasons. And even though it says a first cousin doesn't mean it's just a first cousin." Take this, for example. So I have two first cousin matches. The first one is Julia Swayne, which is my great-aunt. And so she's my great-aunt, but because of how much DNA we share with each other, it's saying we're first cousins. So keep that in mind as you're evaluating your matches. A second cousin really could be a third cousin, and so on and so forth. For example, the second first cousin match is Jayne, and that's my dad's half-sister, so she's my half-aunt. So I have two aunts in this category; one is a great-aunt, and one's a half-aunt. They both show up as first cousin matches. Extremely valuable to think about as, again, as you're trying to evaluate these different matches. OK, second cousin matches. I've got four--well, I've got five. But I have five cousin matches. Four of them--the one that's not highlighted, I actually recruited to take a DNA test. And they are my mom's first cousins. So they're my mom's first cousins; they show up to me as a genetic second cousin, but really we are first cousins once removed. Woo, DNA kit! Yes, I love this participation. OK, so, but you'll see the one that's highlighted on the screen now, she doesn't have a family tree. OK, so this is important. You're thinking, "Well, Anna, should I just dismiss this match?" No. And I'll show you exactly what you can do to help you figure out how you're connected to someone even if they don't have a family tree listed on this page. So it's very valuable just not to dismiss that. But keep in mind, again, the most important thing to learn from this is that even though it says DNA second cousins, it could mean first cousins once removed; it could be a third cousin. We're just telling you the estimated relationship based on how much DNA you share, DNA-wise. OK, so now that you've gotten that--now you can kind of understand, "OK, I understand genetic inheritance. I know how to evaluate my matching relationships. I keep an open mind about, even though it says a second cousin, maybe it's a third cousin; maybe it's a first cousin." Now you're ready to really dive in and use the tools available to help you navigate through your DNA matches. So one quick thing just to make sure, because I've--again, I've gotten a lot of questions at the conference, so I just want to review. Some of the things we're going to talk about today, you have to have linked your tree to your DNA test. So how you do that? You look on the screen, you see your name, and then that red box right underneath it. See how it says ""[DNA] test is shown to matches as swaynedna"--that's my username--and then it says, "Linked to Anna Swayne." Make sure you've linked your test to your tree. Now, you can only link one test to one tree. I know several people are like, "Well, I have two trees. What do I do?" And what I recommend is creating one tree, so you have to merge--you know, if you have a tree for Mom and a tree for Dad, merge those two together, and then link it to yourself so that you can--because that's exactly how the DNA is inherited. So you want to link it to yourself because that is how it passes on from your two parents, your four grandparents, so on and so forth. So this is how you check it. Make sure you've linked it. And make sure, if you have multiple trees on your account, that you've linked it to the right person in the right tree. Do you have a question about this? Yeah, I just got DNA kits for my mom and my sister, so I can manage them-- Yes. When I'm managing them, can I link them to my tree? Yes, so, great question. So her question was, "Hey, I just bought a bunch of DNA kits for family"--awesome, because yes, you want to get more family members tested. Now what do you do? How do you manage those different DNA kits? And yes, you could have them--each one of the individuals has to create an account, and it can be a free account, no problem; they share the results with you. And if you don't know how to share the results, we have flyers at the booth, or you can look online. We have several help articles on how to do that. But yeah, you can link them all to just one tree, even. So that's what I've done. So you saw all the people I had tested. I have one tree; I call it my DNA tree, and then I link everybody to that tree to use and leverage for research. So you can only--you can link many tests to one tree, but you can only link one tree to one test. So, great question. OK, so here we go. Buckle up and let's go through each one of these, because when I get to the case studies, I want you to know that I used every single one of these tools in one way or another. So these are the tools available to you to navigate through your DNA matches and really try to figure out how you're connected to other people that are in your match list. So we'll start off with hints. Now, "hints" is a feature that's basically doing the work for you in a lot of cases, as long as you've linked your tree to your test. When you click on Hints, it's going to filter all of your DNA matches by the fact that Ancestry thinks they have found the same common ancestor in your tree as in your match's tree. So how that works is, you click on Hints, it's going to pull the matches, and this is what pops up for each one of your matches that has a shared ancestor hint. So now I can see how I descend--so I have Thomas William Winter in my tree, and Myra Clayton. And I can see how I descend from this common ancestor, and I can see how my cousin descends from this common ancestor. We both took the test, we both linked our trees, and now I can see that information. And so it's funny because I was actually at a conference in San Antonio where I met this cousin, because I was talking about our third great-grandfather, and he said, "That's my family." And I said, "Look, DNA working in action right now." So those are all shared ancestor hints, and if you go back to your home page, you can actually see how many shared ancestor hints you have. So right underneath all the pictures I blurred out for privacy reasons, you can see I have 109 shared ancestor hints. So I have 109 of my matches who have this experience where I can click in and see how we're related. Now, again, this is a hint, so you have to evaluate it and say, "OK, is this really how we're related?" I always go in and look at their tree, and then I see, "OK, who did they have listed for their parent, for Thomas's parents or Myra's parents?" just to make sure that we really have the same information. So that's shared ancestor hints. You can filter all of your matches by shared ancestor hints. Just real quick-- Yes. Do the hints work only if they have put a tree on also? That is correct. So her question is, do the hints work--hints only work if someone has linked themselves to their tree. So that's crucial. That's why I, like, stop, pause, everyone needs to make sure they're linking their tree to their DNA test, because you're missing out on this. You're missing out. And if you've only linked yourself to your mom's side of the family, then you know you're only going to get hints for the mom's side of the family. So think about it. Think, "OK, I need a tree that starts with me. It has my two parents, my four grandparents, so on and so forth," because if you only link it to Mom's side of the family, then you're missing out on hints from your dad's side of the family. So we'll just pause for one second. So make sure you've linked your tree and you've linked it to the right person, because I've seen a lot of people get really confused on potentially how they're related to people because of just the tree linking. They think then the matches are wrong, and the matches are strictly based on how much DNA you share with another individual. It doesn't matter, you know, tree information. You've got your match list. Now the question is, how are you related to these people? Then we use the tree data to help us understand that--how are you connected, what can you find out from that cousin match? OK, so let's keep going. So we went over hints, now "new." "New" is very simple; it's a blue dot. You can see every blue dot that you have for one of your matches. It's because it's new; you haven't looked at it. So you could actually filter all the matches by "new" and say, "OK, let's see how many new matches I have this week, last week, so forth." So click on New, and you can do all of that. "Starred" is something you actually have to do on your own. So some people use this feature several different ways. I had a lady tell me just yesterday, she said, "I use the stars because I've had my mom tested, and I can look at all the matches that I don't have in common--all the matches I have in common with my mom--and I star all of them. And then when I look at a match that doesn't have a star match, I know that it comes from my father's side of the family." So starring is something you proactively have to do yourself, and you can use it in a variety of different ways. I know others who star all their shared ancestor hints just to filter in that way as well. So that's up to you on your own as a way to filter through your matches. So the next one is mother and father. Now, you're only going to get these popping up on your list of options as long as you've had your mother or your father tested. So those are--that's the reason why you see mine, is because I've had both of my parents tested. So I can click on Mother and then it's going filter all the matches I have in common with my mother. And I can say, "OK, because they share DNA with my mom, I'm going to go and look at my mom's side of the family of how we're connected," and same with my father. Now, regions. We already kind of talked about regions, you know. You can click on Regions and it will show you all the regions that you have represented in your DNA. And you can filter out all the matches who also have that same region in their DNA, and this helps you kind of target potentially why you're connecting. Is it because of a location that was--you hadn't thought about before? And so clicking on Regions is another option. Now, this is one of my favorites. It's "Search Matches," and this is where you get proactive. This is where you think, OK. Remember that question you have in mind; you want to solve this or that, or you want to look at just how many people are in the database you're genetically matching with that have a particular surname or birth location. So once you click on that blue box, this pops up, and then it shows you how you can search by surname, by birth location, or by both. And this is pulling in people that you genetically match with and if you have any common surnames or common birth locations on your match list. This helps a lot because I can say, "OK, I've got"--I don't know the grandparents for my Lauren Myers. I'm going to search the database just by Myers and see what pops up, see who else is on my match list, and see what information they have that I don't have. And so any one of your matches you're going to see--so let's say I searched for Myers. I can click on Pedigree and Surnames, and then I can click on View Full Tree. This gives me access to that person's tree, and I can go in and do some research. Let this be one of your really good friends. Let the "View Full Tree" be one of your really good friends, because you can have full access to their tree and see how you may or may not be matching. Because even if our shared surname is Myers, that might not be where the connection is; that's just what we have in common. So you can look at the full tree and get a little more clarity on who and where you could be connecting. So that's "Search Matches." You can also search by location, just location. This is awesome for when you have a brick wall and you're like, "I don't know what their surname was. I don't know who he was." You can click on--you can just search by location and be like, "Well, I last knew that they were married in Ohio, so I'm going to go look in Ohio and see if I have any cousin matches that are connecting there." And they'll pull in--as long as you've linked your tree, they'll pull in all the common locations that you have with any one of your matches. And remember that example I showed you before, where I looked at all my cousin matches that are from Galway? I clicked on this, and this is how I saw they all three had birth ancestors who were born in Galway, because of this feature. And I've had--someone came to me last year--sorry, I taught a class about this last year. I had someone come up to me yesterday at the Ancestry booth, and she said to me, "I solved my brick wall using this tool." She's like, "The maps are phenomenal. I had no idea that I could look at this and it could just present the information in a new light. And I was actually able to solve who my great-grandfather was by looking at just the maps and locations," because she didn't know his--if he had changed his surname. And it turns out that he was living in one place, he was born in one place, has a family, and then he moved--I think it was in North Carolina, then he moves to Missouri a few years later, has another family, changes his name, and that's how she descended. And so she was matching with somebody with a whole other surname. She's like, "How are we connected?" and then realized they were actually the same grandfather. She had to do a couple of additional DNA tests, but lo and behold, this gave her the clue on where to go and where to look for other places. OK, so the next thing that you can do with your matches is send them a message. How many of you have sent messages to your cousins? Awesome. I recommend sending a message to cousins, but keeping it short, keeping it simple, and saying a few lines, giving some details. Especially if you know of some information like shared surnames or shared birth locations, put that in there. That entices, I know for me, to say, "OK, I know--yes, I remember that. I remember that's part of my family." And then I'm more likely to respond if the message is shorter and it's very specific. The other thing you can do with a cousin, like, understanding your cousin matches here. It, again, shows you the predicted relationship. That little blue highlighted area, "What does this mean?"--that actually, if you click on that, that actually gives you all the different scenarios of why you potentially are second cousins or third cousins. So click on that if you're trying to figure out how you're connected. The other thing is notes. I was doing a lab before this where we were doing hands-on teaching, and only 10 people in the class of 75 had used notes. How many of you use notes? A few more. OK. This is really valuable. And I know you know because you've used them. When you click on one of these matches and you're figuring out how you're connected, well, go ahead and put in a note and see how you're matched. If you're thinking, "Yeah, this is on the Myers line, we connect"--they have this surname, you know, from this location, or maybe you already proved it out. Maybe you're like, "Yeah, this is, you know, second great-grandfather William. We share that common ancestor." Add in a note because then you don't have to always try to remember, as you are sorting through all your match lists, how everyone's connected. So really take advantage of that feature. But the next option for really understanding your DNA matches is one of my favorites. And that is this--sorry--that is this, coming up, button here. When you're looking at evaluating your DNA matches and you see that someone doesn't have a family tree and you think, "Oh, man, well, if only they had put out a family tree," click on it anyways. Don't dismiss it, because when you click on it, you actually can see if they've had a family tree and they just haven't linked it to their DNA test. OK, so click on it anyways. You can see that box down at the bottom. They actually have a tree on her account. So Bev, who, I don't know how I'm connected to her--she is some mysterious second cousin--doesn't have a family tree, but she actually has one. So click on those even if they say "no family tree," because you still might be able to see how you're connected. OK. But before I do that, I always click on one of the favorite features, and that is shared matches. And that's that middle button right in the middle, and every single one of your matches has this as an option. So if you click on Shared Matches, what that's going to do is, it's going to pull in all of the matches you have in common with this individual. And you're thinking, "OK, how is that helpful for me?" Well, if you click on that, it's going to help you break down how you're related to Bev or insert whatever match you don't know how you're related to. Now, because I've been strategic, and then figuring out who I should have tested in my family, Bev with no tree, I now know--you know, here are my shared matches with Bev--I now know Bev is also sharing DNA with my mom. So now what do I know immediately? She's on my mom's side of the family, yes. She shares DNA with a second cousin. Remember those second cousins that I had tested--well, my mom's first cousins? Now I know it's on my mom's maternal side of the family. And thankfully to this last fourth cousin match who has a shared ancestor hint--you guys remember those hints; they can come in handy because you can use them as options or opportunities to anchor how you're connected to these individuals. So Bev with no tree, I now know, probably comes from this family because of the shared ancestor hint. So it's on my mom's side, my mom's mom's side, and my mom's mom's grandparents. And so, you know, going back to Bev and even saying, "Hey, you have--I think this is how we're connected" can be very beneficial. So don't dismiss those matches. Use these filters on-site. Really start to play around with these, because these are what's going to help you unlock these discoveries by figuring out how you're connected to these individuals. So we did hints, new, starred, mother, father, regions. We did a search by surname, birth location--which is one of my favorites--and the shared matches. But really, getting other family members tested just helps you break that up. And you can see as an example here--just watch what happens here. So when I got my dad's half-sister tested, and I go to my dad's half-sister match and I click Shared Matches, now it's going to break up my tree. And it's going to show me all the matches I have in common with her, I know come from this side of the family, because they all share DNA with her. And that's the common ancestor, is my great-grandfather. So now I know everybody on that side comes from that side of the family--all the matches I have in common with my dad's half-sister. My grandma's sister--I now know all the matches I have in common with anybody that shares DNA with me and my grandma's sister, I know comes from the blue box highlighted on that part of my family tree. And then my mom's first cousins--I now know, OK, everyone that matches me and my mom's first cousins, I know comes from that side of the family. So Bev with no tree, I now know, OK, because my mom's first cousins have been tested, I can really break up that part of my family tree. And then my poor grandfather, you know, he didn't--he had a sister, and she didn't have any kids. So I'm using the tools that we just walked through to help me evaluate how I'm connected to that side of the family. But I want you to just think about it. If you don't remember anything else from the class today, I want you to think about this. How can you break up your own tree, getting certain family members tested so that you can leverage the tools like shared matches to figure out how some of these cousins are connecting to you? And so if you're thinking, "OK, could I use a first cousin on my dad's side?" Yes. Get that first cousin tested, because any matches you share in common with him, you know now comes from that side of the family. And the reason why you want to do this is because it removes some of the guessing. So when you think about how many fourth cousins matches you have, you think, "OK, but what side of the family is it on?" Well, getting additional family members tested really helps break up that part of your tree. So when you--thinking about that, thinking about who you can have tested to answer what specific questions you have, and then thinking about all the tools that we reviewed, I thought to myself, "You know what? I'm going to just put this to practice." And I'm just going to go through and I'm going to show you just a few things that I've learned following the principles that we just talked about. So if you think about this guy, this is my Solomon Phillips. I actually know him; I've done a lot of research on him. But I had a brick wall--who his grandmother was. So using the tools we just talked about, like shared matches and surname search, I actually--this brick wall that I had where I didn't know who her parents were, I was actually--I broke through, through DNA. And I found out that she--her parents actually came from Ireland. And I had no idea that this was true because some of the census data that I was doing, was researching, was wrong. I had the wrong information, and so thanks to 30 of my other cousins who have taken the DNA test, I was able to unlock that story in my own family tree. The next one, William and Sarah. I connected to a fourth cousin who actually had been back to the home of William and Sarah and told me why they came to the U.S. Now, I had done some research already about--I knew they were born in England, I knew they came to the United States, but I didn't know the why. He had actually been to their house. He knew one of the children because he was much older, and he unlocked that story for me. So I had already had a paper trail, had the story, but I didn't know the why. I was able to connect to that cousin. He unlocked that for me. The next one was kind of a fun one. The Swayne family line, when I was doing some research, it was like, our Swaynes are so documented back to England. I know exactly my Swayne lineage all the way down to me, and how I fit into the Swaynes, so I thought, "OK, what else can I learn from DNA? What else can I learn from my matches about this?" And so I did an experiment, and I started searching around and looking at this information. And I found that a bunch of Swaynes had actually applied to be part of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and I thought, "That's kind of cool." Something I hadn't even noticed before, but thanks to DNA cousins, I actually learned that. The next one is Mary. So with Mary, I didn't know who her parents were until, again, using the surname search, looking at my cousin matches and the shared matches, I actually found out that Mary's parents, also born in-- Ireland. Ireland, thank you. Also born in Ireland. And you know, when I was doing some research and seeing what my cousins had in their family tree that I didn't have--because that's something you should do, just go and view that full tree, see their gallery information--I actually found a newspaper clipping that my cousin had posted in her tree about the death of Mary. And I thought, "Wow, how did I miss that? How did I not get that?" And so I went to Newspapers.com--was the best money I've ever spent--and I plugged in her name. And guess what? Five publications, five different newspapers had written about Mary's death. And thanks to that cousin who gave me that clue, I went and did the research myself. And they talk about her dying at 34 years old, and they talked about what she did before she died. So thanks to Newspapers.com, I was able to discover that myself, clip that clipping, and then it automatically imports it into your own tree on Ancestry. Super awesome. And I was like, "Wow, that's impressive, that five different newspapers wrote five different versions of the story." But thanks to my cousin match and looking at their trees, I was able to discover that. Sarah. I went into a cousin's tree that I match with, with Sarah. They got several descendants who come from her. But in one of my tree--in one of the trees I was looking at, it showed that Sarah was a twin. I would have never found that out in a census record. Sarah was a twin; the twin died three months later. Sarah survived, and luckily, I stand here to be a descendant of her. Again, you just never know what you're going to find out unless you start looking, as soon as you start playing around with those tools that we were talking about, because you can find discoveries on any one of your family lines. And by getting other family members tested, you can unlock that information. Here's a brick wall for me. These guys, I haven't found any unique discoveries, but I'm still working on them, still using the same principles and practices that we talked about before. And you know, you can just continue to come back and check as time goes forward. Now the last people. I think I already shared this story, but Thomas and William Winter. I've had several cousins come up to me at several different conferences. I've met a lot of people who descend from this family, and that's been really exciting to see their lives. You know, I can tell you my story and how I came, you know, coming down that line, but to hear their story, and how and what they've learned about that family. So DNA can really be this awesome network of people that you're connecting with, finding cousins and leveraging that to learn a little bit more of the details of your family story, because it really is in the details that we're learning different things and that you can learn on any one of your family lines. So, hopefully, that's kind of opened up your mind to think, "OK, yeah, what questions do I have? Who else can I get tested to help me find this out? And what are the little things that I can learn?" Sometimes it's not always a big brick wall. So things you can do, you can start with your closest matches. Really use the shared match filter to see what you have in common with, and then reach out to others and get them tested, because that's going to provide you with so much more value in looking at specific lines. And then be patient. Have fun, and continue to learn about all that DNA can offer for your own advancement in genealogy. Read the Ancestry blog. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. We're announcing things, and if you want to stay up to date, I recommend doing those. And then if you have a question, you're like, "Oh, what did Anna say about that? What did she say about genetic inheritance?" you can go to the support site. And you can click on the Help tab and answer--type in any question you want and see what I talked about. A lot of this stuff is online, so to help you remember that, you can find it at the support site. So with that, if you haven't bought your kit yet and you want to, if you thought about someone and you're like, "Oh, yes, I want to get them tested," I know the exhibit hall is open for a little bit longer, and so you can buy those for $59 out at the hall. Regularly online--I mean, you're saving probably about $30 if you buy them here, and you get to enter to win a trip to Ireland or Germany or Italy with our research team. So take this last opportunity to buy those DNA kits. And just remember, you know, you've just got to little by little--I'm always telling this to my mom. I'm like, "Little by little," as you try to understand how you really leverage DNA. But hopefully, with all those tools and seeing some of those examples, it's inspired you to do a little bit more as the next week or the next month and keep plugging away as you do your research. And with that we'll just end, so thank you very much for coming. Thank you. And I think we might have time for a couple of questions. So if you wouldn't mind--there's a mic back there, but if you shout it out, I can repeat the question. [INAUDIBLE] I think it's wonderful that Ancestry has put the [INAUDIBLE] of the parents on there, mother, father. However, some of us don't have that option-- Mm-hmm. --star there. What about putting a second star on that panel up there, and we can then mark our parents, our mothers, and also our fathers might [INAUDIBLE]? And then I can pull them all out and look at them without having to look at my notes. Yes. Yeah, that's great feedback, providing additional tools to help us sort through our mother and father matches, because really, the idea is to break up your tree. So getting other family members tested to help you do that, very wonderful feedback. Yes? If someone has a locked tree, is there any information that we can gather? I've sent requests to have people [INAUDIBLE] and they just don't. Is there any information that you can gather from their [INAUDIBLE] match when their tree is locked? So the question is, sometimes you're looking at your cousin matches and you see a little lock icon right next to the tree. It says how many people are in the tree, and then there's a little lock icon. So with that, sometimes I'll try to figure out, like, if I'm doing a surname search and I type in "Swayne," and I see a few trees come up that have the lock profile, I'll message them and say, "Hey, I know that you and I have Swaynes. Is there any way you can share information with me?" Or sometimes they don't want to share their whole tree with you, but at least about the Swaynes. And I know that that helps out a little bit because then it gets targeted, like, "Yes, I know we're connected, and I think I know what family line." So be really specific in the message. But that's why I strongly encourage everybody to have a public tree, because if you and I match as fourth cousins, I don't even know where to start. Like, I don't even know if I can help you or you can help me. So if you're thinking, "Oh, no, I've got a private tree. What do I do?" I would recommend you creating a tree that's public and making that your research tree that you use to leverage, to try to find and prove out certain connections on your family line. So if you're thinking about that, anybody who has a public tree, any living information, that's all private and protected. So you don't have to worry about a cousin match seeing, "Oh, my mom who's still alive," you know, that they're going to see that information. If she's still living, in the living part, she actually is protected. So yes, and then I'm going to give a couple of DNA kits out. I had some shared matches that should have shown up, but they didn't show up. I kept looking at the tree; they were on their tree, they were on my tree, the full branches. They didn't show up as a shared match. Eventually, one day, they showed up. They appeared for about a month or so, and then they just disappeared again. Is there a reason for that? So your question is, using the shared match functionality, sometimes matches show, and sometimes they don't show? Didn't, then they showed up, and then they disappeared again. That's an interesting problem. We can look into that. I know that depending on which--I don't know if you have several accounts, several different tests on your account, but sometimes looking at--you have to remember which account you're looking at, for which shared match functionality. But let's talk afterwards, and we can dive into that, because I'm not--I haven't heard that before. OK, let's give--let's see. I gave two kits out already, you two ladies. I have two more kits to give out, and I want to ask a question. Anybody born this month? OK, who's born today? Anybody have a birthday today? Nobody? Wait, raise your hand if you were born in March, because March is my birthday month, so I have a special connection. OK. Anybody--whoever is closest to my birthday will win. When's your date? 9. 9? 10. 10? 27th. 27th? 16th. [GASP] Winner, winner. That's my birthday, yes. [APPLAUSE] Lucky for you. OK. Let's see, what else? Who's from Utah? OK, who traveled from outside of Utah? Outside of the country? One? OK, you're the winner. Another DNA kit for you. [APPLAUSE] All right. Awesome. So I know we have to wrap it up. If you have other questions, I'm going to be over at the Ancestry booth. We can ask specific questions. You can always email me questions as well. But I hope this helped inspire you guys to do a little bit more with your DNA results and think of other people that you can have tested to really unlock some of those little things that you might be doing research on. All right. With that, thank you, everyone. [APPLAUSE]