MyHeritage Introduces Labels for DNA Matches

MyHeritage recently added the ability to add labels to your DNA matches in the form of coloured dots. Additionally, you can mark a match as a favourite with a star. This feature is very similar to the features offered by Ancestry for some time with a couple of minor differences

  • MyHeritage allows you to filter your matches with more than one label and will present you with results where DNA matches have either label whereas Ancestry will only show you a list of matches that have both labels.
  • MyHeritage offers you 30 coloured dots to choose from whereas Ancestry has 24

The process for adding these labels is quite easy. Go to your DNA Match list and click on the blank checkbox at the top left corner.

Once clicked, you will get a “Manage Labels” screen pop out from the right side where you can create labels, choose a colour and assign them to the match.

Currently, there are some limitations to this new labelling system at MyHeritage. For example, you can only add a label at the DNA Match list page. This means that you are not able to view a DNA match’s shared matches with you in order to add a similar label. Unfortunately, this is an important disadvantage as many users rely on this labelling system to cluster their matches based on a common ancestor.

Personally, I have chosen to add labels based on my 8 great grandparents. I have adopted the same process at Ancestry and am using the same colours to make it easier for me to recognize the common ancestor. Below you can see my parents both set up with 4 labels each representing these ancestors.

Read the original MyHeritage blog post introducing this feature HERE.


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