DNA hits through Thrulines vs paper trail

[TonyV]

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.

[Gadget]

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

[Alandal]

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

[LizzieL]

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

[Gadget]

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.

[sugarfizzle]

'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