We combed through the family trees of your DNA matches to find the ones that are most likely to include your ancestors—and you can view one tree for free.

How it works

When you have a very close DNA match—such as a parent, half-sibling, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew, or even a first cousin—we can often determine your most recent shared ancestor with a high degree of accuracy. Here’s how that works and what you can expect to see.

To understand how two people are related, we look at several pieces of genetic information:

1. The amount of DNA you share: Close relatives share more DNA. The total amount helps us narrow down the likely relationship.
2. How your shared DNA is arranged: We examine how your shared DNA is divided across segments. Certain relationship types have distinctive patterns.
3. Which side of the family the shared DNA comes from: Using SideView™ Technology, we can determine whether your shared DNA is from your maternal side, paternal side, or both sides. This helps us pinpoint the likely ancestor(s) you share.

Together, these details allow us to identify your shared ancestor—or the specific ancestral couple—with very high confidence for close matches.

How we use family trees to provide more details

Once we identify your likely shared ancestor(s), we look at your match’s family tree to find that person and their relatives.

If your match has a tree that includes your ancestors

Great news—your match may have already added your ancestors, giving you a clear picture of the family line you share. We present one tree for free so you can investigate your ancestors.

If your match's tree doesn’t include your ancestors

Many matches start a tree, but the tree doesn’t include your ancestors. When this happens, sometimes we can use Ancestry community trees to fill in missing branches. These trees say “Enhanced by Ancestry” at the top. That means most of the tree was built by your match, but we provided the shared ancestors.

If there’s not enough information

Sometimes a match's tree is too limited for us to connect it to Ancestry community trees confidently. When that happens, we still provide trees that have helpful clues—such as last names that may be familiar to you—based on what we can determine.

What this means for you

Our goal is to give you the clearest understanding of how you and your DNA match are connected—and to give you a taste of what Ancestry can uncover about your relatives. Our combination of DNA science, SideView™ technology, and family tree data lets us provide strong, accurate insights, often without you needing to do much.