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by Greg Clarke, guest poster
If you are inundated with many Ancestry DNA Matches but don’t know how to organize them, you might want to download a list of them to a spreadsheet. Once in a spreadsheet, you can sort and organize them how YOU want to. There’s a spreadsheet for that.
Also, if you subscribe to the new Pro Tools on Ancestry (a paid subscription as of the time of this blog post), you may want to have a way of recording all of those Matches of Matches and bringing order to that chaos. There’s a spreadsheet for that, too.
In fact, both problems can be solved with the same spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is called the Matches of Matches Organizer / Ancestry DNA Table Maker. BUT before you open it, you’ll REALLY want to watch the “How To” video that describes how it works. This video can be found on YouTube and is called Organize your Ancestry DNA Matches Of Matches with a Google Spreadsheet.
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Introducing the NEW Ancestry DNA Match Table Maker
This NEW spreadsheet is an extension (and can be a replacement) for the original Ancestry DNA Table Maker spreadsheet (which debuted here on this channel!). It can do all the same things the other one did—and more! There’s also an FAQ / Tips & Tricks document that can help you if you run into trouble.
The how-to video focuses on the four steps needed to organize your Shared Matches of Matches if you have a Pro Tools account. However, you can use step one and repeat it over and over to collect as many of your DNA Matches as you want—a new tab has been created, “All My Matches,” just for that purpose.
A quick synopsis of the routine, which is demonstrated in great detail in the video, is as follows:
Using Google Chrome, open the Master Copy of the spreadsheet, then File → Make a Copy into your own Google Drive.
Also, using Google Chrome, Load your Ancestry DNA Matches
Select All the text on the DNA Matches page, and then Copy it (CTRL + C)
Switch to the Spreadsheet and Paste the data in either the Old Raw Data or the 2024 Raw Data tab (depending on if you have the updated )
The Spreadsheet will reformat the data that flowed down column A (after the paste) into a nice table of information.
Copy that information and then Paste it (Values Only) into another spreadsheet tab
You can continue to do this until you reach the top 100 Matches - or - continue and populate the All My Matches tab with as many as desired - no limit.
For those who have Pro Tools and wish to organize them, please watch the video—it describes and displays it much better than an initial blog post can.
Greg Clarke created this spreadsheet to help organize his own matches and share them with others. He was one of the first Family History Fanatics channel members, and an FHF video sparked the idea of the original spreadsheet. Greg is also an avid WikiTree member and frequent live cast host, a member of the mitoYDNA.ORG team, and a member of the organizing committee for the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference.
