Understanding the use of Gedmatch

I have been involved with genealogy for some time now. It is only recently that I have made strides forward to find my family and that was because of the use of various websites in Germany. About a year ago I use the Ancestry DNA option to find out what my DNA would tell me.

The initial result I got back from Ancestry was impressive and I was excited to find that there were over 15,000 people whose names I was given who were related to me. However when I started to check these people none of them had my last name which is Beucke. About four months ago I received notice that Ancestry DNA had changed and now my list dropped to 7,700 people but still no one with my last name. I have met numerous people on genealogy websites and many have told me that I should use Gedmatch to help me find valid relatives. I was not sure how Gedmatch could help me and I am still not certain that I can get any help from this website.

I accessed the Tools for DNA & Genealogy Research page and then selected Analyze Your Data and DNA Raw Data with the option One-To-Many Matches. The results I received were hard to understand. I selected three people from the list and what I received was a list of chromosomes that no match was found for. Even the ones that I did find a match for I have no idea what this means to me or to my research. If someone can explain this to me I would appreciate it.

Regards,

Garry Beucke (garry_beucke@hotmail.com)