AncestryDNA and Private Trees

Don’t let private trees stop you from figuring out how your DNA match and you are possibly related.

So on my husband’s matches, I have a person who is managing three tests and has a huge tree, however it is locked down and private. AncestryDNA is teasing me with a display of a Green Leaf and Common Ancestor as follows:

When I view the match, Ancestry gives means a hint of who the Common Ancestors might be:

When I view the possible relationship to the match, all I see are a bunch of Private boxes. ARGH!

However, when I click on the first Private Box, the sibling of my husband’s 2^nd great grandfather, it gives me the following clue.

I am able to do this three more times and I get valuable names to research and see if this looks accurate. By doing this I end up to my matches’ grandmother. Now I have someone to start looking for and to see if possibly I can find out more about the grandmother, thus more about the match.

Therefore, AncestryDNA has now allowed me to figure out how my husband’s match and she might be possibly related. Also, using the Shared Matches of this match with my husband allows me to sort those matches.