Someone recently asked if Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools is worth the investment. I wanted to share a quick example based on my experience. (Note: I’m not affiliated with Ancestry.com.)

For me, it became worthwhile when they introduced the Enhanced Shared Matches feature. This tool shows how much DNA a match shares with your shared matches—those who share 20 cM or more. It’s especially helpful in figuring out connections to matches with no or limited family trees.

Here’s an example (names are fictional):

Jacob Arrington shares 64 cM with me, but he has no family tree linked to his profile.

With the new tool, when I click “Shared Matches,” I now see a three-column table:

1. Shared Matches (people we both match)
2. How much DNA I share with them with a predicted relationship
3. How much DNA Jacob shares with them with a predicted relationship

I like using the “Sort” feature to view Jacob’s shared matches from closest to most distant (20 cM or higher). This helps me quickly spot people Jacob is closely related to—and whether I also match them.

Let’s say Jacob shares 1,782 cM with someone I also match at 93 cM. She has a tree, and I’d already determined she’s my third cousin on her father’s side. With that much shared DNA between them, Jacob could be her nephew, uncle, half-sibling, grandfather, or grandson.

Since she’s already in my tree, I viewed her family line. Her father, Lorenzo Holloway, had additional children mentioned in his obituary (found on newspapers.com), which I had already added to my tree. One of them was Jacob Arrington—her paternal half-brother. So, Jacob is also my third cousin.

I then used the “Connect to Tree” option to link his DNA profile to his record in my tree—despite him having no tree of his own.

This is just one of many examples where the Enhanced Shared Matches feature has helped me build out my genetic groups/networks, which have helped me to solve numerous mysteries. I hope this helps others decide whether the upgrade is right for them.