AncestryDNA ThruLines - The Good, The Bad and The Warning!

The new ThruLines on AncestryDNA is all the talk around the genealogy water coolers.

I like the Thrulines because it visually gives me my suggested DNA matches to my Ancestors. Okay, reread that sentence.... Suggested.... Even if the Ancestor is in my tree, Ancestry is going out into their databases of User Submitted Trees and trying to tie your DNA Matches back to your Common Ancestors or to Potential Ancestors.

WARNING - Very important to wrap your head around this. Potential Ancestors are Suggestions too!

For Example, ThruLines suggested Ellen O'Brien for my 3rd great-grandmother. She was born abt 1870 and died 1953.

When I click on the ThruLine suggested, I am brought up to the next screen where it shows the lineage from Ellen O'Brien down to me and my matches along with listing whose tree the information came from.

I am glad that Ancestry is giving me the tree name here, so I can clearly see that it is not my tree, but someone else's tree. However, why did Ancestry selected this tree out of the hundreds of thousands of other trees I have no idea why. DianaL60 is not even a DNA match to me. Scary, Right!

Here I notice a problem, my 2nd great-grandfather is born abt 1836, 34 years before his suggested mother. Ancestry's On-line support suggest that if a ThruLine is inaccurate, that we should contact the owner of the tree it is using and ask them to make a correct. Well, I hate to inform Ancestry, the tree is not the problem, you are. 

Looking at the Profile Page of Ellen O'Brien from the tree that Ancestry is using to create this ThruLine, I see no Father, no Mother, no Spouse and no Children. What is this person suppose to correct? I am sure there is an Ellen O'Brien born about 1870 and who died June 1953 in Mallow, Ireland. The problem is not their Tree, but in the logic that Ancestry is using to create ThruLines. I had similar problems with the "WeRelate" phone app that shows famous people you are related to. They managed to fix problems there with parents being younger than children in their suggested lines, you would hope they would use the same logic as that phone app to make suggested trees.

While I am in exploring ThruLines, I get a popup asking if I will take a survey. Of course I will take a survey, how else will Ancestry know they have a logic flaw. We need to give feedback at every possible opportunity. They can not fix what they don't know is broken!

However, when I read this question, it almost floored me. I hope everyone realizes that flaw in this logic.

If you don't see the flaw, keep this in mind, Ancestry is building out either or both your lineage back to a Potential Ancestor and your DNA matches to the same Potential Ancestor or perhaps an Ancestor you already have in your tree. Look at the suggested lineage, how many trees is it bouncing through to come up with that suggested lineage. Even if they used the DNA match's tree all the way back to your tree, you need to verify these branches. What if your DNA matches have been creating their tree off of your tree. I could put a bogus direct ancestor line into my tree that matches my DNA matches' tree, using a line that I know I am not part of. Ancestry won't know, and they will see we have the same line in each of our trees and poof - I am part of that ThruLine back to those Bogus Common Ancestors. Especially if I remove the correct line that we are related through. 

Plus, on more common surnames, like O'Brien, my match may have O'Brien's in their tree, and we still might be related through a completely different branch. Secondly, we have been warn to use other people's trees as clues not gospel. Each person's tree, mine included are only as accurate as the researcher doing it. Sure I am more accurate today, however, how about 20 or 30 years ago or when I started. I might have flaws in my tree. Please don't take my word for everything and add it into your tree. You may be greatly disappointed. 

Finally, seeing DNA Matches as good evidence that we descend from a common ancestor is quite the leap.As in my example, there are 6 DNA matches. Unfortunately, in my sister's ThruLines example they all come from my Mother and the six matches are my half-sister, my two half-brothers, my two half-nephews, and myself. The only one they are missing from my immediate family is my half-niece who recently tested and who hasn't built a tree yet. 

There is your Warning, ThruLines can be a wonderful Tool if used properly. However, Verify, Verify and Verify all lineages. I have found more correct than incorrect, however the incorrect is still out there. Also, as more people test, create trees, correct trees, etc... ThruLines will adjust accordingly. Therefore, they are very fluid, constantly changing with the tides. What you see today, might not be there tomorrow. Or as in my genealogy friends case, she took a break from the genealogy library to buy herself a coffee and when she got back, it all changed. Her half-brother's ThruLines was using his mother's adopted family and not the tree he had attached to his DNA results. However, when she came back, ThruLines was using his DNA tree with only his biological family in it.