Sharing your AncestryDNA test results—ethnicity or match list or BOTH—can pique your relatives’ curiosity or help you and your DNA match figure out how you’re related. Here’s how to do it.
If you’re one of the millions who has taken an AncestryDNA test to learn more about your family history, you may be wanting to share your results. Maybe you’re excited about broadcasting your ethnicity estimates. Perhaps you and your DNA match want to compare notes about your shared matches. Could be you’d like to get some help from a friend who understands this whole “DNA thing.”
You have several options for sharing your AncestryDNA test results with one or more people. Here are your options for sharing either ethnicity estimates or your match list (or both!). If you want to, go ahead and shout your ethnicity results from the proverbial social media rooftop (understanding that they will likely continue to evolve over time). But my advice is to be choosier about those whom you invite to view, collaborate on or manage your DNA match list.
How to share your AncestryDNA test results
Share AncestryDNA ethnicity estimate only
This is easy to do, whether you want to email a link to your cousins or broadcast your results across your social media accounts.
Log in to your Ancestry account. Under the DNA tab, go to DNA Story. Click the Share tab, shown below.
When you click Share, you’ll see the box shown below, left. You can copy a link to share with selected people (anyone who has the link can view the results). OR you can select a social media sharing option. Whichever you choose, your audience will see a summary of your ethnicity percentages and genetic communities, like what’s shown below on the right.
Not entirely sure what you’re sharing? Explore our popular list of DNA ethnicity FAQs, which includes a free downloadable guide to your DNA ethnicity.
More info on ethnicity results please!
Share your AncestryDNA match list, too
The above method ONLY shares the ethnicity part of your DNA test result. Your results also include a list of DNA matches: your genetic relatives who have also tested with Ancestry. Your DNA match list may be able to help you find unknown biological relatives and even build your family tree.
Your DNA match list is more personal, and can’t be broadly shared with a quick link or social post. You have to invite people individually. Consider doing this if you and another DNA match are trying to figure out how you’re related. (Seeing whether your match is more closely or distantly related to your the matches you have in common can be revealing!) You can also invite someone if they’re going to help you make sense of it.
To invite someone to view your full DNA test results (your ethnicity + match list), log in and go to your main DNA page. Under Settings, scroll down to Sharing Preferences. Click the option to add a person.
Next, you’ll get the option to enter that person’s email address or their Ancestry username. You’ll also need to choose what level of access you’re offering this person:
What does it mean to view, collaborate or manage your AncestryDNA test results?
- Viewers can see your full test results (ethnicity + match list, including the same kinds of information you see about your matches and their trees), but can’t make any changes.
- Collaborators have your full test results and can add notes, edit details, and link your test results to an Ancestry tree. (You can continue to do all these things, too.)
- A manager has a lot more power, so be judicious with this invitation. A manager can delete your results permanently, download your raw DNA, invite other people to access your results, and send/receive messages on your behalf in the messaging area. You can only invite one person at a time to manage your test—and you can change this anytime.
Learn to “Do the DNA” yourself
Sharing your AncestryDNA results is part of the fun—and so is exploring those test results (alone or with a buddy)! These features are just a few of many powerful tools that AncestryDNA offers. That’s why we’ve put together our very own tour of all of the most important AncestryDNA features and how to use them for your family tree.
The AncestryDNA Tour is an online learning experience that will teach to navigate your way confidently around your AncestryDNA test results. Your Tour includes more than a dozen short, engaging video tutorials; a full-color, interactive PDF workbook; and activities to apply what you’re learning to your own results. When you finish your AncestryDNA Tour, you’ll better understand what your DNA is telling you about your roots–and what else it might reveal if you dig a little deeper.
Tell me more about the AncestryDNA Tour!
I’ve shared my DNA results with numerous sites and still waiting to find that elusive great grandmother.
I’m still awaiting for my cousin to share her 100 year-old father’s results. He is the last survivor of his generation.
trying to figure out if I can narrow down my mothers DNA comparing the results of my siblings DNA
Hi Barbara, check out our article on Ancestry’s new SideView feature (https://www.yourdnaguide.com/ydgblog/ancestrydna-sideview). It’s great at helping figure out DNA information about each parent, specifically with ethnicity results.
I am hoping to find my missing paternal line great grandfather, along with our paternal line family name! I believe I have discovered he was from Scandinavia.
Sharing results has been so informative, I can’t recommend it highly enough. We’re making significant progress on our Irish brick wall using results of 3 family members and matches around the 3rd/4th cousin level, that have led us to a US family who have listed the previous generations on their records back to Ireland. Those records just don’t exist in Ireland and neither one of us had enough matches on our own to confidently make that connection.
If you’re hesitant, why not just try it. Have a quick look at what you can see on the other list. If you feel it’s too much, you can always remove the sharing again, but I’m sure once you see what you can achieve by sharing, but also how little extra information you are actually sharing about yourself, you’ll be convinced it is worth it. Some of the other testing sites show this information automatically, so it isn’t as scary as ‘sharing my DNA’ sounds, honest!
Some one said he shared his DNA results with me. How do I know if he shared the results?
Hi Thomas – You should see a button on the right side of the DNA overview screen that says “View Another Test”. This opens up a dropdown menu with all the people who have shared their results with you.