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Ancestry is only an autosomal test, so if you want the mtDNA it will have to be with another company.

That said, Ancestry has by far the largest DNA database in the world, so whilst it won't definitively identify a specific line, you are fairly likely to get matches for beyond your maternal great grandmother. Of course it does depend on other descendants having been tested.

The problem with Ancestry is generally not a lack of matches - the problem is how you sort them all out. I for example have over 30 000 matches 700 of which Ancestry considers "close." So far I have only been able to place about 120 of them.

Quote from: Albufera32 on Sunday 02 October 22 10:56 BST (UK)

I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever who owns a tree, and whether they are related or not.

What matters is how reliable the data in the tree is (i.e. whether it is actually "right").

What matters is whether a DNA test is linked incorrectly or not at all.

The most obvious problem where a person has two trees and links their test result to the wrong one, perhaps their own tree and their spouse's tree, and accidentally link their own test to their spouse's tree.

There are a number of other issues though. I have one instance for example where I have three DNA matches, all managed by the same person, all linked to the same tree, though none of them is the owner of the tree, yet all three matches are exactly the same - same cms, same number of segments, same longest segment, same other shared matches. All I can assume is that the owner/manager has linked the same test to three different people.

Another issue is when the home person of a linked tree is not the person who took the test. My own most frustrating example is a match who might be a link to my closest and most impenetrable brick wall, my great great grandfather George Shannon. Currently, about all we know about him is his name and that presumably he was in Ireland in the mid 1830s since his daughter Esther Shannon was born there about 1837. I HAD a possible match that might link to him - and then I didn't. To cut a long story short, this match keeps changing - I have since figured out that the owner keeps swapping their DNA test between two trees, which I assume are a maternal and paternal pair. The problem being both have long since dead relations as the home person, so whoever else DID take the test, it wasn't them.

Short version - as long as the DNA test is linked correctly to the right person in the right tree, there is no issue. The problems arise when it isn't.

You must have missed reading the prior posts.
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The DNA results can only be linked to one person in one tree

I was indeed forgetting about that, since at the time it seemed the only possibility to explain how three different people across two generations could possibly have the same information.

Apparently there must have been a glitch in the system. I have just gone back and checked the three matches in question. When I looked at them before, all three showed as 27 cM shared DNA across 2 segments, with 30 cM unweighted shared DNA and the longest segment being 19 cM, and they were all linked to the same tree. Today one is still that same value, but the second one is now listed as 19 cM and the third as 9 cM. The lowest one is also now shown with two unlinked trees whereas the other two are linked to the same tree.

The numbers as shown now make sense, when I looked at the trees before, it appeared two were siblings and the third the child of one of them. The two linked matches now show as brothers but the now unlinked match appears to have disappeared entirely since neither brother is shown with any children. The two smaller matches now also show the largest match as a shared match, whereas before all three did not show either of the other two. The largest match of course does not show the other two since they are both below 20cM.

So it appears I was seeing the data for the 27 cM match for all three before, but am now correctly seeing the data for the three different matches. How that happened I have no idea.

Of course, I still have no idea how any of them link to my tree, but at least they are now showing as different matches and not all the same.

I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever who owns a tree, and whether they are related or not.

What matters is how reliable the data in the tree is (i.e. whether it is actually "right").

What matters is whether a DNA test is linked incorrectly or not at all.

The most obvious problem where a person has two trees and links their test result to the wrong one, perhaps their own tree and their spouse's tree, and accidentally link their own test to their spouse's tree.

There are a number of other issues though. I have one instance for example where I have three DNA matches, all managed by the same person, all linked to the same tree, though none of them is the owner of the tree, yet all three matches are exactly the same - same cms, same number of segments, same longest segment, same other shared matches. All I can assume is that the owner/manager has linked the same test to three different people.

Another issue is when the home person of a linked tree is not the person who took the test. My own most frustrating example is a match who might be a link to my closest and most impenetrable brick wall, my great great grandfather George Shannon. Currently, about all we know about him is his name and that presumably he was in Ireland in the mid 1830s since his daughter Esther Shannon was born there about 1837. I HAD a possible match that might link to him - and then I didn't. To cut a long story short, this match keeps changing - I have since figured out that the owner keeps swapping their DNA test between two trees, which I assume are a maternal and paternal pair. The problem being both have long since dead relations as the home person, so whoever else DID take the test, it wasn't them.

Short version - as long as the DNA test is linked correctly to the right person in the right tree, there is no issue. The problems arise when it isn't.

The most unusual name I have in my tree is "Jeanornella" Ure.

She was at least the sixth daughter in the family. There is definitely a Jean already born and living (my 3xG Grandmother) and although I have not found the birth record for a Helen (ie Nellie) her mother's name was Helen so it seems likely there was a Helen already as well, possibly one who died in infancy. I have a mental image of the parents trying to think of a name and mother Helen saying something like "We can't call her Jean or Nellie"

The name is NOT a transcription error - she has a daughter with the same name born in 1863, and the birth register distinctly has both mother and daughter as "Jeanornella". I suspect the daughter disliked the name however, since on her marriage she gives her own name as simply Jean, whilst her mother is listed as Nellie. Her first daughter is named as "Jane Ure" Bennie.

Quote from: AMBLY on Sunday 25 September 22 06:47 BST (UK)

No wonder there are so many trees on Ancestry with rubbish on them! Like, for example someone born and bred and died and lived whole life in England,  has a record attached and death listed as died in "Indiana, USA" etc   

 
Cheers
AMBLY

I don't think they even check the certificate properly to see if it is the right person.  Many trees with my family are like this, and they have added half siblings/steps etc.  I know at the end of the day, my trees are right, and theirs looks like a maze with many twists and turns.


Cheers
KHP


EDITED:  I got a hint the other day, that they had found someones parents!!  Guess what, I already knew who they were!

My emphasis.

Ancestry do not check hints - they can't possibly. I just checked and my main tree currently has 64 959 active hints. Ancestry has somewhere over 100 million trees. Granted my tree is very substantial, nevertheless at a conservative estimate, I would suggest the comparison checking generates at least a million hints a day (I think it's probably actually several million, but let's go with just one million.) Even if they were simply to perform a 1 minute check on each hint, and assuming a working day of 7 hours, that's 40 people.

What the hint system does is it constantly checks and updates all the documents soucres, names, dates etc on those 100 million plus trees and when it finds what looks like the same information on two different trees it sends a "hint" of a possible connection. It is up to the USER to check if the hint makes sense. Sadly as we all know, not everyone does, and even careful researchers still make mistakes.

Edited to Add: I realise I may have misunderstood the post to which I replied. I thought at the time it meant they thought Ancestry didn't even check, and were criticising that, whereas reading it again I suspect they meant the person adding a birth death marriage etc based upon a hint.

I think the problem there is that many people THINK that Ancestry does check everything for them, and therefore that the "hint" is established fact, not a possible avenue for research.