new beta on ancestry dna results

[Finley 1]

I havent looked at Thru lines YET am tempted until I read this...

it seems it is like looking at something similar to hints from other trees... that take you nowhere.

If that is the case Ancestry really need to get their act together and take it off again..

Its enough of a mess out there  as per my 'beyond a joke' post.

I as of today REFUSE to read another tree just in case...again. 

I have turned off alll llll kind of hints but they still try.

WHAT is the REASON why are they allowing such errors to go through..

They will end up with a very bad name when someone actually manages to get it into their head what is happening.. (I mean the Ancestry people... that is if there are any!?  or is it all done by some remote little machine on the moon and we are all being laughed at... !!!!! )

xin

[melba_schmelba]

I havent looked at Thru lines YET am tempted until I read this...

it seems it is like looking at something similar to hints from other trees... that take you nowhere.

If that is the case Ancestry really need to get their act together and take it off again..

Its enough of a mess out there  as per my 'beyond a joke' post.

I as of today REFUSE to read another tree just in case...again. 

I have turned off alll llll kind of hints but they still try.

WHAT is the REASON why are they allowing such errors to go through..

They will end up with a very bad name when someone actually manages to get it into their head what is happening.. (I mean the Ancestry people... that is if there are any!?  or is it all done by some remote little machine on the moon and we are all being laughed at... !!!!! )

xin

You are right Xin, as per my previous post some of what I am finding in other's trees via Thrulines is so unbelievably jaw droppingly useless, it beggars belief! But I also now believe these ridiculous errors are caused BY ANCESTRY because their algorithms are making ridiculous suggestions, based on simply similar names and proximity - but as I just posted yesterday having one sibling in Hertfordshire and one in Mannheim seems to be pushing the limits of 'proximity' !!
  But I also discovered yesterday that a stupid error that resulted in Ancestry making suggestions of 10s of new ancestors in Thrulines back to the 1600s came NOT from another user's error, as I had assumed - their tree was perfectly correct. She had this lady's marriage and death, census entries all recorded in Kent. But Ancestry had decided that a similarly named person, born at a similar time in Essex who was my ancestor, for whom I have fully documented her baptism, parentage, marriage, census, and death, must in fact be this other person in another county with completely different parents and husband  !!!! The only logical reason I can see for the algorithm making this decision is that the baptism of my ancestor was in Essex and not in any of Ancestry's databases (as most of Essex is not), therefore because Ancestry doesn't have the record it decides my entire line must be wrong, even though the husband, death and census info are all completely different!! This is clearly terrible coding on Ancestry's part and they are going to have to do better before anyone should even begin to take the Thruline's suggestions seriously .

[Pheno]

And give us the opportunity to ignore their suggestion.

Make sure you include this in any feedback.

Pheno

[Finley 1]

over enthused maybe yet again

xin 

[jillruss]

Oh, for goodness sake! ThruLines are just another form of those annoying hints. You can - if you wish - go through them but, if you are a serious researcher (as I think most Rootschatters are) you will quickly abandon the exercise and return to your tried and tested methods.

I can't think that these ThruLines are put together by human beings - there will be some kind of algorithm that Ancestry are using (and presumably paying for) - and, perhaps if they stop trying so hard and stopped trying to entice idiots by making it seemingly easy to find their ancestors, they'd save money that they could invest into giving us some much needed additional databases of parish registers etc.

I looked at mine fleetingly - most tell me I'm related to 'Private' which is laughable. The rest are either self evident from my tree or blatantly ridiculous. Why do they suggest someone named Barrett is linked to my Barrons? I'm expecting any day now to be told I'm related to myself!

Unfortunately, I think Ancestry might stick with them: I did my DNA test just over a year ago and had exactly NO unsolicited messages from putative relations for the whole of that year. Every single match that I exchanged messages with was after I had contacted them (of course, as we know, most don't even bother to reply). In the past couple of weeks I have had 4 messages out of the blue from different people most of who had little to offer but required a lot from me! I got bogged down and finally decided I was being taken for a fool! If these are the calibre of people Ancestry's tricks are enticing in, god help us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very, very pleased with the insights my DNA test matches have provided, and am also pleased to help any genuine fellow researcher genealogist (why do I always shy away from using that term?) but Ancestry are in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Stop trying too hard and give us more old fashioned databases with which to find our own ancestors.

[stonechat]

Well Ancestry Thrulines, by connecting to people with an ancestor already in my tree and backed up with a dna connection, have verified that research, and seems to prove no unexpected parentage. I am wrestling with on suggested ancestor. He does show up with low cM score ( the link not the ancestor) and I am questioning whether I have the correct birth. I remember there were two non-conformist births only 2 years and also about a mile apart, quite near to where my ancestor gave as his birthplace in censuses. The trouble is the potential contact’s tree is suspect, and has the putative father as from Yorkshire and having children born in Cheshire and Yorkshire in the same timespan, and then dying in Yorkshire. I am not much further forward, but it is right for me to question this parentage

[melba_schmelba]

Another problem with Thrulines is it seems to be missing a generation and thus reports all connections as one less than they should be i.e. reports great great grandmother as a great grandmother, who knows whether the same error is being repeated on other's trees.

[Sinann]

My 'gone missing' ThruLines matches reappeared yesterday.

[Penholder]

I think I would give Ancestry 5 out of 10 for the new Beta system - marks for trying but could do better.

I like that I can see the start of my notes and also the new colour coding but I could do with a lot more colours.

The scrolling is a pain.   I've no idea how I'll ever get even a quarter way through my thousands of matches.   It definitely needs rethinking.   One small idea to save time and frustration would be that once people are assigned to a group they needn't show up in the long list any more.   They can easily be found again if their group needs rethinking.   I'm also binning people with no match and no tree or who haven't signed in for ages.   You can get them back but they're no longer in the long list.

Some of my ThruLines are laughable and it isn't as if the true information isn't out there for people to find.   A few ThruLines have given me good hints to follow up.   I need to do my own research before putting anyone in my tree but they'll go in my notes along with a health warning.

Diana