Things that annoy you in family history & dna research

[Janethepain]

Apropos of nothing very much, these just sprung into my head!

1 Why is it that all your good old working class ancestors born just plain John Smith, or Peter Wilson or Joseph Allison, when the emigrate to the US sprout spurious middle initials/names??  Makes it very difficult to do traditional tree matches, as well as work out if you have got the 'right' person from someone else's tree using thru-lines and other matching info. from Ancestry!

2 The one basic rule you see in ancestry research is that when logging women in 'trees' you always use their born surname (unless you don't know it, or adopted or something similar). I have a DNA match (I think now deceased), who has set herself up using (I think) her married name and has other women without surnames in  her tree. This makes it impossible to use the tree matching tools, to ascertain how DNA matches relate to you!  This leads to brothers and sisters with different surnames , born of the same parents, etc.

Anybody else got other issues like this that really annoy them??

[Milliepede]

When ages on the 1911 census are wildly incorrect but you can't get the record corrected for the benefit of others searching the same family because "it's what they put down" 

[Gadget]

1.  When they tell me they have found a record match that I've already got.

2. The matches with  unlinked trees that have 3 or even more that are just labelled 'Private'. A simple program addition could sort this out.

I could list lots more but forget until they crop up again!  I'm not at all impressed with the big A but they have the largest DNA database so I go along with it.

Gadget

PS - I've had a sub since March 2003 

[Flemming]

The 20cM cut-off. If the reason for this is lack of confidence in the match, then how come two thirds of my ThruLines matches are for <20cM, with many <10cM? If they dropped it to just 15cM, it would be a big help.

Then there's the map showing locations of a match's ancestors. Big dot on London with the number 24 on it. You click on that thinking you'll get a list of 24 names, but, instead, you get two dots with the number seven on written on one, number five on the other. Click on one, get two dots with more numbers written on them. Keep on clicking until you get one single dot with one single person at 1 Acacia Grove. Then you have to start all over again to get through all 24 names in London. Ten minutes of life gone by.

[Seaton Smithy]

My biggest annoyance at the moment is a known relative "R" (half 2nd cousin once removed) who shows as a significant match at MyHeritage with me (74 cM with largest segment 34 cM) and my uncle  (117 cM with largest segment 37 cM) as well as matching my sister and a number of other known relatives from the same family line who does not show as a match at all to me at Ancestry (uncle and sister not tested there).

I know the different providers assess the shared DNA differently and it is normal to get different total amounts from them, and I have had cases where small matches at other sites do not show at Ancestry, but the MH matches are significant.

I've asked him to transfer his Ancestry data to FTDNA and/or GEDMatch to see if we get a match there.