Distracted by DNA Part 2

I've completed my current project of adding all the names from my James-Gilmore Family History book. I now have 2089 names in my tree. I'm about to start figuring out where more of my DNA matches can be placed in my tree. There is some small overlap in matches amongst the various sites where I've tested or uploaded my DNA, but for the most part, each site offers me many matches I can't find elsewhere. I have a large pool of DNA matches to work with at this point. Most of the names are completely unfamiliar to me. 

I've been interested in learning about DNA Painter, so I signed up for a free account. I was concerned it would be hard to use, and I'd been putting off learning more about it. Using their help pages, I was able to easily map 3 of my DNA matches from MyHeritage.com. (It's important to note, Ancestry.com does not provide the information necessary to use DNA Painter). 2 of the matches are on my maternal side, one on my paternal. A sample of 3 certainly didn't paint much of my chromosomes, but it's a start and it was a great experience! The best surprise was finding out it was much easier than I had anticipated and I'm looking forward to doing more with it. Hence the reason I wanted to finish adding as many verified names as possible to my tree. I'm in a very good position to start working with paternal matches now (at least on my father's father's side). 

It also made me realize, while I really prefer Ancestry.com for most of my work, they really are lacking when it comes to some of the DNA features other sites make readily available. It's clear Ancestry.com  wants to keep users on their site as much as possible and they've done a great job at working towards the goal. I personally have dozens of DNA matches I've identified and placed in my tree from my Ancestry matches and I'd really like to be able to quickly map them on DNA Painter. The lack of segment data makes it virtually impossible, unless the same users have tested at one of the sites providing this information. Ancestry.com feels more like DNA 101. I find it fairly easy to work with my matches there, but I'm simply limited in what I can do with them right now. 

Learning more about working with DNA will be an ongoing "front-burner" project. I hope to mix my "normal" research routine with adding a few matches each week. If the matches are from a site other than Ancestry.com, I'll map them on DNA Painter. Since I have DNA at 6 different sites, I'll just hop and skip between them and try to keep the momentum going. I want to learn more about the various tools at GEDmatch and triangulation is high on my list of topics to read up on. It's exciting to be learning something new and I'm really hoping over time, it will help me break down the brick wall I've had since day one. Once I'm more comfortable using DNA and the various tools, I'll go back to the adoptee tree I'm working on and apply my newfound knowledge to try and identify the unknown birth mother of the adoptee. I'll post more about this part of my journey in the coming weeks.

Image by 652234 from Pixabay