If you haven’t checked your AncestryDNA matches since September 6th, you might be missing out on a new view. I was patiently waiting (well, maybe not so patiently) for this new feature. It took a bit of time for the rollout to get to me, and wouldn’t you know, it finally came when I was driving to Arizona. Sideview for your matches. This is a beta version… so there will be hiccups.. but let’s have a look.
Sideview is especially exciting because your parents don’t have to have tested. That’s pretty amazing.
The new feature divides your DNA matches into three or four categories. Parent 1, Parent 2, Both (sometimes), and Unassigned.
Earlier this year, in April, Ancestry introduced their new Sideview Technology for your ethnicity. So you could now see Parent 1 and Parent 2 and learn where you got your combined ethnicity from. If you were lucky, you could have a group that distinguishes one parent that gave you a hint as to which side was which. I was fortunate because even though I haven’t confirmed who my French Canadian great-grandfather was, I know he was French Canadian and therefore gave me my France DNA. So I could tell that Parent 2 was my father or the paternal side of my DNA. So that meant I could change the tag from Parent 2 to Paternal, which I did.
So this means when I now look at my matches, I have the four categories they say Maternal, Paternal, Both, and Unassigned.
Hopefully, this isn’t too small (click on the photo, and it will enlarge) but on Both sides is everyone in my family that is exactly related to me through both of my parents… So my sons, brothers, niece, and nephew.
From what I understand, “Unassigned” is everyone who was a match since April, and they will be updated later.
You’ll see where it also gives me common surnames in each of my categories; Maternal and Paternal. Kottman, Beaton, and Aindow are definitely from my mom’s side, and Clark is from my dad’s. But I’ll be sure to explore the other names on my dad’s list to see if I can understand how they fit.
It also groups your matches into sides all the way down to 8cM, which is helpful as right now, if you had a match and wanted to see if you were in common with another match, you would each have to share 20cM of DNA to be considered in common even if you were.
There weren’t many surprises for me with my DNA list, but I still have to explore some of the other kits I have access to. I think where it will be beneficial is if you have difficulty figuring out which is your paternal and maternal line by looking at each of the groups (Parent 1 and Parent 2), you’ll probably quite quickly understand which is which.
So far, I haven’t noticed any real issues, but I’ll keep you posted.
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