The Ancestry ProTools subscription at Ancestry.com includes a useful Filter feature on your DNA Matches page. This feature allows you to search your DNA matches using several criteria, including Regions. For people of African descent, this can be especially valuable because it provides a way to identify DNA cousins who may have substantial (and sometimes nearly complete) ancestry from a specific African region.

Here is a step-by-step guide for using this feature to search for modern African DNA cousins:

1. Go to your DNA Summary page and click Matches.

2. Click Filter.

3. From the available filtering options, select Regions.

4. You will see a list of the ancestral regions associated with your DNA results. Select the region you want to investigate. In the example below, I selected Igboland.

5. Scroll down beneath the list of regions until you see Minimum percentage. This is an important part of the search. Many people with recent African ancestry will have a high percentage associated with a particular region. Therefore, setting a high minimum percentage can help narrow your results to DNA matches who may have deep roots in that region. For example, to search for African DNA cousins associated with Igboland, I entered 75% as the minimum percentage. Ancestry then searched my DNA matches for individuals whose results showed at least 75% Igboland ancestry.

6. One of the people who appeared in my results was Ms. Ike. Because I subscribe to ProTools, Ancestry identifies her as a maternal match. She also appears among my mother’s DNA matches, providing additional confirmation that this connection is on my maternal side.

7. When I examined Ms. Ike’s Origins, her results showed 100% Igboland. This makes her an especially intriguing DNA match for investigating my family’s genetic connections to this region of West Africa.

8. You can repeat this process with each of your African regions. For example, I also selected Ghana & Western Togo and again entered 75% as the minimum percentage. Ms. Asamoah returned from that search and her Origins show 92% Ghana & Western Togo and 8% Ivory Coast & Southwestern Mali.

This filtering method provides another useful tool for moving beyond ethnicity percentages and exploring the actual people who share DNA with you and have strong genetic connections to specific regions of Africa.