Adding 'Researched' Trees To Ancestry With 'Unknown' DNA Connections?

[Rosinish]

Hi Folks,

This may be a bit complicated but here goes...

I have many 'researched' trees on my laptop which I'd like to add to Ancestry eventually.

Many of those trees are 'hobby trees' connected to the area of my research which I've created when helping others over many years often using info. I've collated from my own research.

I've recently found a DNA match to a specific line which I've 'researched' although ongoing, i.e. a mountain of info. on my matches' family with no idea how we connect...

If I add the 'researched' tree to Ancestry, I won't be the 'main' person as I am not 'related' as such as I don't know the connection i.e. how do I add the tree without it throwing my match off or will it not really make a difference as it will be obvious who the gg/parents are & their lines further back?

I have read on RC about trees with the owner not being 'related' having an affect on working out connections.

Any advice is welcome as I don't want to be confusing people but just as important, I'd like to be able to use the tree to find my own connection with my match.

Annie

[Biggles50]

Within Ancestry a tree can have a totally unconnected branch in fact it can have quite a lot of these floating branches and it will not make any difference to matches as long as you retain your own DNA results link to yourself in the tree.

The main or home person can be whoever you want them to be just make the changes in the Create and Manage Trees option.

You can have multiple trees within an Ancestry account, ie Smith tree, Jones Tree, SmithJonesTree.

The DNA results can only be linked to one person in one tree but there can be multiple DNA results linked into the same tree to the appropriate persons.

From what you describe maybe using the WATO tool in DNA Painter can give some help in determining the likely branching of you to your matches.

Having floating branches may help and I had one of six hundred but if you want to delete it then it is cumbersome at one person only at a time even in software like Roots Magic it is cumbersome but at least it has good tools available which Ancestry does not.

Personally I would upload the tree but keep it separate and you will still get Ancestry’s Hint feature functioning, my 600 tree is now separate from my main tree so periodically I go into it and clear additional hints.

[Pheno]

Would there be any kind of privacy issues involved here.

If you are not in this research tree but presumably the person you were helping would be the home person, if they are still alive and kicking ethically would you not need their permission to upload details about them.

Pheno

[Rosinish]

Thanks Biggles...

I'll have a good read of what you've suggested & I'll go with the easier option of a separate tree although I have my DNA attached to my main tree which won't matter as it's names/dates/places we're looking at.

According to our 0.43% - 32cMs (23&me), we're likely 3rd cousins sharing gg g/parents.


Hi Pheno...

No privacy issues as I don't need to add my match or if I do, I can have no name attached i.e. unknown female/male?

The reason for uploading is to help my match (which my match knows about) with invited access, the tree will otherwise be private.

Annie

[Biggles50]

Privacy is not an issue, any person in a tree who is not shown as deceased will show up as Private when anyone else looks at the tree.

Alternatively in Create And Manage Trees there is a Privacy Tab, click on it and set the whole tree as Private.

[Albufera32]

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.

[Biggles50]

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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.
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The DNA results can only be linked to one person in one tree

[Albufera32]

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.
.
.
.
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.

[LizzieL]

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've seen a few odd things like that, then after a day or two things look more normal / feasible. I have thought it was because the tree owner is doing some changes to their tree and it takes Ancestry a day or two to fully update, so I'm seeing some of the original tree and some of the updated tree in the meantime.