Simple? Yes. Powerful? Debatable.

I have received 9 ‘hinted’ DNA matches – apparently a fairly good return according to much of what I have read. This is particularly interesting as my father was adopted, and I have matched to his adoptive family! Also, I am finding surnames as well ancestors in these adoptive matches that match to my ex-husbands tree, who also participated in the DNA test for the benefit of our daughters.

These results are exciting and have prompted me to have my brother yDNA tested in effort to find my father’s birth family. So, my concern is not with the results, but rather the tool.

When is Ancestry going to understand how absolutely cumbersome it is to wade through 50 pages of distant cousin matches, the majority of which are locked, have no tree or fewer than 1000 people? It makes NO SENSE to spend time opening trees to cousins generations removed if they simply do not contain enough individuals to draw a common line. Therefore, WE NEED A DELETE TOOL ON THE MATCH PAGES, so we can eliminate these distractions without having to first go to the page. It is simply a horrible waste of time and effort for absolutely no payoff.

Further, we desparately need more filters and searches. As I said, my father was adopted; however, I am in the process of receiving his adoption papers. While I have a line on his mother’s name, there is no way of knowing as of yet whether she was married, unmarried or using an alias. I would like to be able to bypass all the useless matches and simply search for those matches containing specific names.

Filters should include: maternal and paternal line matches, matches to trees with 1000+ individuals, surname matches beyond the 10th generation cutoff and customizable filters by surname and location.

I have found matches in the ‘very low confidence’ range and wish to explore the trees that are worthy of effort. However, the thought of paging through 5000+ possible matched trees (most of them with little or no individuals to research) is unappealing.

Until Ancestry makes these kind of changes to the match pages, I would hesitate to call the tool “powerful”. In its present state, it loses it’s novelty and purpose and becomes daunting, tedious and boring very quickly.

C’mon Ancestry. You’ve built eminence in genealogy…the Scandinavian and Raw Data Controversies notwithstanding, you can do better than this. And at $300 a year + testing, we deserve better than this.