The Common Ancestors tool automatically identifies ancestors that appear in the family trees of multiple DNA matches. By comparing family trees across your matches, it surfaces shared ancestors and helps you pinpoint which ancestral lines connect you to your matches. This is a Gold subscription feature.
The tool uses tree comparison (PersonId intersection) to find people who appear in the family trees of two or more DNA matches. When matches share an ancestor in their trees, it indicates a likely common line of descent. The tool supports multiple comparison levels to handle name variations across different trees.
Requires family tree data to have been gathered for your DNA matches. Works best with A* (which provides extensive linked trees) and FTDNA. The more match trees available, the more connections the tool can identify.
Surname Filter — Enter a surname to focus results on a specific family line. Only ancestors matching the surname will be shown.
Min Generation — Set a minimum generation depth to filter out very recent ancestors and focus on more distant shared lineage.
Controls how strictly ancestor names are compared across trees. Three levels are available:
| Level | Description |
|---|---|
| Exact Name | Names must match exactly. Most precise but may miss matches due to spelling variations. |
| First Name | Matches on first name only. Catches some name variations but may produce false positives. |
| Initial Only | Matches on first initial. Most permissive — useful when trees use different name spellings. |
After adjusting filters or match level, click Re-Compare to update results.
The results show a list of shared ancestors with: