AncestryDNA’s new BETA

[PhoebeW]

Has anyone had a problem posting comments on other people's trees? Previously I could click the 'View comments' link and create a new comment, but it doesn't seem to work any more.

There does seem to be an intermittent fault.

But comments and notes are both being bundled into this new beta “workspace”. That might be causing the fault.

 

[Helen7]

But comments and notes are both being bundled into this new beta “workspace”. That might be causing the fault.

You've hit the nail on the head there! I previously enabled the 'MyTreeTags' beta which produces this 'workspace', but I found it annoying so I disabled it. I have just enabled it again to see if that causes the problem with comments and it does. As Peter reported, if you click on the 'View Comments' when viewing an individual in someone's tree, nothing happens. But if you disable 'MyTreeTags' the comments work as they did before - you can add comments (and read existing ones) fine.

 

[peter]

But if you disable 'MyTreeTags' the comments work as they did before - you can add comments

Thanks!

 

[canadianbeth]

I am also seeing only 20 common ancestors, where previously I had 44. But this morning I had a brand new one, right at the top of the page. A first cousin once removed, and I already had her in my tree. So I guess technically if they all showed up I should have 45.

 

[jorghes]

I have been having increasing issues with the "Common Ancestors" and some "ThruLines".

I came across a common ancestor suggestion I wanted to follow the other day, as it was not a link I had previously seen, but the ThruLine would not load at all. Now, neither my father nor my grandmother's results will give their entire list of matches with Common Ancestors - it adds an edition once, then fails to add any more, and I remember counting my grandmother's Common Ancestor results in the first couple of weeks of the new Beta and it was in the region of 65, less than half of those appear now.

As for that original problem - that result with the common ancestor that I hadn't received before now doesn't appear at all in the DNA results list... obviously too far down!

 

[PhoebeW]

I have been having increasing issues with the "Common Ancestors" and some "ThruLines".

I came across a common ancestor suggestion I wanted to follow the other day, as it was not a link I had previously seen, but the ThruLine would not load at all. Now, neither my father nor my grandmother's results will give their entire list of matches with Common Ancestors - it adds an edition once, then fails to add any more, and I remember counting my grandmother's Common Ancestor results in the first couple of weeks of the new Beta and it was in the region of 65, less than half of those appear now.

As for that original problem - that result with the common ancestor that I hadn't received before now doesn't appear at all in the DNA results list... obviously too far down!

I think the changes last week that improved ThruLines for many of us have “broken” the common ancestor tool. It does make sense that there is a trade-off between the accuracy of the functions as they are dependent on each other. They are still early beta though - so there must be some hope.

I had over 30 matches linked to Elizabeth T, my 4 x great-grandmother but now I can only see about ten. I know the missing ones are my 4 x great-aunt Mary’s line and that they are still there, linked to another Elizabeth with a slightly different spelling of her surname, who Ancestry now regards as my Elizabeth’s sister. I know that there are two different versions of the tree for this branch, and that the most recent research hasn’t reached all the Ancestry trees. If I click on this second Elizabeth, everything “hangs” and doesn’t load. I was thinking that they must be working on this and that it was causing the other problems of availability on the DNA module.

 

[jorghes]

I don't think it's "broken" as such, I think there's something wrong with how they load. I was scrolling through Beta responses for one of the DNA tests and the Common Ancestor hints that didn't appear (for this particular test they were 22cM and below) were still there they were fine when I scrolled past them, but when you click the filter for "Common Ancestors" they didn't appear. The loading on the scroll wasn't working properly, or quickly, I kept scrolling past a large number of results (sometimes what looked like 10 or more) who were missing the information about their trees (the green/grey portion that tells you about numbers in a tree, whether there's an unlinked one and has the common ancestor hint) - that part was simply blank, though keep scrolling and suddenly there were people with that information.

I'm more worried about the ThruLine tab which won't load at all, no matter how much I try. (and not only will it not load on my father's results, it won't load on mine either).

 

[Helen7]

ThruLines seems to be working much better for me now. The problems I reported in post #213 (people appearing as their own siblings and cousins) have been corrected, and all the known relationships now look correct as far as I can see. Still a lot of speculative 'potential ancestors' but that's fine - they aren't replacing any actual ancestors.

Still having a problem with the 'common ancestors' list - only the first 20 showing, as others have found. Hopefully that will get sorted soon.

 

[PhoebeW]

ThruLines seems to be working much better for me now. The problems I reported in post #213 (people appearing as their own siblings and cousins) have been corrected, and all the known relationships now look correct as far as I can see. Still a lot of speculative 'potential ancestors' but that's fine - they aren't replacing any actual ancestors.

Still having a problem with the 'common ancestors' list - only the first 20 showing, as others have found. Hopefully that will get sorted soon.

Mine are fixed too. And the detail behind some of my shared ancestor matches is far clearer and more accurate.

Just a couple of oddities I noticed:

If you go into your linked tree in tree view, you should see a blue icon on all the ancestors that are within the scope of ThruLines. One of mine is missing its icon. It is the same ancestor who was missing from ThruLines before the changes last week.

Now you see them - now you don’t : I have a match on the common ancestor list, but when I click on her it says that we don’t share a common ancestor. She is actually a double third cousin once removed ( two brothers married two sisters) and it must be really difficult for any algorithm to plot that relationship. Does anyone else have double cousins on AncestryDNA - and if so how do they appear on ThruLines?

 

[Helen7]

If you go into your linked tree in tree view, you should see a blue icon on all the ancestors that are within the scope of ThruLines. One of mine is missing its icon.

I have lots of missing blue icons - 13 in all in the 3x g-grandparent to 5x g-grandparent range. All these people appear in my ThruLines, many of them with associated DNA matches. So I'm not sure what the blue icons are supposed to signify. Similar story for my husband's tree - 16 missing icons, but all appear in ThruLines, most of them showing DNA matches descended from them.

I have a match on the common ancestor list, but when I click on her it says that we don’t share a common ancestor.

I have also noticed at least one of these, and they aren't double cousins, but I know we share a pair of common ancestors. I also have two others who do not appear in the 'common ancestors' filter (should be in the top 20 on cM shared DNA) but when I click on them in the full list it says that we do have common ancestors and identifies these correctly. I don't understand the conflicting messages ThruLines throws up, but I guess it must be a very complex algorithm and it seems to be a fine balancing act to get it right!

 

[jorghes]

While I am so glad that everyone else's is getting clearer and more accurate, mine is now getting worse (again). Even just thinking of the examples of my grandmother Jean's results that I used in #215, both of her 3x great grandmothers, Ester and Sophia are now labelled as "4x great aunts" instead and while the duplications have disappeared, someone has added Jean's father below one of Ester and Sophia's brothers which is presumably why they are now relabelled - the individual in question is Ester's son, and Jean still appears below him and Ester, although he is unlabelled and Ester is, strangely "4x great aunt".

I still can't get that ThruLines entry to appear for my father's results, it loads an empty page (top and bottom nav bars and nothing else) and none of those "ThruLine" markers yet appear in my tree.

One point in their favour is that the step-father who was appearing in-lieu of my great-grandfather's missing father (maternal line) has now been removed and the original dummy, unknown figure has been added back in (which I am fine with) - I don't know of any members of my mother's extended family that have been DNA tested anyway so there are unlikely to be any links there.

 

[Bryman]

both of her 3x great grandmothers, Ester and Sophia are now labelled as "4x great aunts" instead

Ancestry seems to accept the terms grandfather and grandmother but not grandaunt and granduncle. The latter couple are referred to as great aunt and great uncle, hence an extra level of 'great'ness. Therefore, 3x great grand xxxx are written as 4x great xxxx. See the previous discussion on this subject elsewhere on this forum, started by Bob I believe.

 

[jorghes]

Ancestry seems to accept the terms grandfather and grandmother but not grandaunt and granduncle. The latter couple are referred to as great aunt and great uncle, hence an extra level of 'great'ness. Therefore, 3x great grand xxxx are written as 4x great xxxx. See the previous discussion on this subject elsewhere on this forum, started by Bob I believe.

I would actually usually default to "great" as opposed to "grand", unsure why - presumably because that's the way I referred to my grandfather and grandmother's siblings when I met them (i.e. Great Uncle Jack). Though I understand it should be "grand".

 

[canadianbeth]

I also default to "great" as that is the only way I referred to my grandmother's sisters. Great Aunty May and Great Aunty Lily, although I never met either of them. I had not known of the "grand" term until I read this forum.

 

[PhilGee]

As the OED says for "grand-uncle": "another term for great-uncle" which indicates "great-uncle" is the preferred usage. Earlier editions would have had "see great-uncle" - though mostly used for "archaic" items such as "connexion" see "connection" (though the 1953 edition had the forward reference in the reverse direction!).

Whereas "great-uncle" is defined as: "An uncle of one's mother or father."

 

[Bryman]

That is strange because my copy of the OED states that "grand" is used (in names of relationships) in the second degree of ascent or descent, such as:
grandson, one's child's son;
grand-nephew, one's nephew's or niece's son;
grandmother, one's parent's mother;
grand-aunt, one's parent's aunt;
There is no mention of "grand" being the equivalent of "great" or vice versa. Otherwise my parent's father would be my "great-father".

However, under "great" I see that it is used for kinship words compounded with "grand" to indicate one degree further removed upwards or downwards. Hence, "great" does not appear by itself - and only when preceding "grand".

 

[Bob Spiers]

owever, under "great" I see that it is used for kinship words compounded with "grand" to indicate one degree further removed upwards or downwards. Hence, "great" does not appear by itself - and only when preceding "grand".

I agree that is certainly my own interpretation, and reminds my paternal grandmother insisted on differentiating the two gentlemen family members who lodged with her. One was her late husband's brother so was Grand Uncle George, whilst the other was the husband of her late sister, and was therefore Great Uncle Peter. This always bothered me as a child but my two sisters were spared, as the grand uncle had died before they were old enough to remember him, so they only new Great Uncle Peter. My mother being the pearl of wisdom she was when encountering my own query over 'grand' versus 'great' told me to refer to them both as 'Uncle' and it certainly never bothered them.

All these years later of course I can see the genealogical science behind it all, and would perhaps just add they were both probably Great Grand Uncles, one bloodline and one the spouse of bloodline.

I believe this discussion has been aired before on the forum and still divides opinion, which if you pardon the pun is great!

 

[Helen7]

I still can't get that ThruLines entry to appear for my father's results, it loads an empty page (top and bottom nav bars and nothing else)

I have 3 ancestors for whom I get an 'empty page' as you describe when I click on their tile in ThruLines. These are all actual ancestors that were previously replaced or missing but have now been reinstated. However, there are no such problems for all my other 10 reinstated ancestors, so I can't see that being the reason.

and none of those "ThruLine" markers yet appear in my tree.

By ThruLine markers, do you mean the blue icons (showing a group of people) which appear when you turn on 'ThruLines icons' by clicking the DNA symbol when viewing your linked tree, either in pedigree or family view? I can't see the point of these icons - mine seem to bear no relation to whether or not my DNA matches are linked through these ancestors.

EDIT: If I click on the ThruLines icon for my father, it says I may be related to him! Same for my mother and grandparents - how useful...

 

[jorghes]

EDIT: If I click on the ThruLines icon for my father, it says I may be related to him! Same for my mother and grandparents - how useful...

One of the jokes I tell with my mother is that luckily DNA has proven she did take the right baby home from the hospital and we are related... (I was the only white baby in the hospital!)

I find the blank spot frustrating because it’s supposedly a link to a new DNA link that I didn’t have before - so much so that the particular individual is actually “Unknown Hunt”, which would make it useful to see a possible DNA link from him!

 

[PhoebeW]

I have lots of missing blue icons - 13 in all in the 3x g-grandparent to 5x g-grandparent range. All these people appear in my ThruLines, many of them with associated DNA matches. So I'm not sure what the blue icons are supposed to signify. Similar story for my husband's tree - 16 missing icons, but all appear in ThruLines, most of them showing DNA matches descended from them.


I have also noticed at least one of these, and they aren't double cousins, but I know we share a pair of common ancestors. I also have two others who do not appear in the 'common ancestors' filter (should be in the top 20 on cM shared DNA) but when I click on them in the full list it says that we do have common ancestors and identifies these correctly. I don't understand the conflicting messages ThruLines throws up, but I guess it must be a very complex algorithm and it seems to be a fine balancing act to get it right!

I understand that the blue icons should appear in tree view against all ancestors within the scope of ThruLines. The intention is that you can click through into the ThruLines information from each ancestor.