Matches

Overview

The Matches viewer is a sortable, filterable table of every gathered match for a single kit, with shared cM, segment counts, relationship estimates, links to vendor profiles, and a built-in chromosome browser for visualizing shared DNA. It's the tool to reach for when you want to look at individual matches — the clustering tools are about groups; Matches is about people.

The same view is reachable two ways:

• Autosomal > Matches — pick a kit from the list, drill straight in.
• People > Kits — click a kit's row in the Kits summary to open the same Matches view for that kit.

It works with kits gathered from A*, FTDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe, and GEDmatch. Not every service exposes every field — if a column comes back empty for a particular kit, the testing company didn't make that information available rather than the data being lost in the gather.

When to Use Matches

Matches works well in three situations:

• Triaging a new gather. Once a kit has finished gathering, open Matches, sort by Shared cM, and scan the closest 100 or so matches to get the lay of the land — how many close relatives showed up, how many already-identified matches you have, and how many people have built family trees worth pulling open.
• Following up on a clustering result. When a cluster from WIC, CLM, or Shared Clustering surfaces a few names you want to look at more closely, Matches gives you the per-person view: their cM, their segments, their tree, a one-click jump to their vendor profile, and a way to plot their shared DNA against other matches in the chromosome browser.
• Side-by-side chromosome comparison. Tick the checkbox next to two (or more) matches and the chromosome browser panel renders their shared segments against yours on the same set of chromosomes — the visual equivalent of triangulation.

If you're trying to find groups instead of individuals, start with one of the clustering tools instead. If you want to search across all your kits at once for a surname or ancestor, use the People section.

Getting Started

1. Open Autosomal > Matches (or click into a kit from People > Kits).
2. Pick the kit you want to work with. The list loads automatically — a spinner shows while the Client pulls the matches from your local database.
3. The first time you open the view, a yellow tip banner appears explaining the chromosome-browser checkboxes. Click the small × to dismiss it; it won't come back unless you re-enable the tip.

The Match Table

Each row is one DNA match. The columns are:

Column	What it shows
Checkbox	Tick to include this match in the chromosome browser comparison. The chromosome panel opens automatically as soon as the first box is ticked.
Name	The match's display name on the testing service, with a small link icon next to it that opens the match's profile page on the service's website in your default browser. Requires an active sign-in to that service to actually see the profile.
Shared cM	The total amount of DNA shared with the test taker, in centimorgans. Sort by this column to put your closest matches at the top.
Largest cM	The size of the single longest shared segment. A large total cM with one big segment usually points to a closer relative than the same total spread across several small segments — small segments are more likely to be coincidental or population-level rather than recent shared ancestry.
Number of Segments	How many separate shared segments make up the total. Close relatives typically share many segments; very distant matches usually share just one.
Actual Relationship	Your own annotation of the known relationship, when you've identified the match. Editable on the testing service (or for FTDNA, in the Client). Empty for unidentified matches.
Company Relationship	The testing company's estimate of how you're related (“1st–2nd Cousin,” “4th Cousin,” “Distant Cousin,” etc.). These estimates are produced from cM alone and get vaguer the further out you go.
Calculated Relationship	A “View” link that opens the Shared cM Project 3.0 tool in your browser, pre-filled with this match's shared cM. The Shared cM Project (Blaine T. Bettinger; interactive version by Jonny Perl at DNA Painter; hosted on dnagedcom.com under permission) returns the probabilities of every relationship that fits that cM value — an independent second opinion that's especially useful when the company's estimate is vague like “Distant Cousin.”
Family Tree	The number of people in the match's tree, plus a link icon (when available) that jumps to the tree on the testing service's website. A high tree-count match is often the best research lead in a cluster, even when it's not your closest match.
Contact	A “Message” link with a mail icon that opens the testing service's contact page for this match, when the service provides one. Empty when the service doesn't let you contact matches directly.
Tags	Any tags you've assigned to this match on the testing service. Useful for filtering once you've categorized matches (“Maternal,” “Smith line,” etc.).
Notes	Free-text notes you've made about the match. Edited on the testing service.

Click any column header to sort by that column. Click again to reverse the sort. Sorting is local — it doesn't re-query the database, so it's instant even on large match lists.

Filtering

The left side of the page has a collapsible Filter options panel (click the header to expand it). Filters apply on top of each other — the table shows only the matches that pass all active filters — and changes apply after a short pause so typing doesn't fight you.

Filter	What it does
Name	Substring match on the match's name. Case-insensitive. No wildcards needed — typing smith matches Smith, Smithson, Goldsmith, etc.
Shared cM (From / To)	Only matches whose total shared cM falls in this range. Leave either bound empty to make it open-ended.
Largest cM (From / To)	Only matches whose largest single segment falls in this range. Useful for hunting genuine close relatives: high total cM and a long longest segment.
Number of Segments (From / To)	Only matches with a segment count in this range. Set the From to 2 to filter out one-segment distant matches; set To to 1 to focus on them.
Actual Relationship	Substring match on your “Actual Relationship” annotation. Use it to pull up everyone you've labeled as a particular cousin or branch.

The filters are additive with the sort, so you can (for example) filter to Largest cM > 30 and then sort by Shared cM to see your most reliable closer matches in order.

The Chromosome Browser

Tick the checkbox next to one or more matches and a chromosome browser panel slides in on the right. The browser shows the standard 22 autosomes plus the X (or appropriate complement for the service), with each selected match's shared segments plotted against yours as colored bars at the right cM range.

The two patterns to watch for:

• Overlapping segments on the same chromosome. When two matches share segments that cover the same physical region of the same chromosome, they almost certainly inherited that segment from a common ancestor with you. This is the genealogical equivalent of triangulation — the strongest single piece of evidence the autosomal data can give you that the two matches and you are on the same line of descent.
• Adjacent or near-adjacent segments. When two matches share segments that sit next to each other on the same chromosome without overlapping, they may still be on the same line — one inherited the “left” part of an ancestral segment that got shortened over the generations, and the other inherited the “right” part. Less conclusive than overlap, but a worthwhile signal.

Two notes:

• A* doesn't provide chromosome segment data. If you're working with an A* kit, the chromosome browser panel will be empty — A* publishes total shared cM and segment counts, but not the segment locations needed to plot the browser. The other four services all provide segment data when you gather it.
• 23andMe segment data requires a 23andMe+ subscription. Free 23andMe accounts gather matches and ICW just fine, but the chromosome segment information is gated behind 23andMe+.

Practical Workflows

Tips

• The Calculated Relationship link is independent of the company's prediction — treat it as a second opinion grounded in published cM ranges. Especially helpful when the company returns a vague label like “Distant Cousin” that covers many possibilities.
• A high Largest cM with a low Shared cM (e.g., 28 cM total with a 28 cM largest) means a single long segment — usually a more reliable signal than the same total cM scattered across several short segments.
• One-segment matches around 20 cM aren't useless — they just behave differently in clustering. A 20 cM single-segment cluster typically represents one shared DNA segment rather than a single ancestor; see Shared Clustering » close vs. distant matches for the reasoning.
• The chromosome browser only renders for services that publish segment data (everyone except A*; and 23andMe requires 23andMe+).
• Use the filters and sort together — filter to the matches you're interested in, then sort however helps you read them. You don't have to keep refining a single sort to find what you want.
• Pair Matches with the clustering tools: clustering tells you which matches belong together; Matches tells you who each one actually is.