1st, for a limited time you can download your old list of matches from Ancestry. The link can be found under the Settings button. No word on how long this will be available.

2nd, while at the settings tool notice the link for Donwloading raw data. Do this. You can tehn upload that data file to FTDNA and/or GedMatch. I hesitate to put the urls in here since some of the administrators of these boards will strip out any posts that contain non-Ancestry links.

The upload to FTDNA is "free" in that you can look at you top 20 matches with limited access to tools. If you want to see all of your matches you then pay $39 OR get 4 other people to transfer in for free. Ask on the message boards (or any of the genealogy forum boards at FaceBook if you do that) to see if anyone is looking for a transfer. You could be one of their 4 and then ask for others yourself. (Once I have certain test results come in I will be transferring 3 to FTDNA -- and will be doing that. BTW this is a change this last month The transfer used to be a flat $69 dollars.

The upload to GedMatch is free. This past month they did implement a set of tools available only to people who make monetary contributions -- but you can do almost everything you need to without those tools.

I would counsel you to do both. Both sites give you access to the chromosome data and the ability to see how you connect to a match and if that could be on a known paper trail OR a different one based on the others who also match there. Also, not everyon will transfer or use test sites outside of their "primary" so being in many pools will mean that you will make the most connections.

On a final note, look into using spreadsheets to manage all the data. There is also a silverlight database that has been created to manage data as well. It is called GenomeMate -- there is a forum board here at Ancestry devoted to it.

Elizabeth Ernst
Fredericksburg, VA