DNA “Thrulines” and Confirmation

Question

I am new to all of this & am NOT a science-minded person!

My mother’s sister (aunt) and I both did our auto DNA through Ancestry. We are definitely Blankenships and no question on that line Ralph to Gideon to Elijah to Richard (R.S.). Everything we separately found led us to believing Sarah Nunnally was married to Gideon and our gr grandmother (her 4th, my 5th). When we got our DNA results, Sarah appears on both of our Thrulines. In my aunt’s results, she also got Elinor Branch and a bunch of DNA segments to various Nunnally descendants. Two of Sarah’s brothers and one sister.  About 5-6 cousins with confirmed DNA connections to my aunt. These people are not showing up on my DNA because (I assume) of the extra generation not being verified in my test.

My question - does this mean that I can “confirm” my DNA connection to Sarah? Her profile on here says “while the relationship between the Blankenship and Nunnally families is well documented, no proof exists of the marriage between Sarah and Gideon”

Also, do Thrulines where there are multiple other DNA “cousin carriers” count as “DNA Matches”? I know nothing can be “confirmed” on here if it is beyond 3rd generation but, in general would it be considered a “match”?

Comments

Thrulines are only as good as the information people have entered in their trees.  The people listed are connected to you by DNA but that doesn't mean that the relationships in their trees are correct unless they are documented.

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I just re-read your question and looked at your tree. If I understand what you are asking correctly, you are asking if you can confirm some relationships that go back several generations. This would take a series of triangulations and those are not easy in the best of circumstances. My suggestion is to begin at the start of your tree that leads up to those generations. Start confirming each generation one at a time. Any relationship up to and including 3rd cousin can be done without triangulating. Once you reach even a 3rd cousin once removed it takes triangulating. There are some very good blogs that explain all of this. One is Roberta Estes - google her and go to her blog and look at her listings to find confirming relationships and triangulating. Read and study and practice - that is the best way to starting to understanding DNA. Good luck and please come back here and ask when you need to.

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Thank you. I will look at triangulation. I am fortunate in that majority of my tree has been extensively documented and researched. Also, they all pretty much stayed in that Bedford VA region until my mom moved to MD. A good number of the cousins identified by DNA are people we already knew which I guess is part of my frustration.

Answer 1

Thrulines should only be used as clues. The people on Thrulines do match you but not necessarily to the ancestor they are connected to. Thrulines are based on trees. You have to take those "matches" back to your "Matches" page and check out how each person is actually related to you. Take each one and do shared matches and work out the relationships. My point is, don't take what you find on Thrulines as the end-all because it isn't. As an example, I had a Thruline that had some people who did match me but Thrulines had them attached to an "ancestor" who was not correct at all. That was because their trees were wrong. Most of those have now been corrected so that incorrect line no longer shows on my Thrulines. Just be careful!

Comments

Follow up because the whole DNA stuff confuses me!

If more than one of the matches checks out (in our case, one goes through the sister of my 3rd grandmother & I am not using that as proof) and then there are 3 other Nunnally identified children of Elinor with each having a different “tree”

Do I verify the accuracy of each of these 3 siblings and all of the descendants or if I can verify one Nunnally sibling with documents (I have no luck getting email responses) to just ONE of those having shared DNA with my aunt or me and can document their connection to the Nunnally sibling does THAT count as “proven”? I do not know how anyone knows who they are really descended from since there is no DNA samples for most people in already deceased family members & many of the records are “suspect” (i.e. -couple of other side family discovered that, despite all those marriage, birth and death certs saying they WERE family, turns out they weren’t plus there are often errors on the legal records to names and spelling)

Side note- Apparently our ancestors (general population not just mine)had lots of indiscriminate sex! I mean these people had other whole families, siblings who were not related, parents who weren’t theirs!

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Finding groups of people you can identify are cousins to each other and are DNA matches to each other is persuasive, but you still need researched and sourced trees.

 The problem with Ancestry is the lack of a Chromosome browser, identifying matches on the same place on the same chromosome provides more reliable evidence of shared DNA.

 I suggest loading your test to Gedmatch (free) and MyHeritage, the latter is free up to a 250 person tree, and provides the shared cM you and another match have in common with a shared match, and you can view where on a chromosome(s) you match.

 A well researched tree is still essential.