At the time of writing this I have 106 DNA “Cousins” included in my Family Tree. Most have been added by making use of Common Ancestor and Thruline hints after carefully researching each person suggested. Also included is those where the hard slog Tree Build method has been used
There comes a point when one needs a strategy to deal with “New DNA Matches” and the following is what I do, please feel free to add your own process.
Every Monday I go into the DNA “Matches” section and in the “Sort” drop down menu I click on “Date” and the list then goes from the newest to oldest match.
I simply look through each of the new DNA Matches until “Last Week” shows. If any seem worthy of further investigation I add a comment using the Note feature and assign it to a Group, one I have is labelled “Research Further”, I also have Groups labelled “English”, “Irish, “Italian” and one for each Grandparent line
Of the new matches in the prior week those with 20cM and more are looked at first, the Shared Matches checked and if there is a Shared Match who is in my tree, the new DNA match is placed in the “Research Further” Group and the applicable Family Group
I’ll look at DNA matches 20cM+ with more interest if they have a Linked Tree and one with sufficient people in said tree to hopefully give an idea of where I am likely to find the matches Ancestors.
If any DNA Match irrespective of cM value has a Surname of interest then they to are placed in the “Research Further” Group.
I’ll also Filter the DNA Matches using the Common Ancestor tag and again Sort by Date to see if there is anyone new who has not been given the “Star” from the Grouping Options, in my tree this signifies that the DNA Match is in my Family Tree and that all the DNA Tags assigned, as is the Relationship and that the Note that you see in the Match List includes the names of our MRCA.
Then in the days that follow I will look at the new batch that are assigned to the “Research Further” Group and either look into them in more detail, leave them, remove them from the Group or reassign them to the “Parked” Group which is waiting for them to develop their tree. Those I think may be worthy of development will have a tree built around them if possible. I’ve managed to build quite comprehensive trees from a DNA Match who has a limited content tree.
The next Monday we repeat.