PLUNK – An Ancestry DNA game for Christmas (and beyond?)

[PhilGee]

Merry Christmas Tim,

...
You may have evidence of links but why do you think it's from your tree? How can you prove this? .....
But what would be the benefit to you if Ancestry just shows you your own tree? Isn't the whole purpose of ThruLines to show you what other people have? There have already been many posts on this forum asking why ThruLines shows the wrong ancestors and relatives even though people have the correct ones in their own trees?

If you click on a ThruLines box it will show how it identified that person - your tree or a list of member trees. My understanding of ThruLines, which may be incorrect, is to show the parts of the link that are not in your tree - you already know the rest.

Wrong ancestors seems to be a random fault. I have an instance where Ancestry identifies a "half-cousin" by linking via the child of my direct ancestors (from my tree), but not showing one direct ancestor

Phil

 

[Tim]

Merry Christmas Phil.

I've never seen any linkages from my tree in the matching DNA line. I will continue to look.

 

[Helen7]

I've never seen any linkages from my tree in the matching DNA line. I will continue to look.

As I see it, you can tell if the link is from your tree or elsewhere by whether it has the green Evaluate label on the person. It won't have this if it's from your DNA-linked tree, but if it's from another tree - including another tree of yours which is not DNA-linked - it will be labelled Evaluate.

In my case, as my current DNA-linked tree only contains direct ancestors, all the collateral branches show Evaluate on every person up to and including the sibling of my direct ancestor. Some of these people are in my more extensive private tree, and ThruLines duly lists my private tree amongst its source trees. My husband's DNA-linked tree is extensive and private, and here the collateral lines only show Evaluate if the person is not in my husband's tree.

I previously had my private tree linked to my DNA results, but decided to change this to enable more cousins to find me. I don't know if this has made any difference. I haven't noticed any change in the (small) number of people contacting me about DNA matches.

 

[John Dancy]

Hi Tim, Helen, Pauline and co,

Further to our conversation and Tim’s comment in his last post “Ancestry does not use my DNA tree in determining the connection from them to me, it uses other peoples public and private trees to do this. If it can't find another tree with a link then it can't display it.”

(I was going to insert images in the relevant places of the following but can’t work out how to do it (they all end up at the bottom) If you would like to see them let me know.

Tricia and my DNA trees are also our public trees, not certain why we need two?. In my last comments I said that I had evidence that Ancestry uses the information you add to your own tree to identify Common Ancestors. Herewith:

Case study 1.

Let me introduce you to Mel – the daughter of one of Tricia’s fourth cousins. Her DNA match, at 46cm, is only one less than that of her father’s, but she has a Common Ancestor, whereas her father does not. Ancestry reckon she has 15 people in a linked tree.

(here be her DNA match profile)

Viewing the relationship between her and Tricia you get this table with both sides completed:
(the spaces seem to disappear so you will have to reconstruct the table.)

William G Cattle - 3rd Great Grandfather

Charles T Cattle 2nd Gt Grandfather - Henry Cattle - 2nd Gt Granduncle

Charles Cattle Gt Grandfather - Henry Cassell – 1st cousin 3x removed

Leah Miriam Cattle grandmother - Frank Edward Cassell – 2nd Cousin 2 x rem

Mabel Annie Newton - Mother - Kathleen Cassell - 3rd cousin 1 x removed

Tricia - Tra **** ****el - 4th cousin

Mel ********* 4th Cousin 1 x rem

--------------------------------

Only 2 trees (Tricia and a Cattle cousin) currently have the link between Henry Cattle and Henry Cassell.

Mel’s tree, which Ancestry gives as “15 names” actually has only three, Mel and her parent’s, all living, so private.

Mel’s father has a tree, managed by her step-mother. This is s private linked tree and although it has over 500 names (according to Ancestry) her father is not identified as a Common Ancestor as his wife has yet to amend Frank’s parents (and might never do so)

So the names on the right hand side, if they had come from Mel and/or her father would have been shown as ‘private’. The fact that they have names is because they are all part of Tricia’s tree (so not ‘private’ to her) Mel is also flagged on Tricia’s tree as a DNA Match

Further notes:

With the exception of great grandfather Frank, all Mel’s direct ancestors, including parents, were born in Ceylon for several generations. Frank married three times, into families that arrived from Germany c 1730, Italy c1802, Holland, or were native to Ceylon/Southern India.

Mel’s ethnicity reflects her ancestors more than her fathers. She has 3% England and N W Europe and 3% Sweden, the rest being Asia and South India.

Her father is 4% English and NW Europe, 4% Scotland and 8% Germanic Europe, reflecting the heritage he inherited from the Dutch East India Company.

We have so far identified eight DNA cousins descended from Frank, and are finding that our shared matches, plus those distant cousins who share a fourth cousin with one of us or these cousins, are guiding us to breaking down the brick wall that is William Cattle (and his wife)