Author Topic: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry  (Read 3753 times)

Offline Benody1921

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Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« on: Sunday 25 June 17 14:44 BST (UK) »
I've been watching some videos on how to do Mirror Trees or how to get the most out of your DNA Test Results and a lot of these videos talk about taking advantage of the Shared Ancestor Hints and making a "mirror tree" from those Shared Ancestor Hints. I have 258 pages of "Matches" and only 1 Shared Ancestor Hint.....just 1. That person has their tree set to Private so I can't see the hint; I've been in contact with this person so that's one lucky thing.

Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone know if there's a trick to getting more Shared Ancestor Hints? I've seen in the videos the "vlogger" has said that if you aren't getting any Shared Ancestor Hints after 3 days then you need to switch the person the Tree is connected to. That made no sense to me since my DNA result is attached to the person who provided the sample.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Stuart (India, Antrim, Armagh)
Whiting (Bedfordshire)
Dunn/Taylor (Worcestershire)
Pearson (Worcestershire)
Hill/Rhodes (Worcestershire)
Gough (Warwickshire)
Perry (Devon, Worcestershire)
Maynard (Essex, Yorkshire)
Jennings (Devon)
Coldicott (Warwickshire, Gloucestershire)

Offline wotcha

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #1 on: Saturday 08 July 17 10:56 BST (UK) »
No tips but a shared experience - as the same thing has happened to me. For out of 191 pages of matches, I also had just 1 Shared Ancestor hint - she's a second cousin and already known to me.

Worse, when I checked my 52 4th cousins, most of whom do not have trees, I found two cousins with trees containing ancestors that exactly match to ancestors in my tree. So I have no idea why Ancestry did not identify these as Shared Ancestors.

All very disappointing and I also hope someone can suggest some tips.

Offline familydar

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #2 on: Saturday 08 July 17 11:21 BST (UK) »
I didn't test with Ancestry so can't comment on your experiences Benody1921 and wotcha, but I would suggest that if you've not already done so you upload your test results to both GEDMatch and FTDNA.  Please upload your ancestor trees also.  You won't get shared ancestor tips and DNA circles, or at least not by those names, but you might are highly likely to get matches with people who aren't on Ancestry.  Both websites offer different tools for results analysis and there's no charge for uploading your results, nor ongoing subscriptions.

Jane :-)
ALLEN
BARR, BARRATT, BERRY, BRADLEY,BRAMLEY,BRISTOW,BROWN,BUGBIRD,BUTLER
CAIN,CARR,CHAPMAN,CHARLES,CH*LTON,CHESTER,COCKETT
COLLASON,COLLYER,CORKERY
DARLING, DENYER,DICKERSON,DOLLING,DURBAN
FARMER,FURNELL
GIBSON,GILES,GROOMBRIDGE
HALL,HAMBIDGE,HARMES,HART,HICKS,HILL,HOLLOWAY
JACKSON
K*AT*S
LANCASTER,LINTON
MCDONALD,MCFADEN,MEARS,MILLARD
NICOLAS,NOAK,NORTH
PARFIT,PORTER
RIPPINGALE,ROBINS
SEARLE,SPENCER,STEDHAM
TYLER,TILLY,TUCKWELL
WADE,WAGER,WALKER,WATSON,WEBB,WITHRINGTON,WOOD

Offline Regorian

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #3 on: Saturday 08 July 17 11:33 BST (UK) »
Yes, Ancestry worries me. A (2nd) cousin, our grandfathers were brothers had his DNA done. There were matches on his mothers side but none on our male line. Then a lady on Ancestry writes to my cousin saying that her husband is 4th to 6th cousin to us. Didn't come up on my cousins results, ho hum.
Griffiths Llandogo, Mitcheltroy, Mon. and Whitchurch Here (Also Edwards),  18th C., Griffiths FoD 19th Century.


Offline wotcha

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #4 on: Saturday 08 July 17 11:55 BST (UK) »
Hi Jane

I uploaded my autosomal data from Ancestry to GEDmatch and FTDNA immediately - and exported my tree in to both via Gedcom.  Perhaps I'm just unlucky but even here I have very few matches to people of meaningful number of centrimorgans and who've also uploaded their trees :-(



Offline familydar

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #5 on: Saturday 08 July 17 12:12 BST (UK) »
As DNA testing for genealogical purposes becomes more popular the databases will grow, give it time.  In the meantime it may be worth contacting your higher matches, even if they're in the 4th and 5th cousin ranges.  Lots of people haven't managed to work their trees back that far but sometimes there's enough in 2 or 3 generations to give you a hint.

Jane :-)
ALLEN
BARR, BARRATT, BERRY, BRADLEY,BRAMLEY,BRISTOW,BROWN,BUGBIRD,BUTLER
CAIN,CARR,CHAPMAN,CHARLES,CH*LTON,CHESTER,COCKETT
COLLASON,COLLYER,CORKERY
DARLING, DENYER,DICKERSON,DOLLING,DURBAN
FARMER,FURNELL
GIBSON,GILES,GROOMBRIDGE
HALL,HAMBIDGE,HARMES,HART,HICKS,HILL,HOLLOWAY
JACKSON
K*AT*S
LANCASTER,LINTON
MCDONALD,MCFADEN,MEARS,MILLARD
NICOLAS,NOAK,NORTH
PARFIT,PORTER
RIPPINGALE,ROBINS
SEARLE,SPENCER,STEDHAM
TYLER,TILLY,TUCKWELL
WADE,WAGER,WALKER,WATSON,WEBB,WITHRINGTON,WOOD

Offline Regorian

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #6 on: Saturday 08 July 17 12:47 BST (UK) »
In our case, the living match would go back to a Michael born 1741, died 1800. As it happens, if so, the current head of family is on Rootschat. He wrote to me years ago. He has traced his family back to 1768 when Michael married at a Gloucester parish church. We can't prove it's the same Michael, but it's very likely to be the same.

Next was Thomas born 1743. My paternal family is descended from him. I have constructed the whole tree back to him.

There was then a daughter born 1747 died 1757.
Griffiths Llandogo, Mitcheltroy, Mon. and Whitchurch Here (Also Edwards),  18th C., Griffiths FoD 19th Century.

Offline Eric Hatfield

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #7 on: Friday 25 August 17 00:03 BST (UK) »
"I've seen in the videos the "vlogger" has said that if you aren't getting any Shared Ancestor Hints after 3 days then you need to switch the person the Tree is connected to. That made no sense to me since my DNA result is attached to the person who provided the sample."

The idea of a mirror tree (which I have just started experimenting with) is to link your DNA to different people who you are matched to you. This is just a technique to flush out possible useful matches, but is only possible on Ancestry.

So suppose you have a second cousin match, C, who has a public tree. Make a new tree on Ancestry that mirrors C's tree, keep it private to avoid confusing anyone, and temporarily link your DNA to C in that tree instead of you in your tree. Then wait to see if Ancestry's algorithms give you any "Shared Ancestor Hints" (these are where people you match with have someone in their public tree that you have in your public tree).

If you get a lot of these, and they all occur in one branch of that mirror tree, that indicates that your shared ancestor might be descended from that branch in the tree. This will give you a direction in which to work - i.e. filling out more of that mirror tree by research to see if you can find the connection.

I'm still not sure I understand fully why this technique works, and so far it hasn't worked for me - I tried with one 4th cousin and got 4 Shared Ancestor Hints that I already knew all about, and now I've tried with a second cousin and have got no Hints. But I'll keep trying because people who know more than I do say that it's worthwhile. The larger the mirror tree, the more chance of finding something.

Perhaps it will work for you.

Offline kinnigit

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Re: Shared Ancestor Hints on Ancestry
« Reply #8 on: Friday 25 August 17 07:20 BST (UK) »
I've found that the "shared Ancestor hints" usually appear some time after I've found the connection using the mirror tree method.
I find a match with a tree attached, then start a mirror tree (private  to avoid confusion as mentioned elsewhere) adding unrelated a person in the new tree and building out from there.  Based on common shared matches and locations that seem familiar I work the mirror tree back through the generations concentrating on likely names and places, until a shared ancestor appears.