AncestryDNA and No Trees - Big Change

Did you know that No family tree only means the DNA match hasn't attached a tree to their DNA results? This doesn't mean they don't have a family tree on Ancestry. 

In the blog post “Areyou Doing Everything to Identify your Matches?” By Blaine Bettinger, The Genetic Genealogist, he explains that we need to click on the [View Match] button and verify that they don’t have a tree. As shown in his example below, you would see a dropdown box and you used to be able to select one of the matches trees and look at it.

However, AncestryDNA has decided to make its users jump through a few more hoops to see if the match truly doesn’t have any trees. 

In the above example, you will no longer see the dropdown box “Select a Tree to preview”, instead you will have to click on the user’s profile name and check out their profile page. Their profile name is located to the right of their profile image or generic silhouette in the upper left of the screen. I have blacked out this person's username to protect their privacy.

Once you are taken to their profile page, you will see whether they have trees or not. In my example, she had two trees that I could review further and see if I recognize any people or surnames.

A person could speculate all day as to why Ancestry has change their programming and screens. Instead of looking on the negative, let us all, just get into the habit of checking out our matches Profile Pages. On my profile page, this is where I have more information about what I am looking for, perhaps some discoveries I have made or in my case, I might explain what all the trees I have are for. Such as my DNA tree (skeleton tree of my working tree), my half siblings tree, my husband's tree, etc...