As a DNA administrator trying to sort out how to organize and categorize a DNA group can be overwhelming.  Good news,  Ancestry.com DNA Groups have been equipped to help you in these tasks.  The nickname and notes fields are great tools for organizing a DNA Group.  
A “nickname” option is provided for administrators to “code” participants.  Its purpose is to [...]

‘Roots’ author, Alex Haley, has roots in Scotland!  Chris Haley, nephew of Alex Haley, took a DNA test a couple of years ago at the request of his friend, Megan Smolenyak, Chief Family Historian at Ancestry.com.  He immediately found an exact match with an anonymous participant who has yet to respond to his email.  Some [...]

Many of you, in fact almost four thousand of you, have already attached DNA to your online family tree.  As you know, this translates into a much larger potential for people finding and connecting to your family tree.  As more people add their results, the Ancestry.com DNA database becomes a powerful asset toward making connections [...]

We’ve received a few comments on our postings with respect to our haplogroup designations, so I thought it would be a good idea to address this subject in greater detail.   What is a haplogroup?  How are haplogroups determined?  Do they ever change; and if so, why?   
What is a haplogroup?
As our ancient ancestors migrated from Africa tens [...]

Interest in family history is not relegated simply to a maternal line which in many cases the female can only contribute DNA but spans across and between lines of many family trees.  
For example, the 1900 census listed a paternal grandfather, Jeff, in a household with his parents, Martha and Kenneth Thatcher, but Martha was listed as having only 2 daughters.  A review of the [...]

Now that you have your results in hand and have finished reading all of the educational material, following the links to more resources, and deciphering your values, matches and ancestry, you may find yourself pondering such things as:  ”I wonder if my stonemason ancestry could have promoted my welding instincts.” or “Are there any commonalities among people of such a large [...]

It can happen something like this:  you’ve just decided to take the genetic genealogy plunge.  You’ve heard about it on the radio, listened to other researchers share their experiences, and feel you finally are beginning to understand what a marker and haplogroup are.  You are eager to discover ancient and genealogical findings on your family, [...]

Last week, we reported on the overwhelming popularity of attaching DNA results to member’s family trees and the latency that the tree propagation feature was experiencing.  Today, I am happy to report that the latency and intermittency has been fixed.  Once DNA has successfully been attached to the first person, the DNA results will, for most, be [...]

The excitement over the much-anticipated functionality of attaching DNA results to member’s online family trees has been overwhelming, literally.  So many of you have already eagerly associated your DNA with an individual in your tree, but due to the popular response, the propagation of the DNA throughout the trees is taking longer than anticipated.  Some of you may [...]

On Wednesday, January 13, we announced a new Ancestry.com DNA release.  Coinciding with this release is the introduction of some very exciting new features and the introduction of new pricing for the DNA services.
Let’s talk about the stellar new pricing.  At last, a low cost DNA testing option that not only provides for a discovery [...]