Ancestry DNA - Common ancestors and Locked Trees

[John Dancy]

So, Ancestry have identified that one of your DNA cousins and you have Common Ancestors. When you click on the "View Relationship" link your side of the relationship is fine, but your cousin has a locked tree and somewhere on their side you find that the "Locked" symbols etc are shown.

This can be overcome.

Your cousin's tree will take its information from your tree first. If, for example, it shows the cousin's great grandmother, and then a locked symbol for the next generation and so on, do some research and add all the great grandmother's children (dob and death) . Allow time for Ancestry to process and the next time you look the relevant grandparent will be shown, and you can repeat the process for the parents. You should be able to get as far as your DNA cousin, as most are logged already somewhere due to their age.

John

 

[Pauline]

Hi John - I've been puzzling over this, as when I click to "View Relationship" for someone whose tree is private, I already get to see the list of people back to our common ancestors for both of us.

If I click on 'Evaluate' then often the first tree shown on the right will be the match's private tree (depending on how far back their tree goes), and all I can see from that is the name of the person concerned. However, usually there are also other trees in the RH pane which are not private which enable me to see more details of the person concerned, from which I can do my own checks to verify - or disprove - the line suggested.

Have I misunderstood what you are saying here?

 

[John Dancy]

Pauline,

The way I understand it, the first view you get, which shows all the links, will be where Ancestry has identified other trees with common family members and used them to fill in the blanks. If no-one else has entered any information the right hand side would have shown locked cells below the ones you have in your tree.

On clicking the 'Evaluate' Ancestry shows you the information it has used to come to its conclusion, and the private tree is shown as it is, locked. It is up to you to determine whether the link is correct and you can use my process to 'unlock' the private tree.

I have had examples where errors in other family trees, especially where trees have been copied across, give completely false links - and then have to identify where they have gone wrong.

 

[Pauline]

If no-one else has entered any information the right hand side would have shown locked cells below the ones you have in your tree.

OK, thanks. I wondered if that might be where the difference was between what you were saying and what I was seeing. I didn't check all my common ancestor matches with private trees, but all the ones I did check showed a list of names on both sides back to the common ancestors - except for any living ancestors.

I have had examples where errors in other family trees, especially where trees have been copied across, give completely false links - and then have to identify where they have gone wrong.

Yes, I guess we all have some of those, though given the number of dodgy trees at Ancestry, not as many as you might expect.

I had an interesting case recently where something was definitely amiss with the link back to the common ancestors suggested, yet looking at our shared matches, it seemed we might nevertheless share those ancestors. The line Ancestry was showing back to these ancestors went from the match's paternal grandfather, but after much investigation it seems our actual link is via his maternal grandfather.

 

[JimP]

I have recently had 3 matches, each with either a private tree or a tree with only 2 or 3 generations, where Ancestry's algorithm has made a connection which includes a person of the same name and only slightly different dates as a collateral relative of mine. Digging deeper, I find that some people have conflated the two individuals in their trees.

I do need to go back and verify that I have the correct individual in my tree, but I'm not sure where to go after that. For the meantime, I just have these matches tagged with the note "ThruLines incorrect".

 

[John Dancy]

Ancestry's algorithms think they are getting cleverer (can AI have feelings?) and can throw up some interesting connections, almost always from an incorrect tree somewhere. What I have found frustrating is that, when you check the supposedly correct records confirming the ThruLines route, the information that the person has is not the same as that in the ThruLines - So why did they make a connection?

 

[peter]

I do need to go back and verify that I have the correct individual in my tree, but I'm not sure where to go after that.

ThruLines are hints based on trees, and like any hints - especially those based on other peoples' trees - they can be wrong.

The DNA Masterclass recommends using Common Ancestors rather than ThruLines.

 

[John Dancy]

Sorry Peter, I started this as a Common Ancestors thread, and it was the Common Ancestors that we are given that I was referring to. I rarely look at the ThruLines perspective on my XxGreat grandparents.

One of my wife's Common Ancestor cousins had few shared DNA cousins with her, but far more with my wife's nephew (all fitting into the family tree on my wife and the cousin's Paternal side). ProTools showed my wife to be connected on the cousin's Maternal side as well (20 Maternal to 1 Paternal match) . Her mother has so far been joined by another 21 tree-linked DNA cousins going back to a couple who emigrated to the USA, via South Africa in 1850 or so - All are currently 'unassigned' but their tree is now back, geographically, to one of the areas my wife's ancestors originated from. A brick wall might be about to fall.