Shared Ancestral Places at MyHeritage

For those one-place studiers who have taken a DNA test (or encouraged others with ancestral links to your place to do so), checking out who amongst your matches has someone in their family tree from your place will be top of the to-do list. However not all DNA testing websites have the ability to combine your DNA test with family tree data and report back on that aspect. It's great to see that MyHeritage has now added that feature:

"Shared Ancestral Places refer to towns, countries, or U.S. states that appear in your family tree as well as in the family trees of your DNA Matches, where birth or death events of your ancestors (and those of your DNA Matches’ ancestors) took place...If you and a DNA Match have a Shared Ancestral Place, you will be armed with more information to investigate the match further. You may be able to determine which common ancestor you and your match share from whom you both inherited the same DNA segments."

This is really crucial information for one-place studiers! If you tested with MyHeritage, or have uploaded your test results from elsewhere to their website, make sure you also have uploaded your tree so you get the benefit of this new feature, and take a look to see if there are any happy surprises in your Shared Ancestral Places.

Alex Coles