Significance of ThruLine anomaly

[Pauline]

Ancestry most certainly DO use private trees in order to work out who has Common Ancestors

Yes, I’m aware of that, but the match had to have a linked, searchable tree of their own first. Trees can be private or public, and it makes no odds which, but they do need to be searchable.

 

[peter]

Actually I said it was a public tree

You also said that the only two people in it are private, so for the purposes of this discussion it's private.

But the lack of ‘evaluate’ buttons means I can’t tell where the information comes from.

Perhaps they can't show you anything more without breaching privacy?

the brother with the unlinked tree isn’t showing as a Common Ancestor match, while the brother without any tree at all is.

Algorithms sometimes throw up anomalies in extreme situations and this is a one-in-a-million example.

 

[Helen7]

With the exception what do you see when you view the details of the Common Ancestor match? Are you seeing the usual descent of the match from your common ancestor, with the ‘evaluate’ button for each generation? Or are the match’s descent details missing as I’m finding?

Yes, I can see the usual descent from the common ancestor, with the evaluate button showing for each generation, down to the match's mother. And looking at the source trees, I can see that several have the match as a private individual, which I suppose explains why Ancestry have reported the Common Ancestor connection with this person even though they have no linked tree (and their unlinked trees don't contain themselves).

 

[Pauline]

You also said that the only two people in it are private, so for the purposes of this discussion it's private.

Yes and no. I can see who is in the tree just not what their names are. With a private tree I wouldn’t know the relationship between the two people in it.

Perhaps they can't show you anything more without breaching privacy?

Which begs the question of what is the point of having a Common Ancestor match? Without at least showing you the distance of descent of the match from the common ancestor, it’s somewhat pointless. Essentially, I’m being given mixed messages, on the match details page he is shown as a Common Ancestor match, but then is not shown as a descendant of that common ancestor.

EDIT: I forgot to say also, that I can’t see what privacy issues there might be with this match that make him different from any other Common Ancestry match. Yes, he and his father are living, so would be private, but that’s hardly an uncommon scenario with matches. And my uncle died around 40 years ago, so there wouldn’t be any privacy issues there.

 

[peter]

Which begs the question of what is the point of having a Common Ancestor match?

It will inform your correspondence with your cousin. In my experience beginners are reassured by the fact that Common Ancestors have been identified, as this makes the match seem more real.

EDIT: I forgot to say also, that I can’t see what privacy issues there might be with this match that make him different from any other Common Ancestry match. Yes, he and his father are living, so would be private, but that’s hardly an uncommon scenario with matches. And my uncle died around 40 years ago, so there wouldn’t be any privacy issues there.

As I said previously...

Algorithms sometimes throw up anomalies in extreme situations and this is a one-in-a-million example.

 

[peter]

Changing the subject slightly, I've noticed that if I filter my matches by Common Ancestors there is only one page of results - which in my case defaults to 20.



If I change the dropdown to 50 I get 50 results, but still only one page. The most I can get is 100, by manually altering the number in the URL, ie



Unfortunately changing the currentPage variable doesn't work.

Have others noticed this problem? It might explain why some users have complained of the small number of Common Matches.

 

[peter]

Amongst the 100 Common Ancestors matches that I can see there is only one (a 3C1R) where there is no tree at all. In that case I have a match with my cousin's sister who does have a public tree.

 

[Pauline]

It will inform your correspondence with your cousin

Been there, tried that, got no reply. I’d been trying to contact him for a while as, until the arrival of Pro-tools, I had no idea who he was. He hasn’t logged on since first getting his results a few years ago.

I knew from shared matches he was almost certainly descended from my great grandfather, but how, I couldn’t determine. My great grandfather is not exactly lacking in documented descendants, most of whom are half cousins of some degree. Had I still been in the dark, him recently becoming a Common Ancestor match would just have added to the confusion. Since there are no details given, and he is not shown as a descendant of my grandfather, I would probably have had to assume it was just spurious. That is, not in the sense that all Common Ancestor matches are just hints, but in the sense that he shouldn’t have been shown as CA match at all, and certainly unreliable.

 

[Pauline]

Have others noticed this problem?

I can see the same happening now on my iPad. I will look on my computer later when I switch on, and see if it’s happening there too.

In my experience, these sort of glitches are a fairly regular occurrence at Ancestry, which sometimes get fixed, and sometimes don’t.

 

[Susan48]

You can see more Common Ancestor matches if you first select the parental side, then filter by Common Ancestors.

 

[peter]

Which begs the question of what is the point of having a Common Ancestor match? Without at least showing you the distance of descent of the match from the common ancestor, it’s somewhat pointless.

It will inform your correspondence with your cousin. In my experience beginners are reassured by the fact that Common Ancestors have been identified, as this makes the match seem more real.

Been there, tried that, got no reply. I’d been trying to contact him for a while as, until the arrival of Pro-tools, I had no idea who he was. He hasn’t logged on since first getting his results a few years ago.

Lots of people fail to reply - the vast majority according to some (though my experience has been more positive). But the chance of getting a response must be higher when Ancestry says there are Common Ancestors.

 

[Tim]

Changing the subject slightly, I've noticed that if I filter my matches by Common Ancestors there is only one page of results - which in my case defaults to 20.

View attachment 2526

If I change the dropdown to 50 I get 50 results, but still only one page. The most I can get is 100, by manually altering the number in the URL, ie

View attachment 2527

Unfortunately changing the currentPage variable doesn't work.

Have others noticed this problem? It might explain why some users have complained of the small number of Common Matches.

Yes, I have the same issue. Also, if you change it to 100, the last 50 don't show any Notes info which includes the Groups data

 

[peter]

You can see more Common Ancestor matches if you first select the parental side, then filter by Common Ancestors.

Thanks - I can now see about 180 across the different filters. I thought I'd found another one with no trees - because that was what Ancestry showed - but when I looked at the match it turned out that they had several small public trees, none of which were linked to their DNA results.

 

[Pauline]

But the chance of getting a response must be higher when Ancestry says there are Common Ancestors.

Quite possibly, yes, though only if they receive Ancestry notifications or are interested enough to log in periodically. Otherwise they may be unaware of any new Common Ancestor matches or correspondence.

 

[Helen7]

Changing the subject slightly, I've noticed that if I filter my matches by Common Ancestors there is only one page of results - which in my case defaults to 20.

View attachment 2526

If I change the dropdown to 50 I get 50 results, but still only one page. The most I can get is 100, by manually altering the number in the URL, ie

View attachment 2527

Unfortunately changing the currentPage variable doesn't work.

Have others noticed this problem? It might explain why some users have complained of the small number of Common Matches.

Today I have the same problem, but yesterday I didn't have this problem and I could see the 4 pages of my Common Ancestor matches (at 50 per page, 169 in all) and the 3 pages of my husband's (127 in all). I looked through them all and there was only one who didn't have a linked tree. As I said in my previous post, this person had 3 small unlinked public trees but they didn't feature in any of them.

I assume that not being able to see all your Common Ancestor matches is a temporary glitch.

 

[peter]

I assume that not being able to see all your Common Ancestor matches is a temporary glitch.

It's not the only one. I haven't been able to view or add Comments to other users' trees for a week or more - the message implying the feature is temporarily unavailable is optimistic:



It seems that Ancestry are in the process of changing the site, hopefully for the better, although the one change I know about is that the Quick Links on the home page are disappearing for ever.

 

[Helen7]

I haven't been able to view or add Comments to other users' trees for a week or more

I can still see and add comments in other people's trees at the moment.

 

[peter]

I can still see and add comments in other people's trees at the moment.

Lucky you - maybe I've been banned from adding comments?

 

[Stuart]

When the matches display was changed to be paginated, rather than indefinitely scrolling (two weeks ago), I could see both advantages and disadvantages. I didn't realise one of the disadvantages would be that Ancestry would struggle to program the paging controls so they work!

But I can now select more than one page, with the common ancestors filters and with both sort orders. It doesn't show the full page count, nor let me enter the page number to go to, but I can go to the next page with the arrows. I've seen it do this before, within the last two days, so maybe it isn't new (for me, anyway) - but no doubt frantic tinkering will continue.

 

[peter]

I am now also able to step through the pages, and sometimes - though not very often - it allows me to jump to a specified page. But I still can't access Comments.