Ancestry Pro Tools is Ancestry’s newest subscription option. We’ll highlight each Ancestry Pro Tools feature and how they are useful for genetic genealogists.
Ancestry Pro Tools
Ancestry.com now offers an upgraded experience for those who are willing to shell out a bit more cash for their monthly membership in a package they call Pro Tools. But do you need Ancestry Pro Tools?
First, you should know that Ancestry Pro Tools is currently only available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. You’ll need an active Ancestry family history membership, and then you’ll need to pay an additional $10/month to access Ancestry Pro Tools. (Unsure if you should subscribe to Ancestry? Learn more about the different Ancestry memberships.)
Let’s take a look at each of the ProTools features in the context of both DNA research and genealogy.
Enhanced shared matches
Enhanced shared matches allows you to see how many centimorgans your matches share with one another, and how they’re potentially related. As shown below, a list of the matches you share with a specific match appears in the left column. Your shared DNA with each of these matches is reported in the middle column, and the match’s shared DNA with them in the right column. Across the top of the chart you’ll see tools for sorting and filtering this list. See how helpful this information could potentially be when trying to identify a Mystery Match?
What is this feature useful for?
It’s a game-changer for DNA analysis! Without this tool, you will often have a group of matches you know are important, but you just can’t figure out how you are related to them. Better understanding of how they are related to each other will greatly help you figure out how you are related to them. Read more about Enhanced Shared Matches.
Charts & reports
The charts and reports create detailed versions of your family tree in a variety of formats:
- Descendancy: begins with an ancestor, then moves forward in time with their descendants in order
- Ahnentafel: lists a person’s ancestors, beginning with them and moving backward in time
- Register: assigns numbers to each person in order to track descendants by family groups and birth order
- Family group sheet: focuses on a set of parents and their children and only shows their immediate family
- Fan: expands the fan view to show up to 7 generations of a person’s direct-line ancestors or their hints, photos, and sources in a half-circle or fan shape
Each of these charts and reports allow you to select the person you want to focus on. You’re also able to download, print, and share these reports. Sharing the report allows you to share to the Ancestry feed, an Ancestry message, Facebook, WhatsApp, X, or you can copy the link.
What is this feature useful for?
For DNA purposes, you could use the descendancy charts to look “downstream” of an ancestor of interest for collateral lines through whom your matches are related, or for candidates for YDNA, mtDNA, or autosomal DNA testing. Many genealogists like having the ability to create the kinds of reports shown above to put in a compiled family history book or to share with relatives.
Note: If you have your family tree housed in your own software program (which is a best practice, most of them have these features and you would not need it from Ancestry.
Tree checker
The tree checker feature scans your trees for potential issues and errors, including individuals with no documentation, those with only public trees as sources, duplicated people, and people without any relationships in the tree. This feature also gives your tree a rating based on the number of likely errors and the amount of documentation provided for people in the tree.
What is this feature useful for?
Cleaning up your tree. Ensuring your tree is correct is important both for your own continued research and for others who might consult it. Let’s face it, most people didn’t start their genealogy journey as an expert. We often hear sheepish tales of “when I was a baby genealogist, I did this wrong….” Are some of your early missteps still part of your family tree? Or have you mistyped something that makes it look like a mother gave birth after she died? Have you neglected to enter a birth date for a great aunt who died eight years ago, after you added her to your tree? The tree checker score provides great feedback and a list of immediate things you can do to improve your tree–eliminate duplicates, add documentation, etc. (In case this is a motivator for you: after making those changes, your score will improve!)
However, again, many genealogy software programs provide this kind of information, so you may not need this from Ancestry.
Smart filters
Smart filters allow you to search for a person on your tree using criteria other than just their name. These advanced filters include:
- Family line: Search by direct line ancestors, paternal line, maternal line, or end of line.
- Events and places: Search by year range, exact year, or location. Events include birth, marriage, death, resident, and “any event.”
- Possible errors: Search for potential duplicates, people with no sources, people with only tree sources, people without relationships, or other possible errors.
- Hints: Search only for individuals in your tree who have Ancestry hints
- MyTreeTags: Search by universal or custom tree tags that you’ve created. Different tags include DNA, life experience, relationships, and research status.
What is this feature useful for?
While the direct line filter might be slightly more efficient than just going there yourself, I don’t think this will impact your DNA research significantly. (And while a tagging system can be useful, you can tag your DNA matches by including “DNA” in the suffix field of your DNA Match’s name.) This is the kind of “extra” that a frequent researcher might enjoy to make it easier to pull up certain people whose names she may have forgotten (“who was it who lived in Oklahoma City?”).
Tree mapper
The tree mapper feature places people on your family tree on a map in the locations with which they were associated. You can then filter the map by:
- Name
- Location
- Time (date range or exact year)
- Events (birth, marriage, death, burial, lived in, any event)
- Family line (direct ancestors, maternal line, paternal line, end of line, and people without relationships)
- Possible errors
- MyTreeTags
What is this feature useful for?
As far as comparing your tree those of your DNA matches, there is already a specific section of your DNA match’s profile page that does this for you, so shared locations can help you figure out how you might be connected. The map view can help you see migration patterns and potential stories. For example, the map view shown here illustrates the intergenerational story of an African American family’s migration out of the South to major industrial regions, as was common during the Great Migration of the early 1900s.
(By the way, once you subscribe to Pro Tools, you’ll find the Tree Mapper (along with Charts and Reports) in the left sidebar menu of your tree view.)
Tree insights
Tree insights can show you trends or patterns that may appear in your family tree. Some examples of the things it may point out:
- Most common surnames
- Oldest people
- Women with the most children
- Youngest married couples
What is this feature useful for?
This tool will likely not have a direct impact on your DNA research. It can give you some fun talking points for family conversations (“Did you know people in our family have lived to be 98 years old?”). If you haven’t yet run the tree checker to clean up any errors, though, you’re more likely to see couples married at age 7 or an ancestor who “lived” to be 158, since you forgot to add his death date.
FYI, you can only view insights to your own family trees or ones that you own or can edit. To view insights on others, you’ll need the owner or editor to share the insights with you.
Should you subscribe to Ancestry Pro Tools?
As you look over this list, you will want to decide if the extra $10 a month is worth spending for the extra help you may get with your genealogy research. Certainly the shared matches of matches tool alone is worth at least one month of that $10 membership fee. Ultimately, like many subscriptions, it may be something you pop in and out of.
Want more help using your DNA matches to build your family tree? That’s what genetic genealogy is all about. Download our free guide for the next 4 steps for your DNA to start finding those unknown ancestors.
I feel totally confused. I took a little break from my DNA journey and now I need to return. My friend sent me a link to a webinar this morning (9/10/2024) but it didn’t feel right. Should I have a log-in but I don’t see how to do that. Instead I just downloaded any guides that were posted. I thought I was on the mailing list and I use to get the newsletter but I couldn’t find anything after doing a email search. Do you drop us if we have not responded in awhile?
You were on our email list but it appears the email address was incorrect. I have corrected it in our system and you should start receiving emails from us again. What webinar are you trying to access? Feel free to email at info@yourdnaguide.com.