RootsChat.Com

The problem is one of the triggers for a hint to appear in your tree is if another user adds the same document that you have in your tree to theirs - which is also why you often get links to things that seem ridiculous for your tree.

Ancestry have actually tried to address this issue - and it's one reason why hints now sometimes disappear when you reject something - because you rejected the wrong document that another user has accepted, it removes all the documents that person has from your hints.

It's actually quite a clever and sophisticated system - there's just one catch. To work well, it relies on everyone carefully assessing hints before accepting them, and as we all know, not everyone does.

I think perhaps we are all going a little more deeply into the OP's question than is really necessary.

If I understand correctly, OP has a paper trail to a person called Philip Small who would be their 2X great grandfather. OP also has a possible candidate, and has made contact with a person directly descended from this possible candidate.

Assuming both of them are correct, that would, I think make them 3rd half cousins (if the person contacted is of the same generation as OP - a remove or two if they are not).

I may be mistaken, but I think the chances of that close a match not registering as a DNA match are very slim.

So assuming all the above to be correct, I think the simple answer to the OP's original question is YES, if you are correct, a DNA test taken by you both should produce a match.

According to a friend of mine, on another forum, hospital admissions, of those with a positive covid diagnosis, were up 16% in a week!

Mentioned by 2 NHS senior staff on the same forum.

Indeed. Covid is not "over".

When I first took the DNA test a couple of years ago, whilst waiting for the results to return I watched a several online videos about the use of DNA in genealogical research, including a number from Christa Cowan at Ancestry. I found them very useful, not least because they highlighted a number of things I was not aware of, nor would have ever suspected.

One of the ones that I found most surprising is that by default Ancestry uses the genealogical standard format for dates, (ie dates in the form 22 Sep 2022). Not that it is surprising that a genealogical programme using the standard genealogical format (though ironically the "British" Find my Past does not). What was surprising to me at least, was that most importantly she stressed that any other format can, as she put it, "confuse" the algorithm they use, not just in cases like 5/12/22 (is it 12th May or 5th Dec) but even for example 22 SEPTEMBER 2022 or even 22nd Sep 2022.

Another thing that she stresses is that Thrulines are essentially HINTS. The way the thrulines are formed is VERY similar to the way your hints are gathered - Ancestry compares trees looking for people with the same names, dates, locations etc as in your tree in other people's trees. The consequence of this can indeed be that because the other tree may well have a different person listed as your direct Ancestor's spouse, it may consider that person as a "half cousin" when they should in fact be a full cousin. I have one instance for example where EVERYTHING in my tree and another matches tree is the same, right up to the two common Ancestors, but a third tree has the wife born 50 miles away based on finding a "Sarah" on the 1841 census. Based on that, thrulines insists that my Grandfather William Howie, the minister of Dunoon Parish who died in 1929 has a half something cousin called William Howie who was the minister of Dunoon Parish and died in 1929.

Going by the right hand column, it lokks to me as though he enlisted (probably as airman 3rd class) on 3 Aug 1917 and was appointed airman second class on 2 Jan 1918. Both of these would have been RFC or RNAS. On 1st April 1918 he was transferred to the RAF on it's formation.

Going by the left hand column it looks as though he attended Flight School (I assume that is what Fg Ssh means). BEF would normally refer to British Expeditionary Force (ie the forces in France). H EST is I think "Home Establishment"

You probably worked all that out already. Others probably have more expert knowledge than I though. What is certain is that he is transferred onto the rolls of the RAF on the day the RAF was officially formed from the RFC and RNAS.