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« on: Tuesday 01 October 24 23:38 BST (UK) »
Forgive me if you have already done this...
AncestryDNA and MyHeritage both provide a colour-coding system for DNA matches. Beginning with my closest matches, I have gone through systematically giving at least one coloured dot/square to each match (down to about 30 cM). As a starting point, my paternal matches get a blue dot/square and my maternal matches get a pinkish dot/square. In addition, I have a different coloured dot for each set of great grandparents. And I have coloured dots/squares for various other people/areas (e.g. Galway), where it is useful/interesting.
This means that any new match can almost always be instantly allocated as paternal or maternal. And very often I can also tell from which family line they come. If I want to work out more details about the match, I can look at their name (I have a few ancestors with rare names), their tree (if they have one), who they match and how much DNA they share with our shared matches (I have an Ancestry ProTools subscription). Some times the dots/squares show a mix of paternal and maternal dots/squares, which might indicate that it is a distant and/or dodgy and/or unreliable match.
If you have done this with your matches, you should be clear as to whether your match is paternal or maternal. And, unless you have recent mysteries in your family lines, you should have somewhat of an idea of which line they come from. Even with a recent mystery, you can allocate matches to coloured dots/squares - for example, the unknown grandfather might have a dot/square labelled Mystery Grandpa.
I have access to the DNA matches of someone whose ancestry is Norfolk going back several centuries. That person, interestingly, has far, far fewer matches than any other kit to which I have access.
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