How to Use AutoCluster with Ancestry.com’s Custom Groups
Most of you are probably familiar with AncestryDNA’s relatively new tool, Custom Groups, which allows you to add a colored dot next to your DNA matches. These colored dots can be used for whatever you decide including indicating clusters, your eight great grandparent lines, or a specific group you are working on.
A new tool at Genetic Affairs allows us to use the custom groups to create clusters. We can also use the “extend” option to grow these clusters even larger. The extend option gathers the shared matches of the DNA matches in whatever group you’ve selected.
A few days ago, I used ThruLines to concentrate on descendants of a specific immigrant ancestor: Thaddeus Koechle. I ran an AutoCluster analysis using all of my uncle’s DNA matches predicted by ThruLines to be descendants of Thaddeus. I also included all of the shared matches of those DNA matches. But, an easier way to accomplish this task would be through a new option on Genetic Affairs which allows you to use Ancestry.com’s custom groups to create clusters!
ThruLines to Custom Groups
For this example, I once again used my uncle’s DNA and one of his great, great grandfathers who was also one of our immigrant ancestors: Anton Karbach. First, I opened the ThruLines for Anton and changed it to the “list” view to see a list of those DNA matches who are predicted to be descendants of Anton.
Not including our close family members, ThruLines showed 8 likely descendants of Anton through 3 of his children: Margaret, Christina, and Maria. I created a custom group on Ancestry and marked these 8 matches with a teal dot. The first 4 of those matches are shown below with their “teal dots” in the 4th column.
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Teal dots indicate a custom group identifying descendants of Anton Karbach and Mary Ann Reuter.
Running AutoCluster with Custom Groups
From my uncle’s DNA Matches’ page on Ancestry, I can click on “sort” and see a list of custom groups I’ve created. The group labeled “02 Karbach/Reuter group” is made up of those 8 descendants identified by ThruLines to be likely descendants of Anton Karbach.
After selecting this group, I need to find the Ancestry group “identifier” which can be found in the address. With the teal group selected, this is what my address looks like:
You can see the address ends with “groupby=1001” – so the group number is “1001.” [Note: The numbers appear to be 1000, 1001, 1002, etc. And you can combine OR exclude groups with AutoCluster!]
Now that I know the group number, I can use it to run an AutoCluster analysis on all of my teal group members.
I selected a cM range of 600 to 12 cM making sure I’d covered the range of my matches in this teal group. In the “Use Ancestry groups” box, I put in the group number I’d found in the address: 1001. I selected “run on more powerful server” since it’s required at this level of cM. And, I chose “extend clusters” which will also find the Shared Matches of those matches in the teal group thus likely enlarging the number of matches used to create the clusters.
The results of this analysis – with initially 8 matches from 3 predicted different siblings – is as follows:
I now have 5 clusters with a total of 8 DNA matches.
Analysis
My next step is to try to identify as many of the actual matches as possible AND to identify the MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) of as many clusters as possible. I work within each group to try to build their trees until they “meet” at a specific person – hopefully at Anton Karbach and his wife, Mary Ann Reuter. But, I’ll leave the analysis for next time!
Your Turn
Have you tried using Ancestry.com’s custom groups with AutoCluster? If so, what did you find out? If not, I hope you’ll give it a try!
Thank you Dana! I am already familiar with this, but I am recruiting others to “share” and try this technique out and being able to point them to your blog is so helpful.
Great, Merilee!!! I hope they all find it valuable!
Hi Dana,
Most helpful! Thanks. I made one run, and am of course confused with some of the results, as usual.
Joe
Joe, If you have specific questions you can post them on the Facebook group – “Genetic Affairs – user group” – there are many helpful people on that site and both I and the programmer of that tool often leave comments.
Oh Dana. I would love for this work on a couple of my brick walls. I’ve already used the groups in Ancestry in a different way and I’m not sure I have any colors left. So, now what? I’ve been using the groups to label this way; Maternal Milne, Maternal Hunter, Paternal Gould, Paternal Lindsay, Maternal unknown, paternal unknown etc.
Oh my, I just checked and I have 8 colors left. Now, I believe I can try to do this. I have been using Genetic Affairs already, so that part is easy. And thanks for the tip on how to find the group number in the URL. Wish me luck.
You’re welcome, Diane! And, I thought finding the group number in the URL would be hard so I’d put it off. But, it’s really easy! 🙂
I have ran out of colors so now what? I wish they would use the same colors that McKeiv uses for their Color coding!
Also what is the preferred method of Group coloring of other kits that I manage? It is hard to go back and forth to identify colors from my matches to coloring their matches!
Hi, Margo. How low did you go when you ran out of colors? I have not seen that happen, but it is possible. I would also suggest you do a Leeds Method chart in a spreadsheet or on paper first. Then, consolidate colors if there is a lot of overlap. And THEN use the colored dots. That might fix your issue of “not enough colors.”
As far as the preferred method, you could pick certain colors for certain family lines no matter whose kit you’re working on. Or, you could have 8 colors for the 8 great grandparent lines, or 16 colors for the 16 great, great grandparent lines – and use these colors no matter which person’s kit you are working with. I think the best method is whatever works for you. Hope this helps!
Hi Dana,
Will this work if I have more than one coloured dot for a match?
Yes, it should only pick out those with the color you are working with so it shouldn’t matter if a person has more than one colored dot.
In the step Thru Lines to Custom Groups, you were in List View for Anton, then you created a custom group with the “teal” marking. Am I missing some short cut in Ancestry, or did you have to open each of the 8 individuals, then add them to the “teal” group?
Thanks,
Hi, Bill. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a shortcut and I did add each match to the group one at a time.
Dynamite instructions about using Ancestry’s Custom Groups for clusters! I finally found the time to do these Custom Groups “mysteries” and thank you for all your help. Happy New Year! Magda
That’s terrific, Magda! 🙂
Does this no longer work with Ancestry? I can’t seem to find it through the autocluster options nor even connect ancestry to this website. Only 23andme and FTDNA.
Hi, JE. Unfortunately, AutoCluster no longer works with Ancestry (as you mentioned). I’ll remove this post.