Startup Idea: Automated Family Tree Comparison and Merging Tool

Startup idea to develop a software that automates the process of comparing and merging family trees from different DNA matches. The tool should be able to detect potential correlations between different family trees, regardless of language differences and varied name spellings. The aim is to simplify the laborious task of manually finding common links in genealogical research.

I am working on my family tree. I work at it a bit every day. I am using http://www.ancestry.ca which is excellent. On my father's side I am having no trouble at all because he is from England and all records are in English and I am familiar with that side of the family.

The problem arises on my mother's side of the family. They are from Eastern Europe. The alphabet is different and their name has had different variations. As a result I have not been able to go back any farther than my grandparents.

However, I have many DNA matches to that side of the family. My closest match is an old Polish man from Illinois. It has been suggested to me to do a "mirror tree" but I am unable to do that because in order to do that you need to know the relationship between you and your DNA match. I don't know that. What I am planning to do, which is the only thing I can think of to do, is to copy the family trees of all my Eastern European DNA matches. Then see if any of the names appear on two trees.

If they do, I could merge the two trees. It is going to be very slow and laborious. If there were some way to automatically see if the same person or even last name appeared in the family tree of your DNA matches that would be great. Ancestry does let you see all the names in your DNA matches's trees.

It would probably be quite simple for someone to write something that would copy down all those trees then search across them. Or even if the person like me supplied all the lists of names, then have some kind of program that would look for a duplicate name. I sense that it would be quite simple. Ancestry already does something like this, but you need to know the relationship between you and the other person.

I have a friend who is a genealogist. She knows of no other way to do this, other than by hand. She knows of someone else who is doing this by hand. I haven't really started doing it because I think it will take many, many hours.

Submitter: Karen Newton (view contact info).