You mentioned trouble with the Surname search feature. I have noticed that the search features do not work on unlinked trees. If they do not link which person they are to a specific tree, no searching will work. As far as the filter by relationship or date, It is a welcome improvement. If you go to groups and click New Matches, they might filter it by date and it is hard to find close cousins. If you can filter by relationship it groups all the close matches on top. No searching! I manage 15 DNA tests and it is a real time saver to check for new matches.
wish i could give this two thumbs up! thats probably the issue is unlinked tree. Since their tree shows in the DNA match list as unlinked, i click on it, then search and cannot find it, i will test but i am pretty sure your spot on! That is a GREAT catch! Now if ancestry reads this, why? lol come on it was in the DNA match list, so if i am searching "trees" of matches and its a tree linked or unlinked, still a tree of a match :) But i bet your 100% spot on, i bet they only search trees that are linked to DNA and not trees of DNA matches as is inferred
Sorting by date might help to see who your newest matches are. If you're specifically looking for your newest matches, that can be helpful, especially when you're trying to find more distant cousins (3rd, 4th, 5th cousins, etc) who might not show up on your first page of matches. I use the "newest matches" sort on 23andMe for that very reason.
ive always used the "those i havent viewed" but june made a good point, if i view them they dissapear, so this way i cansee them again quicker. ty all for that usage information!
Sort by date works in conjunction with groups and filters. Once you select sort by date, it stays in effect when you choose Group -> Close matches. Both of them stay in effect when you choose Filter -> Common Ancestors
Sort by date with the filter "Public Trees" is a great way to see all of the new results with Trees. I usually take a spin through these & look to see if I can find common surnames / locations to follow-up on.
Sort by date was a feature we had before that I used frequently. It went away with all the new changes but has been added back in. I like looking at the newest matches.
What I’d like to see if a sort that allows you to NOT INCLUDE a mother or father, since I can’t get a DNA test any longer for my mother since she died 18 years ago. I had my dad do this but would like to see a way to EXCLUDE him, in my match search to help me with her side.
I like sort by date for the following reasons: It can be used with the other filters. I use the filters Close Matches - 4th cousins or closer and sometimes common ancestors. Sometimes the result will show no new matches but when it does, that a great find. The blue dots go away when you open a DNA match. Sort by dates will always show the matches. When I want to go back and find a particular DNA match, sort by date is the way to go.
Wish you had demonstrated how to use the location feature. Is this a Country only? Is it a State and Country search? Could you say put in all the various Irish town, community, county, country, and all that hoopla? What are the acceptable variants here?
Hello, I like to see which branches people belong to and with the color coding I can get a light (lol) grasp on which lines people match me on. This feature can offer more new matches to view than what are already on the home page and my profile pages, thus just gives me an easy way to view new matches.
The ability to see maternal/paternal in ThruLines has been there for a long time Larry, maybe you never noticed it! I first noticed it when they did an update to ThruLines, probably 3 months ago or so, but it was definitely before they got rid of DNA Circles. Or maybe my Canadian Ancestry version has different options, I doubt that's the case though, because the U.S. Ancestry has options that Canada can't access and seems we're always behind in seeing new options which is sort of unfair considering we're on the same frikken continent! The ability to sort by "match name" is fantastic! Before if I typed in my surname, it would bring up anyone who has my surname in their tree which is sort of 'needle in the haystack-ish!", but now I can sort out those 65 thousand or so matches and pull up anyone that has my surname. This may prove handy in breaking down a couple of brick walls I have. Great grandma may have a completely different surname that I'm chasing down at the moment. That feature could prove useful!
The only way I use the “sort by date“ filter is if I’m looking for matches with a confirmed shared ancestor “green leaf” that I might not have seen yet because they are a more distant match. I have hundreds of those green leaf 🍃 shared ancestors so it would be difficult to sift through them looking for blue dots. Sorting by date puts all the new ones right up at the top! 👍
I believe that many people wanted the sort by date feature back because they want to look at their recent ones more quickly. Maybe they are expecting a particular match. I also think a reason could be is if they just tested they may have a trial membership so they may be more likely to respond. Also for me I loose those blue dots very quickly, even if I haven't really worked with the matches. I would open them so I could but my color code dots in, and right now I have about four tabs open with different matches because I am going through and seeing if they are already in my tree. Being able, later, to just check the newer matches would be nice. Though, I typically do not deal with my 5-8th cousin range very often.
ty stacey, yeah comments have helped me! i use the "i havent seen yet" but once i see them they go away and hard to find. This sort will allow me to find them again quickly as you mention after they ahve been seen once. Thank you all for these, that make sense!
I spent a little time off my tree and evidently missed the update. Somehow it seems that my father's side of the tree has been wiped out on Thru-lines. As he is still living (he is 84) I can't connect to anyone else on that side--they all need to be evaluated. Really disappointed. I have called and I have emailed--nobody has the answer. Now I wish I had Family Circles back. I am not even getting the same great-grandfather's on Thru-lines. It's a big mess and I just paid for 6 months. Won't do that again.
Sometimes they update as we make an change and it glitches thrulines Copy the tree in entirety and delink from current tree and connect to the new one I did this to make mine work when similar happened to me It took longer to update that time 4 days not two but it did begin working again for me like that Basically it thinks it is working when it actually isn’t You have to make it think a change has been made Let us know how it works out for you Ps I wish we had circles and thrulines So many miss it’s value
I agree with you. Death location search would be useful. Even better would be burial location search & cemetery name search. One more: Full Name Search. Right now search is first name or last name or username
I do that with the cms sort view If close they show up, otherwise they don’t I simply scroll the cms view to see anything new to 4th cousin quickly which by default means they must be 4th or farther do me to notice them in date view rather than by cms However people did show me that filter unseen once click are no longer unseen so going by date can get u back to them fast especially if profile forgotten or wrong 🤓
I have just used the sort by date feature. I have 20 plus groups but I have a very big group of miscellaneous people who have all ancestors in the USA and all my Ancestors are in the UK so sorting the new ones hoping to link some of these together.allat the 4th-onward level
I'm using the date feature to find if I can break through a couple of brick walls. I've already gone through all the matches and grouped into branches but with over 55000 matches I don't want to go through the whole list again.
Yeah, sort by date is not useful for me. I use the "new matches" category in the groups' filter list if I want to view them. I have grouped hundreds of my DNA matches by each of my grandparents for research purposes. I discovered that I can use the search by "birth location" in the assigned groups. The only issue I have is that it's still hard to tell who it is when they have larger trees.
Question: How do you get info at your DNA listings to show “mother’s & father’s sides? Help please! Keep up the great job! Thank you for any help you might give! 🌹🍃💐
By having filter by date it gives you an added column to go against the other three choices so you could do filter by date and common ancestors to process the newest choices without having to run through the entire list. I just noticed these new items yesterday myself so I haven't had time to explore., but I will be pretty thoroughly today. I have some tough matches because my dad was from England and a lot of the English DNA matches are sparse compared to my mother's side so my list come out very unbalanced. Anytime I find a Dad connection is a woohoo moment for me.
This all seems to be based on the accuracy of other peoples trees. It seems most people went building their tree just use the hints given by other unproven trees. I don't know what my Great great-grandmothers maiden name is, put in a educated guess and get 42 matches, I go in and change her name to another educated guess and the same 42 matches come up. If you find a date, like a death and you contact the tree owner and ask where they found the date, I found it in other trees, and you can't find the person that listed it first
ah genealogy. The science of figuring out fact from fiction :) I have no problem with inaccurate trees with clues as people go through the stages of figuring things out. and pristine paper prove trees with source documents are equally fiction to me. I have an original birth certificate of Larry Basey, showing Dwight basey as my father. I have video of him (who was married to my mother) bringing me home form the hospital 2 days after i was born. im in his obituary as his son, etc. I have another birth certificate as Larry Jones (my current name and one i have had most all of my life 55 of 57yrs so far) it lists Joe jones as my birth father. Crap tons of proof there including SSN, etc. And oh yeah, neither of them are my bio father, thats Larkin Brown LOL For which there isnt a single shred of paper trail evidence. Only the DNA tests of 20 close family members which leave no doubt at all, but which is not acceptable to SAR/DAR or other organizations because there is no paper trail. So is my Basey tree accurate? Jones tree accurate? or Brown tree Accurate? Well all three to be honest, all three make up my life story. I am bio brown, birth father was basey, my name is jones LOL So had you accepted my pristine Basey tree before i took the DNA test, you might have included me (I am in books as such as that is a very well documented and prestigious lineage) you could have taken my sources and used them. never knowing the alteration later. For me, a tree is innaccurate UNTIL the line defined and verified with DNA. Until then it is still potentially fiction. So a year ago i was frustrted with innacurate trees and sourcing. Today, now that i have lived the DNA surprise and see it from a different perspective i realize its just another stage in the process of validation. Final point of example: AFter i found my dna surprise i began collecting the MRCA for ALL my dna matche and making sure every node of my ancestral tree was indeed accurate now. IT WASNT! I found a DNA surprise for my mother as well! she was adopted and her birth certificate father and father of record who gave her away for adoption, neither were her father (of course her adoptive father wasnt either) I found a 4th person, completely unknown to us before hand! That family line also had court records, birth certificates, tons of witness testimonies, etc. to "prove" who her father was, DNA cried foul. So i am slow to complain about an incorrect tree, because we are all just one enlightenment away from having a new tree ourselves! I know, i lived it this last year after 30 yrs of a "perfect tree". Just think of those people as those who havent verified with DNA their trees. And FEW have! I have, but FEW have unless you have a dna surprise and are triangulating with earnest most dont take the time to try to "disprove" connections with DNA in order to prove they are correct. So today, there are only a handful of trees i trust for accuracy, but i appreciate them ALL as hints.
I use the sort by date to see if there are any new matches that might lead to a challenge line. I check the shared matches to see if it links with an already viewed , tagged family lines. That way if they do I can add them to my, say Hutchine/Place line or Stearns/Nelson line. If they have no shared matches of previously viewed ancestors, I leave them as unknown. It helps me group family names together. When I research the line I have as many potential cousins with surnames known and unknown. Several of those new matches help me see a new surname line to my Common Ancestor. It narrowed where I needed to search. It helps me Find that sibling to my line I may not have added at the 4th ot 5th grandparent level. Then I either work down or up building a tree. I'll do a post on my Genealogy Facebook page. June Butka Genealogy Photos
so u check the shared matches for them for surname research? hmm.. interesting. I do that with the filter " those i havent seen" but i can see where this may allow me to still see them if i looked at them for surnames, very interesting, gonna investigate this, tyvm!
@@DNAFamilyTrees You are very welcome. I'm working on doing a post about how I work through them. I use screen captures. I found a surname match for a person descendant, that lead to a person I already had in my tree. Key is that You need to check you families for each generations. Sometimes the difference is the addition or lack of a middle name/initial so Ancestry does think they are the same person in Thrulines.
Has Ancestry done anything about the problem of wrong potential ancestors, such as giving us a way to remove them from our ThruLines. I have all these potential ancestors that hinge on one couple, my great great grandparents. The people that Ancestry keeps pulling up individuals for my great grandparents, I have already discarded as being incorrect. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of all of their parents, grandparents, etc.
not specifically in that area of the site, BUT i think if u go to the hints and when u see that wrong person if u mark them as wrong, after 3 or 4 it typicall removes that hint and stops them as a potential ancestor, might try that
This is what Ancestry tells me to do....."ThruLines has found potential ancestors that are not related to me. Can I choose not to see these people? If a potential ancestor does not support what you know about your family's history, you may contact the family tree owner associated with that person to correct any errors or make changes. You may also want to review relevant records and family trees to determine if there actually is a relationship." The problem with this is that the trees for the man Ancestry wants to make my 2nd great grandfather, aren't wrong. He was a Henry Sutton that had a Charles Sutton as a son, and the son was born about the same time and place as my Charles Sutton. So those trees are correct. And I'm not showing any of the people who have them as having DNA that really matches me. So I thought maybe my Charles Sutton might be an NPE except I do have a slew of DNA matches that go back to a Benjamin and Jemima Van Wart Sutton. So many that I've made a special group for the Sutton name and the Var Wart name (both show up in my DNA linking back to B and J Sutton and connected to my first cousins who are all down from my Sutton line. Oh, I've tried saying "NO" to hints several times, but Ancestry keeps throwing the same people back at m. I'm really getting frustrated with ThruLines because of this.
Great update. Thank you. You said with the date sort you were getting small cM counts. Since Ancestry has the 20cM bottom limit, couldn't this be a way to find distant matches when they are useful?
but i dont know where/how they fit in, if i see them in thrulines or other places i can use it, i just cannot figure how to use the information that someone i dont know took a test this week and they are related somehow. if thrulines shows how or they have a higher cm (which would show in the cm sort) i understand that. and the matches i havent seen shows anything i havent seen, just not sure how to use it :)
search by date shows newest and not viewed while not viewed will also show those with no trees, unlinked trees, very small trees and those that are private
I just tried searching for a birth location. I input "Mecklenburg" which in my family refers to a former Duchy in Germany. As I have searched census records in the US I've often found this as a birthplace. UNFORTUNATELY, with the search feature they seem to require a complete "Mecklenburg, + the accepted place" . I tried using an asterix to get any instances of Mecklenburg--i.e. Mecklenburg-Verpomm...; Meck..., Germany; Meckl....Schwerin. To no avail. Does this explanation make sense? When I did search for "Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany" many of the relatives who I know have people labeled "born in Mecklenburg" or "Mecklenburg, Germany" did NOT appear. So frustrating.
+a Netzband Boyer ouch Depending on others spellings Well I think still good step in direction as I believe they will be matching their search method ( which also depends on others) but it does allow similar on surnames Be nice if city did same ( ancestry hint hint. Or real fancy get geo location of searches for location and give “area” as result 🤓 double hint lol)
My 'match list' is larger. It fills the whole screen, but the major change is when you click on "Search". The 'search options' look different. Yours are displayed horizontally across the top of the page. Mine are listed vertically, along the left margin, with long 'search boxes' going to the right hand margin. They are the same categories, but laid out differently.
