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  • Writer's pictureAndy Lee

Organize Your DNA Matches Using GEDmatch Tag Groups

Use GEDmatch Tag groups to sort your DNA testing kit matches into common relationship groups. Organize your genetic genealogy research with this handle tool from a freemium website.

This video shows you how to set up GEDmatch tag groups based on match traits or family members.


Watch this video on YouTube.

GEDmatch Tag Groups -- A Preliminary Step to Multiple Kit Analysis

One of the best tools on GEDmatch is Multiple Kit Analysis, but this isn’t something that we’re gonna be able to cover in just one post or video. 

This blog, with accompanying video) will discuss GEDmatch tag groups and how they can help you with the multiple kit analysis tool.

Creating GEDmatch Tag Groups

A GEDmatch free account lets you set up tag groups. The Tier One Membership provides more powerful results with your DNA Multiple Kit Analysis.

For Tier 1 Access to Tag Groups

  1. Access the GEDmatch homepage 

  2. Scroll down you will see “Tag Groups.” 

For Free GEDmatch Accounts to Access Tag Groups

Tag groups are part of the GEDmatch Tier 1 tools for multiple kit analysis; however, you can create a few tag groups for free. 

  1. Access your profile management page. 

  2. Find and click the option “Tag Group Management.”

  3. You can now set up whatever tag groups you want 

How to Set Up GEDMatch Tag Groups

  1. Set up your Tag Groups Based on:

    1. Matches

    2. Family groups such as “Close Family, 2nd to 4th Cousins, Specific Surnames.”

  2. Change the Color For Each Group

  3. Manually Add Kits to Each Group -- You can add five kit numbers to each group.

Tag groups are a way that you can organize your DNA matches. You can color them differently so that when you do a one-to-many search, then they’ll show up with these colors. 

With the free account,  there’s not a lot else that you can do.


Power of GEDmatch Tag Groups and Multiple Kit Analysis

After accessing the Multiple Kit Analysis tool link from the GEDmatch homepage.

  1. Start with the Tier One One-to-Many tool. 

  2. Use the select column to take a lot of kits over to the Multiple Kit Analysis tool. 

  3. Check several kits that you want to evaluate. 

  4. Click on the visualization options. 

  5. You’ll see some of your tag groups and the option to create new ones.

  6. Create new tag groups following steps similar to the ones before -- you can add more kits in this fashion than the 6 kit limit mentioned earlier. 

The power of tag groups is similar to color-coding your DNA on Ancestry, which Devon covered in this video

Give the GEDmatch tag group feature a try, and let me know if you have any further questions.

You might also like this blog post from Kitty Copper about DNA Tag Groups on GEDmatch.

Continue Learning About GEDMatch Tools

Review the following blogs and videos for more tips about GEDmatch tools and genetic genealogy


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