Results are through!
 

So, my first question is: clearly you don't get ALL your DNA matches at once, so do they start by populating one side of the family?
Just about all my close matches so far are Dad's dad's side. Am working through, but very little on Mum's dad and NOTHING on Mum's mum :(

Oh and I can't do name searches yet. Reckon that'll take a day or two to populate.

Phoenix, I'm a complete novice, so excuse the silly question!

Is it obvious for which side of the family you are getting matches?

I only have one cousin match where I know which side of the family the person fits. It's dad's side as they have his surname which is relatively uncommon. The person doesn't have a tree and I have no idea who they are though.

I could get mum's DNA tested in order to split my results, but it would be pretty unethical as she wouldn't understand why she was spitting into a tube, and might refuse to do it in any case.

I don't have any matches where I have any idea how the people connect to me. This has caused me to lose interest somewhat. I did my test in the hope of proving some of my research was correct (and/or that no milkmen etc were involved in my biological tree!) rather than because I want to find living relations to chat with.

I do feel that dna testing is rather like buying a top of the range tv with only limited instructions and those in Chinese. The inference being it's not their fault you are finding it so difficult to understand, rather that you must be a bit thick.

OC

I have over 400 pages of matches, so far. That will take me probably 3 months to work through. Based on Best Mate's tree, I'm sure there will be some I cannot unravel.

I recognised a couple of the testers straight away, and most of the matches relate to them. In fairness, I've only looked at the dozen or so closest matches so far.

Phoenix, I don't remember a delay in matches showing up when I got my results, though of course any kind of glitch is possible with Ancestry nowadays.

However, it would be impossible for them (ancestry) to pick out matches on one side of your family (apart from the very few cases where both your linked trees go back to your shared ancestor), unless one or both of your parents have already been tested, in which case you get "Father" and / or "Mother" buttons to click to see the matches on each side.

What happens when you click the "Search matches" button?

Nothing. That isn't in place yet. If it were, I could spot Mum's matches.

Try refreshing the page a few times or using a different browser?