Welcome

The whole idea of genetic genealogy is to find those who can help you advance your genealogical research. After getting your autosomal DNA (atDNA) tested, you are given a large list of matches. For example, I downloaded my matches from the testing companies and got a list of anywhere between 1,400 to over 10,000 matches. You may have wondered like me --- how can I narrow down all of these matches to those who might help me solve my genealogical question?

You can begin to sort out the matches are of most interest if you know of at least another cousin on either side of your family. Matches, which are in common with (ICW) this other person, will also be ICW with your most recent common ancestor (MRCA). Matches, which are not ICW with this other person, will generally not be related to your MRCA. If you have 2,000 matches and the other person has 4,000 matches, it could, however, take a very long time to figure out which matches are ICW or not ICW with this person; unless you can automate the process.

MatchCompare is a macro made for EXCEL that will quickly do this sorting for you and it is free! Just click on the MatchCompare tab, download the macro and begin narrowing your matches down to a more manageable list of those you want to contact to find your MRCA and who may know about your family so you can extend your research.

For those less experienced in knowing how this tool can be used to narrow down your list of matches to a specific family line, then I have created a tutorial video. I hope to add to more videos explaining some of the aspects of this methodology in more detail. These videos will explain how to obtain your match data and how to create match groups to compare with your matches in further detail.