Tuesday’s Tip

More About Ancestry’s New Ancestry 

Discoveries 

Ancestry Discoveries are potential new ancestors or relatives that are not in my Ancestry family tree. These are folks that I need to research to see how they connect to the people in my family tree. As of this morning I have six of those potential new relatives. My sister has tested with Ancestry DNA and she allows me to manage her DNA test results. She has fifteen New Ancestry Discoveries. I have gone through her NADs and recognized names in some of them. The ones that I recognized I researched them and found a common ancestor couple. When I look at the names in the six NADs on my account there are no familiar names, and as I look through the information for these NADs there is still nothing familiar.

How do these NADs show up on the DNA homepage? Almost without exception the NADs are somehow connected to my maternal Coon family line. These NADs are collaterals. The ones that don’t have familiar names, I just leave those for the time. I will snip a picture of them and save it for future reference.

New Ancestor Discoveries come from members of a DNA Circle with whom you share a lot of DNA. You share DNA with the descendants of a particular ancestor. New Ancestor Discoveries is a feature where Ancestry uses historical records, Ancestry family trees, and Ancestry DNA results to give you a potential new ancestor or relative. I will remind you, this is one important reason why family historians need to not only research the direct line ancestors, but the direct line ancestors’ siblings, children, grandchildren, etc. Research the family unit – parents and children, and parents’ siblings. Then the work begins. You must research the NAD to determine if there is a link to a common ancestor couple.

One of the six New Ancestry Discoveries on my account had twenty members and five DNA matches. I went through each member match, and didn’t recognize any names. This NAD has the DNA evidence that links them to me in the circle. The five members have shared DNA matches of 7.4 cM, 6.6 cM, 7.0 cM, 9.3 cM and 7.3 cM. This is not saying the members who did not share DNA aren’t related to me, they possibly are related; however, due to recombination of the DNA, they didn’t receive any DNA from that particular ancestor couple. These aren’t large enough segments of DNA for me to take the time to research these members. That will be another project for a rainy day when I don’t have anything else to do. As far now I will let those remain as NADs.

New Ancestry Discoveries are another hint that I use to find collaterals. If my DNA matches the DNA members of the New Ancestry Discovery then, there a seventy percent chance that I will either be a descendant of the NAD or relative. Also, two of the NADs on my sister's account that I have done the research on was related through marriage. That was an interesting one to research. Two separate NADs and they were the sons-in-law of two descendants of a maternal third great grandfather. I have also found that I am related to others in the DNA Circle through more than one ancestor couple.

New Ancestor Discoveries are there for you. You can use them or you can ignore them. It is left up to you what you would like to do with them.