DNA tools and how to use them
Plain-English guides to every tool on RomanyDNA — from uploading your first raw DNA file to reconstructing an ancestor you never tested.
🚀 Start here — the beginner’s roadmap
Not sure where to begin? Follow the eight steps from one raw DNA file to a built family tree with your ancestors’ DNA filled in — and see how every tool connects to the next.
The tools are grouped below by how far along you are. Every guide explains what a tool does, when to reach for it, how to use it, and how to read the result — including the honest caveats.
Beginner — your first kit
🚀 Getting started with your raw DNA
What a raw DNA file is, how to download one from your testing company, how to upload it, kit numbers, and your privacy options.
Read the guide🔍 Finding and understanding matches
One-to-Many, One-to-One, centimorgans (cM), segments, Relationship Probability and Are Your Parents Related?.
Read the guideIntermediate — group and sort your matches
🧩 Analysis tools
Leeds method, AutoKinship, Y-DNA, mtDNA, X-DNA, Admixture/Ethnicity and Kit Diagnostics — how to divide matches into family lines.
Read the guide🌳 Family tree & WATO
The shared tree, DNA badges and ThruLines, Compare DNA to tree, and WATO for working out where an unknown match fits.
Read the guideAdvanced — reconstruct, phase and compare
🧬 Kits, phasing & reconstruction
Tag Groups, Multiple Kit Analysis, Superkits, parent phasing, Visual Phasing, reconstructing an untested parent, and Lazarus.
Read the guide🌍 Global25 ancestry tools
Oracle, PCA, similarity maps, ancient ancestry, the Romani route match, Genetic Passport and the coordinate simulators.
Read the guideA suggested order
New to genetic genealogy? The Start here roadmap walks the whole journey; in short:
- Upload your kit — Getting started.
- Run One-to-Many and open the closest matches with One-to-One.
- Check Are Your Parents Related?, then group matches with the Leeds method.
- Build the family tree and attach confirmed matches.
- When a match does not fit, use WATO; when an ancestor is untested, reconstruct them.
- Triangulate shared segments and add them to Tree DNA, then see it on the Chromosome Map.