DNA results and your genealogical family tree work together and complement each other to give you the ultimate picture of your family tree. Finding your DNA matches (sometimes called cousins) is a big step forward. You can link your DNA matches to your family tree matches. Decoding your DNA, finding your DNA matches, deciphering what cM's, segments, shared DNA, and all of the data that testing unlocks opens your world to your entire ancestry. Not just the ones that you can find or document.

Here are the steps we would take together to get the most out of your DNA data:

You have two family trees, a Genealogical Tree and a Genetic tree. Surprisingly enough the two may differ from each other.

Your genetic tree will be smaller. It will only have 5-9 generations on it. There are people in our family trees that we may not be "genetically related to." You won't genetically match to most of your cousins past a 4th cousin level. This is because we inherit our DNA from specific ancestors and that cousin may have inherited theirs from a different one or DNA from a different strand than you, and it has to be detectable. Our DNA match to them may be too small to detect our connection to them.

Using the paper trail, evidence, and documents of evidence in your genealogical research will substantiate your genetic tree to make it that much more solid.

GENETIC GENEALOGY uses DNA testing to determine the genetic relationship between individuals.

DNA is the molecule that encodes the genetic instructions for building and operating all living things. Humans are 99.9% genetically identical. That is a very important concept to remember. All the differences we see in the way people look, what diseases they may be prone to etc. come from the .1% difference. That doesn’t seem like much until you realize that there are about THREE BILLION base pairs in which those differences may be expressed. The human genome is the complete set of human genetic information. It is located within the 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each half of the pair represents our mother or our father. 

"The DNA replicated in the cells of your body is essentially your personal building and operating instructions given to you by your parents.