How to Find Your Strongest DNA Matches

So many DNA matches. How can you decide where to start?

DNA tools are on the rise, promising to help us make sense of our growing lists of DNA matches. This week I decided to try out DNA Painter and see why people are raving about it.

My chromosomes, painted with about 35 DNA matches.

The idea is to visualize how much DNA you share with any of your DNA matches. And where they overlap with one another.

DNA Painter uses data you can find on GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, and 23andme. I used GEDmatch because my free accounts with the other two don't seem to give me the data I need. It's really easy to do with GEDmatch.

Here are the steps:

1. Create a free account on DNAPainter.com and click "Create a new profile".
2. Log into GEDmatch and click "One-to-Many DNA Comparison Result" under the DNA Applications heading.
3. Choose a DNA match with a high number in the "Largest Seg" or "Total cM" column and click the underlined letter A on the left side.
4. Select "Position Only" beneath the 2 kit numbers and click the Submit button at the bottom.
5. You'll see a table full of numbers. Use your mouse to select and copy the table.
6. Back in DNA Painter, click PAINT A NEW MATCH and paste what you copied into the box. Click SAVE MATCH NOW.
7. Fill out this screen:
   
   • Choose whether you know how you're connected to this match
   • Put your match's name in the box. I've been putting their name in the next box, too, as a name for the group.
   • If you know the match is on dad's side only or mom's side only, choose that.
   • Click SAVE MATCH.

This graphic will help you through the DNA Painter steps.

After a while, your chromosome map may be so full you can't find this new match. If so, hover your mouse over the person's color box in the key on the right. You'll see a little eyeball. Click it to hide and show this person. You should be able to find them on your map as you turn their color off and on again.

You're almost there! And when you've
done this once, the rest are easy.

Following these steps, I've painted 35 DNA matches plus my 2 parents onto my chromosome map so far. For the moment, let's ignore my parents and my first cousin. My first cousin is the lilac color who's on all but TWO of my chromosomes.

I have one DNA match on chromosome 9 with a pretty long block of red color. Let's call him Tony.

Tony was the reason I wanted to try DNA Painter. You see, Ancestry DNA says Tony is a distant cousin (a 5th–8th cousin) to me, my father, and my mother!

I've written 2 articles recently about discovering and trying to find my parents' DNA connection:

• Free DNA Analysis Finds Kissing Cousins
• The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle

I'm working on the more promising branches of my family tree, but I haven't found their link yet. When I found Tony in my DNA match list, and my dad's match list, and my mom's match list, I had to pursue his ancestors.

Tony's tree on Ancestry offered me very little to go on. But I recognized the 4 last names on his grandmother's side of the family. I knew they were from my paternal grandfather's hometown in Italy.

The source of Tony's tree was someone else's tree. That tree had almost no sources, and I was able to prove many of its facts wrong. When that happens to you, use the tree as a guidepost, but don't take any of it for granted. Find the proof.

The linchpin in Tony's tree was his great grandfather, Pietro diPaola. (His tree, and the tree he borrowed from, called him Peter DePaul and said he was from my Grandpa's town. So I knew he was really Pietro diPaola.)

There were 2 Pietro diPaola's in town. I'm related to both, and they're a year apart. I thought Tony's Pietro diPaola was the brother of my 2nd great grandmother. But, as I found more of his children's birth records, I discovered he did not match my Pietro. He was, in fact, my Pietro's 1st cousin. This makes Tony my 4th cousin once removed; my dad's 4th cousin.

I followed members of Tony's family to America. This helped me gather more facts and dates. Finally, I wrote to Tony to show him how enormous his family tree is now that it's tied into mine.

But I'm not finished. I've connected Tony to my father's family through the diPaola name. But where's the connection to my mother? Now I'm trying to find records for Pietro diPaola's wife's family. I know only her parents' names. If I can go further on her branch, will that finally be the key to discovering how my parents are related?

What do you think you might find when you use DNA Painter?

Have you seen these?

• 5 Things to Learn from Your Ancestor's Yearbook
• The Single Best Technique for Reading Old Genealogy Records: Immersion
• How to Make the Most of an Intriguing Genealogy Lead

Don't Give Up When Your DNA Match Has a Puny Little Family Tree

You've got new DNA matches. And their trees are bare. Where do you start?

On Saturday I took a look at my growing list of DNA matches on Ancestry.com. There were so many I hadn't reviewed at all. I chose a match—let's call him Joe—who's also a match to my father.

Joe has a 7-person family tree:

• Joe
• his 2 parents
• his 4 grandparents

I was eager to figure out this relationship. I could see his ancestors' last names are from my grandfather's hometown in Italy.

His tree is so minimal, it has no specific dates or hometowns for his parents or grandparents. Luckily, I have an ace up my sleeve.

When your DNA match doesn't know his roots, why not find them for both of you?

I have thousands of documents images from the town downloaded to my computer. (See how I built this genealogy research collection.) My match's parents are too young for their birth records to be available. I had to start looking for his grandparents with little information. Joe had a birth year for one set of grandparents, so I started with them.

I went through my document collection, year by year, searching the indexes. I love it when a birth record has the person's marriage mentioned in the column. I knew I had the right Giorgio Zeolla because it said he married Mariantonia Nigro. That's my guy!

All day Saturday I kept looking for more records. When I found a birth record, I had 2 more names to search for. Marriage records helped me go back another generation.

With Italian marriage records, if the bride or groom's parents are dead, you get their death certificates with more names. And if the groom's father and grandfather are dead, you get the grandfather's death record with another generation of names! (See "The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'".)

I was building Joe's family within my own family tree, but disconnected from me. Each time I added a new name, I compared it to other names in my tree, trying to find a possible match.

By the time I felt I'd followed every possible lead, I'd added about 20 people to my DNA match's branch. That when I noticed something.

One of Joe's great grandmothers was Pietronilla Nigro. I didn't find her birth record, but I knew her husband was born in September 1863. There wasn't a single Pietronilla born around 1863 in the town's records.

All I knew about my Pietronilla Nigro was that she was born on May 12, 1857. If she was Joe's great grandmother, she would be 6 years older than her husband. That's not hard to imagine.

How could I prove they were the same person? There are 2 good options:

1. The town's marriage records between 1861 and 1930 are not available. But I can search for more of this couple's children and hope that one birth record has Pietronilla's father's name or her age.
2. Since this is a small town, I can search several years' worth of birth records looking for another Pietronilla Nigro. I did this. There was only the one who was already in my family tree.

You may have to add a few generations to the tree before you find your connection.

To be thorough, I will look for those other babies' birth records for more clues. But for now, I'm pretty confident that I've placed Joe into my tree correctly. He's my 4th cousin once removed. He's related to me through my father's mother.

I've got other search options, too. My new cousin's tree tells me his father died in the Bronx. That means there are U.S. records to find. Right now I'm looking at a military compensation record for Giorgio Zeolla. It's as jam-packed with facts as a good naturalization record, death record, or passport application. It has his wife's full (maiden) name, his children's names, and his parents names, including a misspelled Pietronilla Nigro.

You know what the best part of all this detective work is? Adding these extra branches will help me find my connection to lots of other DNA matches.

If you have relatives who've taken a DNA test, search for your shared matches. Start working with their information and see what you can piece together. Whether you have a breakthrough or you get hopelessly stuck, reach out to your match. Tell them what you've found. Ask them what they think.

Hopefully this type of genealogy research will draw more and more matches to you and your glorious tree. Then, none of your research work will go to waste.

Have you seen these?

• How to Find the Most Important Genealogy Documents Quickly
• 4 Age-Related Rules for Building Your Family Tree
• 6 Ways to Add Another Generation to Your Family Tree

How One Clue After Another Broke Down My Brick Wall

My closest ancestors were the hardest to find. Who would've expected so many twists and turns?

My maternal grandmother's family is the one my mother grew up with. Most of them are the family I grew up with, too. The name that ties us all together is Saviano.

My 2nd great grandfather Antonio Saviano was my Grandma's grandfather. He was my first immigrant ancestor, coming to New York in 1890, in 1892, and in 1895 with his eldest son, Semplicio. He returned to Italy one more time, bringing the rest of his family to New York in 1898.

Antonio represents the core of my family. But I couldn't find any records for him in Italy.

I climbed that family tree, eventually, by following a trail of breadcrumbs. Here's how it happened.

Coming to America

Grandma used to say her family was from Pastene and Avellino. The first was hard to find on a map. The second is both a city and a province. The Saviano family's 1898 ship manifest said they were from S. Angelo. That's only part of a town name, so I couldn't find it.

Then I found the ship manifest for my great grandparents. They followed the rest of the Saviano family to America a year later. Their manifest says they're from S. Angelo Cupolo. That's a little better.

I started typing S Angelo Cupolo into Google Maps. I found the town of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo in the Benevento province. Better yet, the town has a hamlet to the north called Pastene. I'd found their hometown!

At that time I was ordering Italian civil records on microfilm to view at a local Family History Center. But they didn't have anything for Sant'Angelo a Cupolo or Pastene. I was stuck.

I found the names of two hometowns even Grandma didn't know.

Registering for the Draft

In 1942, Antonio's eldest son Semplicio was 65 years old. If he were one year older, he wouldn't have had to register for the draft. But he made the cut-off and had to fill out a draft registration card.

His World War I draft registration card doesn't even say where he was born. It says only that he was naturalized by September 1918.

Luckily, Semplicio's World War II draft registration card says where he was born. It's misspelled and says "Tofo - Province Avilino". When I saw that, I knew "Avilino" was really "Avellino", the place Grandma had told me. Now all I had to do was find the town of Tofo. When I typed Tofo, Avellino, Italy into Google Maps, it suggested Tufo, Avellino, Italy. Eureka!

Living Near Family

When I looked at microfilmed records from the town of Tufo, I found Semplicio's 1877 birth record. I also found an older brother Raffaele who died before my great uncle Raffaele was born 9 years later.

I found no other children, including my great grandmother. At that time, I didn't know where she was born, but it wasn't in Tufo.

There was also no marriage record for my 2nd great grandparents, Antonio and Colomba. But I did find marriage records for two other men with my Colomba's last name: Consolazio. While examining these marriage records, I found an important clue.

The Consolazio brothers' parents (my 3rd great grandparents) didn't live in Tufo. They lived in the neighboring town of Santa Paolina.

My ancestor's brother's marriage record held a vital clue.

Going to the Next Town

Days before the Family History Center ended its microfilm program forever, I ordered film from Santa Paolina. Starting in 1874, I worked my way backwards through the town's marriage records. I was looking for Antonio and Colomba.

In the 1871 marriage records, I found them! She was not named Colomba, but Vittoria Colomba Consolazio. Her parents were Semblicio (similar to her son's name) Consolazio and Rufina Zullo.

He was Antonio Luigi Saviano, son of Raffaele Saviano and Grazia Ucci of Pastene. Pastene! Now I'd come full circle.

Putting the Pieces Together

Here's what this trail of documents told me:

• Antonio Saviano was born in Pastene on 7 July 1843.
• He went to Santa Paolina and married Vittoria Colomba Consolazio on 1 June 1871. Santa Paolina is a 3-hour walk or a 2-hour mule-and-cart ride away from Pastene.
• The couple had their first child, Maria Grazia, in Santa Paolina. She died after 4 days.
• They moved to Tufo where 2 of Colomba's brothers lived. Tufo is a 1-hour walk or a 30-minute mule-and-cart ride away from Santa Paolina. Antonio and Colomba had 2 sons there, one of whom died.
• The couple moved back to Antonio's hometown of Pastene and had 4 more children, one of whom died as a baby.
• The whole family, minus my great grandmother, left Pastene for New York City in 1898. Antonio had made 3 trips to New York already, so they had a place to go. His son Semplicio was there waiting for them.
• My great grandparents, having had a miscarriage, left Pastene for New York in 1899. Grandma was "in the oven" at the time.

Climbing Further Up the Tree

Pastene civil records don't exist. A professional Italian genealogist found almost nothing for the Saviano family, even in the church.

But I have every available vital record from Santa Paolina on my computer. I downloaded them from the greatest thing to ever happen to Italian descendants: the Antenati website. (See "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives".)

I found Colomba's 1845 Santa Paolina birth record. I found records for 4 previous generations on her father's side. I added the Ricciardelli name to my tree, connecting me with other genealogy fans.

But Colomba's mother, Rufino Zullo, was a dead end. I couldn't find anyone else named Zullo in Santa Paolina.

Once again, I needed to find and follow a breadcrumb. Rufina Zullo and Semblicio Consolazio posted their marriage banns in Santa Paolina in 1843. But they weren't married there.

Note: When an Italian married in a town where they weren't born, they still had to post marriage banns in their hometown. They won't be in the index because they didn't marry there. But their banns should be there.

The marriage banns say that Rufina's parents live in Apice, in the Benevento province. Apice is about a 2-and-a-half hour mule-and-cart ride from Santa Paolina. That's pretty far!

To learn more about my 3rd great grandmother, Rufina Zullo, I downloaded some Apice documents from the Antenati website.

I found her 1843 marriage to my 3rd great grandfather. I found her 1816 birth record. I have more work to do, but so far, I've learned the names of her parents and her paternal grandfather. Saverio Zullo is my 5th great grandfather, born about 1764. And my 4th great grandmother adds a new name to my family tree: Trancuccio.

Comparing New Facts to DNA Matches

I found 2 DNA matches tying into my Ricciardelli ancestors from Santa Paolina. I've also got a new match on the Consolazio branch. Ancestry.com's new ThruLines™ feature showed me how my new match descends from the sister of my 4th great grandfather, Gaetano Consolazio.

That information will help me as I build out the Santa Paolina portion of my tree.

I had given up hope of finding out anything about this, the closest branch of my family tree. But unexpected clues—like my 3rd great uncles' marriage records—opened up the floodgates.

Don't give up on a branch when the records run dry. There may be a trickle of detail coming from an unexpected source.

Have you seen these?

• Climbing Up, Down and Across Your Family Tree
• Bringing in Your Genealogy Harvest
• Trying to Solve a DNA Mystery with Logic