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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: exeter dweller on Monday 28 June 21 09:48 BST (UK)
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Hi
I took an Ancestry DNA test back in March with the aim of breaking down some brick walls.
One of these brick walls is my 3x Gt Grandfather John Mills. I have the birth, marriage and death certificates.
Until recently I was the only match according to Thrulines. I now have one match at 14cM to a potential ancestor being my 5th Gt Grandfather. Their tree is private and they have not replied to my messages.
I have found several public member trees with this potential match and they do have John Mills's but none of the dates match my ancestor. I have built my own tree using the potential ancestor and cannot find a link to my ancestor.
So my question is if DNA proves I am a match to another person how can I prove that their or my tree is possibly wrong?
Gary
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I've been thinking about this - and I think it is a real flaw in how Thrulines works.
Example: there are a lot of trees on Ancestry leading to a marriage of Susan and Robert in the early years of the 19thC. Descendents of this couple are DNA matches with OH. However the trees all give Susan parents who are indeed common ancestors with OH, but they ignore the fact that the Susan they think she is, died as a child. My research tells me that she is actually a grandchild of the common ancestors.
Unfortunately, Thrulines 'saw' the other trees first. Unless I can get around 100 tree owners to do their research for themselves instead of copying each other, Thrulines is going to keep on going with the wrong person.
If you have done your research yourself, following the paper trail as carefully as you can, it is likely to be correct, no matter how many other trees say otherwise. Of course it is always worth following up an alternative that Thrulines offers, just in case, but if you are not persuaded, then trust your own research.
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If you have done your research yourself, following the paper trail as carefully as you can, it is likely to be correct, no matter how many other trees say otherwise. Of course it is always worth following up an alternative that Thrulines offers, just in case, but if you are not persuaded, then trust your own research.
I agree.
Also, it's worth constructing trees for your matches. I have come across quite a number of errors in a few of my matches's trees.
Gadget
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I've been thinking about this - and I think it is a real flaw in how Thrulines works.
Unfortunately, Thrulines 'saw' the other trees first. Unless I can get around 100 tree owners to do their research for themselves instead of copying each other, Thrulines is going to keep on going with the wrong person.
If you message those other people, with the source info showing the 'correct' info and explaining the problem then they might change their trees. Not all at once and it will take some time, but thrulines works on a 'majority' so if enough change then thrulines will go for your route rather than the current one.
I have done this by convincing others that the person they have as their ancestor (who matches me) was not in Australia with a family in 1841 but still living at home with parents in Kent - so she can't be 'theirs'.
Admittedly not 100 trees but possibly 50, and now thrulines shows the correct route.
Pheno
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I think that you may have more patience than I do, Pheno :) , and I admire your persistence.
A few years ago before I had any DNA tests on Ancestry, or even trees, when there were perhaps ten or fifteen trees showing this particular error, I contacted (I think) 3 owners that looked most likely to be interested. One of them thanked me, but no one was persuaded.
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Thank you for all of your replies.
I believe my tree is correct as my ancestors birth of 1817/1818 is consistent with his age on his burial and all of the censuses.
The public member trees that match the potential ancestor have another John Mills born 1800 who got married in 1823 and later had a son another John born in 1833. Therefore my John is nothing to do with this family. I do not believe that the three public member trees are incorrect just that my John Mills does not fit in with their trees.
Would it help if I asked one of my Aunts to take a test as her 6th cousin matches will be one generation earlier than mine?
Gary
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I've been thinking about this - and I think it is a real flaw in how Thrulines works.
Example: there are a lot of trees on Ancestry leading to a marriage of Susan and Robert in the early years of the 19thC. Descendents of this couple are DNA matches with OH. However the trees all give Susan parents who are indeed common ancestors with OH, but they ignore the fact that the Susan they think she is, died as a child. My research tells me that she is actually a grandchild of the common ancestors.
Unfortunately, Thrulines 'saw' the other trees first. Unless I can get around 100 tree owners to do their research for themselves instead of copying each other, Thrulines is going to keep on going with the wrong person.
If you have done your research yourself, following the paper trail as carefully as you can, it is likely to be correct, no matter how many other trees say otherwise. Of course it is always worth following up an alternative that Thrulines offers, just in case, but if you are not persuaded, then trust your own research.
I had a very similar situation with thrulines. It calculated my relationship with one of my DNA matches to a "potential common ancestor" - supposed father of my 3 x great grandmother. The DNA match was descended from a son of this potential ancestor. I lost count at 20 trees with the same error. The PCA did have a daughter with the same name, born in the same county, but much younger than my 3 x g-gmother, so would have been unlikely to have given birth to my 2 x g-gfather and impossible to have given birth to his older siblings. Also this girl died young and unmarried, whereas my 3 x g-gmother lived long enough to appear on 1851 censuses with some of her adult children and place of birth.
After much research I found that the PCA was actually my 3 x g-gmother's older brother. Now instead of my Ancestry tree having a blank for her father - which was kindly filled by Ancestry with the erroneus PCA in green, I added the correct person. After a couple of days the Thrulines link disappeared - not that the DNA match is no longer my distant cousin several times removed, but that the shared real ancestor is one more generation back and just beyond Ancestry's generation threshold for thrulines.
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I think that Thrulines is intended by Ancestry to be similar to Tips. Ancestry is in effect making suggestions as to possible ancestors but it is your responsibility to verify their suggestion. Thrulines only looks at trees linked with your matches and not at the many other trees on its database. Where there is a conflict it is up to you to decide whether it is your tree that is wrong or the match trees that Thrulines points you to.
Of course, the match trees may have been copied from inaccurate trees elsewhere on Ancestry, or on other sites, but any serious family historian knows that so many of them contain mistakes, and therefore the onus is on you to check using the usual sources before harvesting or using stuff that could be completely wrong.
Even today I looked at a tree for one of my matches and found that one couple got married and had children when they were 5 & 6 years old - the couple that is, not the children. Interestingly the couple may be the correct ancestors and it is only their dates that are incorrect, but it is a very strong indication of carelessness on the part of the match tree user.
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I'm maybe not understanding how The Thrulines works but l only have ever been given names & details of people from my own tree !!!!!!!
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In my post above I relied on my understanding of the following explanation given by Ancestry its Support section under Help.
"We use the family tree linked to your test to find people who are in your tree and are also in your matches's linked trees. If your tree is private and not searchable, you won't be able to see ThruLines™, and information from your matches' trees that are private and not searchable won't be available to you. DNA matches may appear in more than one of your ThruLines™. "
However, I then scrolled down my own Thrulines and the first one in green states "You are the only DNA tested descendant connected to this Thruline". It then invites you to evaluate the suggestion and after pressing the Evaluate button it shows a few trees from which the suggestion is culled. So it seems that Ancestry does indeed cull the Thruline suggestions from trees on its database other than those provided by DNA testers and its own explanation is at best misleading and at worst completely wrong.
As it happens the Thruline suggestion may be a good one but it is nothing to do with my DNA test.
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They really can be silly.
I've just looked in and am informed by Ancestry that I have a new match through Thrulines. We are related through my 3x great grandmother. Only in this case she is down as my 3 x great aunt!!
She married twice. I am descended from her 1st marriage. The link is descended thru her second marriage.
Most of my cousins and half cousins investigated this many years ago. We have masses of proof but along comes a new person who doesn't investigate all of the evidence - e.g. the birth certificates from the children of her second marriage.
Add - just seen that Tony mentions the same problem - Evaluate - there I find various trees that are unsourced and not DNA matches.
Add2- I've jut looked at the new Thrulines connection in Common Ancestors. She is shown there linked by another line ::)
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My one complaint with Thrulines is that Ancestry does not give you the option to reject any proposed matches. I have seen a number of matches for alleged half- brothers, where no proof of these additional lines/relationships exist.
Al &Al
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Ancestry also uses trees from people who are not matches / not tested to fill in the gaps. I have thrulines linking me (correctly as it turns out ) to several DNA matches who only have a handful of people on their trees, none of whom I have on my tree because I hadn't researched the relevant lines that far.
However I don't show a Thrulines link to a match who has got the wrong Sarah for my great-grandmother (second wife of her 2 x great grandfather). This is probably because there are far more trees on Ancestry with the incorrect Sarah and very few with the correct one.
Thrulines also threw up two links to one match, one I already had, but hadn't researched his line enough to find the more distant relationship - half 6th cousin
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My one complaint with Thrulines is that Ancestry does not give you the option to reject any proposed matches.
Al &Al
A reject option would be a real improvement. I wonder if it's worth suggesting it to them.
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'Would it help if I asked one of my Aunts to take a test as her 6th cousin matches will be one generation earlier than mine?'
It is always helpful to have older generations tested. May or may not help with this particular query, but she will have many different matches to you.
Your 6 cMs matches, which Ancestry have wiped out, may be her 20 cMs+ matches, with shared matches and clues much further back than with yours alone.
Margaret