I recently added Pro Tools to my Ancestry.com. This has put me on a course that is very interesting. When I looked at my DNA matches, those that either didn’t have a tree or have a private tree, meaning I can’t see it, I thought what’s the point. Yes, it’s a DNA match but now what? With Pro Tools you can take that DNA match and view Shared Matches. Anyone who is alive shows up as “Private” in their tree, if they have one. You may have a name for the initial match. Or you may have initials. And it will show you male or female. So there you have 2 clues. If you don’t have the last name in your tree, that’s where Shared Matches can come into play. A shared match may have the last name.
I will actually add that person to my tree as a floater. How do I do that? I add them as a sister or brother to me then go to their profile then to Edit Relationships and remove mom and dad. Now they are in my tree just sitting there all alone. So if I added Jane Doe, I can then add a father with the last name Doe with no first name. I may take a guess for a birth year. If a shared match has Doe in their tree, Jane is most likely a relative. Of course Doe could be a married name. So sometimes you may need to add a husband with the last name of Doe.
Then more searches. Maybe I’ll get a city and state from the shared match, so I’ll do a Google search for Jane Doe in that city. As you can see just because they have no tree, doesn’t mean I can’t find them. It just takes a bit of digging. Now if they have a basic tree with maybe grandparents, that makes things a bit easier.
So far I have added a bunch of family members this way. Adding the match and a bunch of the matches relatives.