AncestryDNA’s new BETA

[peter]

I noticed in one of my ThruLines suggestions that there were several trees which had the same wrong information. What they showed was plausible if you were relying on online resources - but if you had been to the record office, as I have, you'd know that there was a much better candidate.

It may be that Ancestry used the wrong version because there were more people who had got it wrong than got it right. Or it could simply be that following my research leads to a 'brick wall' whereas following their versi0n leads to new ancestors.

In this case I've discovered some cousins who I can help out. This is great news for me and even better news for them. So whilst ThruLines displayed incorrect information it has produced an excellent result.

 

[PhoebeW]

My positive story is that I found a new third cousin by getting in touch to query entries that ThruLines had suggested for my 3 x great grandparents. We both had plausible entries in different parishes but were able to agree which ones were correct.

Most of the other anomalies in my suggested ancestors are already under dispute in the familysearch tree or have “gone viral” on Ancestry so it might be difficult to fix them.

Does anyone else have pedigree collapse within the scope of ThruLines? And if so how is it treated? Two of my 3 x great grandfathers, Richard and Owen, were brothers. All Owen’s entries are included correctly. Richard is missing, as is Mary his wife, and her parents and grandparents.

 

[Pauline]

So whilst ThruLines displayed incorrect information it has produced an excellent result.

No such luck here, and I guess it is inevitable that our feelings about ThruLines displacing some of our ancestors will be influenced by whether or not there has been any positive outcome from it.

One thing I have noticed is that things do occasionally change. With one set of 5 x great grandparents, my ancestor Jonathan had been replaced by his brother Thomas. Now Jonathan has come back but instead his wife has been replaced by his brother's wife.

And yesterday one of my 2 x great grandparents upped and left, so I can no longer see shared matches in that line via ThruLines.

 

[peter]

You're luck that ThruLines is working at all - most of the times I try I get an error message.

 

[Helen7]

I had a look at this myself yesterday and realised this was because someone else had been substituted for their mother in his brother's ThruLines.

This sort of thing explains why ThruLines describes people as my 'half' cousins, because one of the pair of common ancestors has been replaced by someone else. This seems to be quite a common scenario.

 

[canadianbeth]

I have been getting an error message for the past three days.

 

[jorghes]

Does anyone else have pedigree collapse within the scope of ThruLines? And if so how is it treated? Two of my 3 x great grandfathers, Richard and Owen, were brothers. All Owen’s entries are included correctly. Richard is missing, as is Mary his wife, and her parents and grandparents.

I do - two of my 5x great-grandmothers are sisters, and they previously weren't appearing properly - like you, only one of the pair were appearing. However, now I've gone back and checked again, it looks like they're appearing properly now, even twice when it comes to their parents.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I guess it is inevitable that our feelings about ThruLines displacing some of our ancestors will be influenced by whether or not there has been any positive outcome from it.

Yes I think that observation is likely right. For instance and working on my wife's Tree (which is still work in progress) and using ThruLines, I alighted on two 'potential ancestor' hints that looked interesting. Unfortunately they were associated with a Private Tree and my record of getting someone to respond with Private Trees is pretty poor. Had it not been for a 'grey' area in my research - back to the 1700's - I would likely not have bothered, but needs must as it were. So I messaged the Tree owner (the same one for both potentials) and heard nothing for best part of a week until yesterday, when I received a most welcome and long reply from a lady in America.

She owned to researching her British line for over 25 years and set about answering my questions which centered around my wife'd paternal 3 & 4 G grandparents and associated families. She gave chapter and verse and even apologised saying she would respond further when she had time. The information looks most promising and I am gradually sifting through it and checking it out.

This is not the only plus side from trying out ThruLines, on my own and my wife's Tree, and enough for me to give a thumbs up for Thru Lines, even with obvious idiosyncrasies discovered along the way.

 

[jorghes]

I think at this point it could be said that the potential (and real) benefits of ThruLines (and New and Improved Matches) are far outweighing the pesky habit of replacing researched ancestors with "possibles", but then Ancestry has always done that - with hints, with the merge-able "potential ancestors" in your tree itself, and simply with the ability to add information to your tree that you may not have thought properly about first.

Admittedly, I would love for those on my tree be preferenced over those which are obviously wrong (still looking at a bunch of ancestors added who were born and died in the US being suggested parents of those who were born/died in the UK...) - although I admit since we have DNA links, there's a chance that we are related through that line... but not that ancestor.

 

[peter]

Admittedly, I would love for those on my tree be preferenced over those which are obviously wrong

That's the trouble - most people would choose that option, and most of them would be wrong to do so. For me a positive outcome includes finding people who clearly are relatives of mine, even if they're not a DNA match - one ThruLine can produce several new cousins.

 

[jorghes]

That's the trouble - most people would choose that option, and most of them would be wrong to do so. For me a positive outcome includes finding people who clearly are relatives of mine, even if they're not a DNA match - one ThruLine can produce several new cousins.

Oh there are enough people linked through that particular incorrect ancestor for me to believe that we are related - it would just simply be at least one generation higher if not two.

 

[PhilGee]

I had a similar situation to jorghes: I have a couple of shared matches with 9 and 15 people trees where the other matches are all confirmed and the "quantity" of shared DNA is about mid-point of the range. When I looked at the tree, the common ancestor surname was there in the right location (just outside Leicester) but not anyone I had found.

As LC members do, I started from the lowest level (assumed to be the most accurate!) and built my own version of the family which differed at the parents of the "root"! The names were essentially correct but all else was wrong. The mother was listed as born 1894 in Oadby but actually born 1886 in Derby and the only birth in 1894 was in Oldham with a baptism on the date given. The father had a birth year of 1887 in Loughborough but was born 1864 in Leicester. Fortunately, I had found the parents marriage on FMP with an image of the register, so could see their ages and father's names.

There were 11 trees listed in the hints for the father - 8 with the wrong parents and three not given. I contacted four and two no response, one of the two matches above supplied details of additional children and the third, who was looking for a connection as well, was able to merge the "mother" into his main tree as he hadn't found the "ages" and birth place errors.

Unfortunately, I failed to find a link as I am blocked at 1811 (Quorndon/Quorn) for this family and 1797 (Rothley) in my ancestors.

Phil

 

[Pauline]

That's the trouble - most people would choose that option, and most of them would be wrong to do so. For me a positive outcome includes finding people who clearly are relatives of mine, even if they're not a DNA match - one ThruLine can produce several new cousins.

I don't really understand what you are saying here, Peter. How is better to opt from the wrong ancestor over the right one?

Looking at the potential ancestors I've been offered as replacements for someone already in my tree I don't see a single match dependent on any them. Any matches that ThruLines does show result from lower generations and ancestors who are in my tree.

Meanwhile I am missing out on seeing the matches that depend on the ancestors who been replaced - or just omitted.

 

[PhoebeW]

Perhaps a thumbs up or down button would work? I have about 40 DNA relatives linked to one set of 4 x great-grandparents. I don’t think anyone will have one of the ancestors proposed for them in their tree. It’s man in north America whose only child is a daughter called Elizabeth, linked as the father of a man in Wales called John.

 

[peter]

I don't really understand what you are saying here, Peter. How is better to opt from the wrong ancestor over the right one?

I already know what's in my tree - it's only by seeing what my cousins have entered that I can either spot errors I've made (can't completely rule out that possibility), or help them to correct errors they've made.

Yes, there will be cases in which the connection is in a completely different part of my tree, but based on my experience so far, there's usually something worth following up.

 

[Helen7]

I already know what's in my tree - it's only by seeing what my cousins have entered that I can either spot errors I've made (can't completely rule out that possibility), or help them to correct errors they've made.

Yes, there will be cases in which the connection is in a completely different part of my tree, but based on my experience so far, there's usually something worth following up.

I think I am beginning to understand what you are getting at here, Peter. I found ThruLines had replaced one of my 5x great grandfathers, Thomas White, with a ‘Mr White’ from someone else’s tree and added in his wife as ‘Mrs White’ (she is absent from my tree as I don’t know her name and don’t enter people as just Mr or Mrs).

I was about to ignore these ‘potential ancestors’ but decided to investigate further and found this tree had Mr and Mrs White’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson (my 3x g-grandfather) exactly as I had them in my tree, the tree owner being descended from my 3x g-grandfather’s sister. There was no DNA match but I had identified another relative, who although distant (5th cousin) may well be worth following up so we can try and break down this particular brick wall of Thomas White and his wife.

 

[jorghes]

I don't really understand what you are saying here, Peter. How is better to opt from the wrong ancestor over the right one?

I think Peter is suggesting that the replaced ancestor - or seemingly incorrect ancestor - may allow for addition research if the DNA matches they offer are close enough and thus, perhaps, break a few brick walls.

One of my "incorrect" suggested ancestors, who lived in the UK but supposedly had a single child born in the UK, gives me a DNA match with someone descended from a sibling of this incorrect ancestor, with a match of 7cM in 1 segment. I would probably say it's possible we're related, but most likely through another link, higher up the ancestor line than ThruLines is suggesting.

The more likely of the "incorrect" ancestors, another of whom was born and died in the US, but seemingly had a single child born in the UK, gives me 6 possible DNA matches with between 6 and 13 cM across a single segment (presumably the same segment). All these DNA matches show as descended from different branches of the same tree, and all siblings of the same "incorrect" ancestor. Again, I would think that if the DNA match was correct, that the link would have to be at least one ancestor further up, currently it's suggesting these ancestors for my mother's 4th and 5th great grandfathers, i.e. before this branch immigrated to the US. Perhaps this person should be on my tree (but not as one of my direct ancestors) but perhaps as a great-uncle or similar.

 

[Pauline]

Yes, I get where Peter is coming from, I just haven’t shared his experience of a positive outcome. When it comes to checking my tree for possible errors and contacting tree owners I have previously ‘been there, done that’.

And, as mentioned above, ThruLines is not showing any matches dependent on the replacements - which I guess is not surprising as I’m not related to any of them!

 

[peter]

Yes, I get where Peter is coming from, I just haven’t shared his experience of a positive outcome. When it comes to checking my tree for possible errors and contacting tree owners I have previously ‘been there, done that’.

And, as mentioned above, ThruLines is not showing any matches dependent on the replacements - which I guess is not surprising as I’m not related to any of them!

When I say 'positive outcome' I'm not just thinking of myself, I'm also thinking of my cousins. They may not accept what I tell them, but at least they have the opportunity of doing so - this is particularly important for those who don't have Ancestry subscriptions and therefore cannot see the public trees of other users.

 

[Pauline]

When I say 'positive outcome' I'm not just thinking of myself, I'm also thinking of my cousins.

Yes, I get that, but where my ancestors have been replaced by someone from another person's tree, I had already been in contact - or tried to be in contact - with the tree owners concerned.