This guide explains every setting in Advanced Settings, section by section. Use it to change how a feature works, add your family trees to Quick Search, or back up all your settings and data. Every change is saved as soon as you make it, so there is no Save button for you to click.
To open Advanced Settings in the Genealogy Assistant pop-up panel:
- Click the Genealogy Assistant toolbar icon. The pop-up panel opens.
- Click Edit advanced settings near the bottom of the pop-up panel. Advanced Settings opens with a list of its sections.
You can also click the settings icon beside a feature’s name in the pop-up panel. Advanced Settings then opens at that feature’s section. Each section of this guide names the features whose settings icon leads to it.
Click a section’s heading to open or close it, and Advanced Settings remembers which you left open. Hover over a heading and a star appears at its left. Click the star to pin that section to the top. Pinned sections are listed in alphabetical order above the sections you have not pinned.
After each change, Saved appears for a moment at the bottom. A number saves when you click away from its box. Click the × at the top right, or Return to main screen at the bottom, to go back to the features. View documentation for Advanced Settings, under the title, opens this guide.
DNA Match Highlighting
These are the thresholds for the highlight features. A shared cM amount at or above the number you set is shown in bold red, so your closer matches stand out. The settings icon next to any of the six highlight features in the pop-up panel opens this section. The thresholds are:
- Ancestry DNA Matches: the shared cM on your AncestryDNA match list, for Highlight DNA Matches by cM. 25 cM by default.
- Ancestry Shared Matches: the shared cM on a match’s Shared Matches tab, for Highlight Shared Matches by cM. 25 cM by default.
- Ancestry Matches of Matches: on the same tab, the DNA each shared match shares with the match you are viewing. 50 cM by default.
- MyHeritage DNA Matches: the shared cM on your MyHeritage match list, for Highlight DNA Matches 25cM+. 25 cM by default.
- MyHeritage Mutual Matches: a MyHeritage match’s shared matches, for Highlight Mutual Matches 50cM+. 50 cM by default.
- 23andMe DNA Matches: the shared cM on your 23andMe match list, for Highlight DNA Matches 50cM+. 50 cM by default.
- 23andMe Shared Matches: a 23andMe match’s shared matches, for Highlight Shared Matches 50cM+. 50 cM by default.
Average Segment (AScM), further down the section, adds a second highlight that helps with endogamous ancestry. It is off until you tick Highlight AScM, which shows three more values:
- Shared DNA at least: 90 cM by default (unweighted cM on Ancestry).
- Longest segment at least: 20 cM by default.
- AScM at least: 12 cM by default.
A match reaching all three has its AScM shown in red. On Ancestry it shows on match pages with Segment Stats on DNA Match Pages, and on the match list and Shared Matches tabs with Segment Stats on DNA Match Lists.
It also shows on the MyHeritage match list and Chromosome Browser, on the 23andMe match lists, and on the FamilyTreeDNA match lists with FTDNA: AScM on Match Lists. 23andMe does not show the longest segment, so that value is skipped there and the other two apply.
Gil Bardige explains his method in the JewishGen Talks webinar Help! I Got My DNA Results and I’m Confused. He starts with matches sharing 90 cM or more. Of those, he keeps any with a longest segment of 20 cM or more and an AScM of 12 cM or more. His one-page PDF What Is AScM? sums it up.
Reset all to defaults, at the bottom of the section, puts every threshold back to its default and turns Highlight AScM off. It also resets the Advanced Research Tools and Ancestry Tree Viewing Options sections.
Download Options
These settings apply to every multi-page download and to the pages Genealogy Assistant loads for you, on every website. The settings icon next to Download Pages as CSV File or Download Shared Matches as CSV opens this section, which has three settings to choose from:
- Download method: how files are saved to your computer. Streaming, the default, is best for large files, and Standard works on the most computers. File System asks you where to save each file. Try one of the other methods if your downloads are inconsistent.
- Download speed: Standard, Walk or Crawl. Standard suits most downloads, and Ancestry match downloads slow down on their own as they grow. Choose Walk or Crawl if a website still stops responding.
- Ancestry additional DNA details: adds unweighted cM, longest segment and average segment size to your Ancestry match and shared match CSVs. Each match needs its own lookup, so the first download with them takes longer. They are kept for each DNA test, so later downloads only look up new matches and those whose shared cM has changed.
On the AncestryDNA match list, the same three settings open from the arrow beside Download CSV. Choose Download settings and make your changes; each one is saved as you make it. A change made there shows here in Advanced Settings too, and the other way round.
Quick Search
Quick Search opens on any web page with Alt + Q (Option + Q on a Mac). You can also type ga then a space in the address bar. This section sets its shortcuts and the family trees it searches. The settings icon next to Quick Search via Alt + Q in the pop-up panel opens this section.
Everything here except the shortcuts is also in Quick Search, under the Settings link at the bottom right of its box. The section starts with:
- Keyboard Shortcut:
Alt+Qis set by your browser. Click Change shortcut in browser to choose other keys on its shortcuts page. - Legacy Shortcut on Genealogy Sites: the old shortcut,
Ctrl+/unless you changed it, still works on supported genealogy sites only. It will be retired in a future release. To change it, click Record New Shortcut and press up to three keys to make your new shortcut. - Add GEDCOM to Quick Search: click Choose GEDCOM file (.ged or .zip) to add a tree exported from Ancestry in one go. Files are processed on your computer and never leave it. The tree is then kept up to date from Ancestry, starting from the date the file was exported.
Uploading its GEDCOM is the quickest way to add a tree of more than 20,000 people. A GEDCOM with the same tree name as one already added replaces it, once you click Replace. Up to 10 trees can be added in all, from GEDCOM files and from your Ancestry account together.
Under Automatic Updates, Genealogy Assistant checks your tree list, your DNA tests and the people in the trees you have added about every six hours. It checks whether or not Ancestry is open in a tab, and fetches only what has changed. You need to be signed in to Ancestry in this browser. Untick Update indexes automatically to stop these checks.
The box under it shows how the checks are going:
- Last check: when it was and how it went.
- Next check: when the next one is due.
- Tree list: how many Ancestry trees you have, including shared ones.
- DNA tests: how many of your DNA tests are indexed.
- Indexed trees: how many trees and people Quick Search can find.
Click Check now to run a check straight away instead of waiting. Trees, under it, lists every tree on your Ancestry account plus any GEDCOM you have uploaded. Added to Quick Search holds the trees whose people Quick Search can find. Each tree in that list has a row with:
- A checkbox. Untick it to remove the tree and the people in it from Quick Search. You are asked to confirm before it is removed.
- A coloured dot. Click it to colour the tree’s Quick Search label.
- The tree’s name, how many people are indexed and the last update.
- A pencil icon. Click it to rename the tree.
Available trees lists your other trees, including trees shared with you, with how many people each has. Tick one to add it. It is fetched within a minute and kept up to date from then on. Once 10 trees are added, untick one under Added to Quick Search before you can tick another.
A search box appears above the list once you have more than five available trees. Past the first ten, a Show all button lists the rest. A tree of 20,000 people or more is marked large, with a note to upload its GEDCOM instead, which is much quicker than fetching it from Ancestry.
Surname Comparison Tool
These settings choose which trees the Surname Comparison Tool searches for you. Start the tool from Launch Surname Comparison Tool under Ancestry Tools in the pop-up panel, which has no settings icon of its own. Both settings apply to every comparison you run.
- Also check unlinked trees: ticked by default. Includes public trees that are not linked to a DNA test, as well as the trees linked to your DNA matches.
- Maximum unlinked tree size: unlinked trees with more people than this are skipped, to keep the comparison quick. 5000 by default. This setting is hidden while Also check unlinked trees is unticked.
Advanced Research Tools
Choose which links the Advanced Research Tools menu shows on Ancestry profile pages, for Advanced Research Tools on Profiles. The settings icon next to Advanced Research Toolbar in the pop-up panel opens this section. Changes show the next time you open a profile page.
Link size sets the size of the menu’s text: Standard, the default, or Larger. Under it is a checkbox for each link in the menu: tick a link to show it, or untick it to hide it. These nine links are ticked to start with:
- View in tree
- List of people
- View notes
- View comments
- Merge duplicate
- Save to tree
- Upload photo
- Quick edit
- Edit relationships
These are unticked to start with:
- Add DNA matches
- Member connect
- View changes
- Charts & reports
- Check for errors
Ancestry Tree Viewing Options
Choose which of Ancestry’s Tree viewing options are applied the first time you open each family tree, for Custom Tree Viewing Options. Ancestry stores these separately for every tree, so without this they have to be set each time. The feature’s settings icon opens this section.
- Always view all spouses in trees: ticked by default. Shows every marriage from the moment the tree opens, so a person’s second and later spouses appear beside them instead of being hidden.
- Hide relationship line labels in trees: unticked by default. Removes the small relationship captions that sit on the lines between the generations.
- Show month with marriage years: unticked by default. Adds the month above each marriage year that Show Marriage Dates in Family Tree puts between a couple in the vertical view, such as Apr above 1908.
FamilySearch Wiki Links
Two features link the places on profile pages to the FamilySearch Wiki page for the most specific part of the place that has one, which shows the records available there. They are FamilySearch: Add Wiki and Map Links to Places and Add Advanced Search to Profiles on Ancestry. The settings icon next to either one in the pop-up panel opens this section.
- Only search state/province and country: unticked by default. When no part of a place has a Wiki page, a Wiki search opens instead, using the last three parts of the place, such as county, state and country. Tick it to search only the state or province and the country.
Set Ancestry Domain
Some features open Ancestry for you from somewhere else: Quick Search, Launch Surname Comparison Tool, and the search links on MyHeritage and Find a Grave. This setting picks which of Ancestry’s regional sites they open. It is set on your first visit to Ancestry, and you can change it here.
- Domain: Ancestry.com, Ancestry.ca, Ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com.au, Ancestry.de, Ancestry.fr, Ancestry.it or Ancestry.mx.
Feature Management
These two buttons turn every Genealogy Assistant feature on or off in one click, instead of one switch at a time in the pop-up panel. Both leave Genealogy Assistant active. Unlike the Genealogy Assistant is active! button, they do not remember which features you had on.
- Enable all features turns every feature on, and resets the colour scheme, DNA match list sorting and shared matches sorting.
- Disable all features asks you to confirm, then turns every feature off when you click Disable. Each website goes back to its own behaviour, and you can turn on just the features you want in the pop-up panel.
Backup & Restore
Genealogy Assistant keeps your settings and data, such as your Quick Search trees, on your computer. A backup copies them to one file. Keep it safe, or use it to move everything to another computer or browser.
- Export Settings & Data saves the backup to your downloads folder, named with the date, such as genealogy-assistant-backup-2026-10-21.json.
- Choose backup file (.json), under Restore your settings and data, opens a backup file. Click Restore to replace all your current settings and data with it, and Advanced Settings reloads. Your trial or plan is not affected.
A backup also keeps your Quick Search trees and settings when you remove and re-add Genealogy Assistant. Export one first, then restore it afterwards. How to remove and re-add Genealogy Assistant walks through it.
Service File
Genealogy websites change their pages regularly. The service file lets us send out a fix straight away, such as the new location of a button. We do not have to wait for the browser stores to approve a new version. Genealogy Assistant checks for a new one every three hours.
- Update service file checks for a new one right away. The button reads Checking…, then a message says Service file updated! or Service file is already up to date. Click OK to close the message.