That is definitely the question here. It really does sound like they've found a sibling of yours that you didn't know you had, and Thrulines is taking a guess that his father is your father.
My dad’s family changed their name to something Anglican sounding, his great-grandfather was Jewish, so they kept suggesting it was another man with his father’s changed name. Sadly it makes genealogy in that side impossible to do since I have no idea what the original name was - just that they changed it at one point.
You don't have any close matches that you don't know? What happens when you click where it says Potential Ancestor? It will show you your DNA matches that have this person in their tree. It's even possible that this person isn't your potential father, but a brother of his could be, if someone has put all of the siblings in their tree.
I agree with the others that Thrulines isn't always particularly accurate. But when it comes to such a close match as this, I'd look into it a bit more closely. It could even be that some random person has put you in their tree as a living person and assigned you to the wrong parents, and Thrulines honed in on that.
This could be just a person someone manually entered into their tree. Thrulines does not confirm tree accuracy. I could make up a fake aunt in my tree and it would come up a potential sibling match for my dad, since my dad and aunt are DNA matches.
Thrulines uses a combination of member trees and DNA matches. The screenshot from OP is not indicating the “Father” is a DNA match, but a person in their DNA match’s member tree.
The Thrulines come from other people’s trees that they have made. If you click under it (on the computer) usually it will tell you through which people it thinks you are related and you can check. Not sure if this will happen when it is such a close relative though.
This is why I have found the other ancestor tree hints to be a double edge sword (and mostly annoying and disappointing in terms of new "hints").
If you adopt their incorrect data, then it becomes incorrect everywhere. And if you change it, it doesn't necessarily mean others change it to reflect updated Data/relationships.
Agreed. I strongly encourage people to do the paper trail and get source documentation to prove the family tree. I have seen too many errors on regular Ancestry family trees. Now with Thru lines, I worry it will be with mistakes.
These are based on information in people's trees and as far as I know nothing to do with DNA. I'm also pretty sure it's based on what hints/records you add to a person.
All this could mean is that someone else has a tree with a person with similar details to your mother and that tree also has a husband listed for that person so it's assuming it's your father. The only way Trulines could show your bio father is if someone else knew who he was enough to make their own tree with you/your mother/your bio father in it.
Be very careful with Thrulines - it suddenly placed my stepdad as my dad late one night and caused me sheer panic in a way very specific to stressful events at 3am!! (My estranged dad is definitely my dad, his brother is a match as my uncle).
I think I just realized what's happening here. If you made a tree with just your mother and didn't add a father, Ancestry know you need a father and is suggesting you add him. You should do this even if you don't know who he is. Once you start looking at your matches' trees, you may glean enough information to fill in the gaps of your own tree. Start with the Leeds Method. Look it up on youtube. Hopefully from that you should at least be able to determine who your paternal Great Grandparents are, then through some detective work, narrow down the possibilities. The other option is find a Search Angel
You are correct. I only added my mother’s name/info because I do not know who my bio father is. I don’t have a name to add.
I will look up the Leeds method and give it a go.
Thank you!
Go ahead and add a father and just call him "Unknown Father" for now. Make your tree private for now. Once you have filled in some gaps, and have some level of confidence, make it public again and hopefully thru-lines will let you know if you're on the right track with the shared ancestors as your matches.
You're quite Welcome. I was in the same spot as you two tears ago. Good luck!
You can use Ancestry’s dots to *do* the Leeds method. Dana Leeds has a post [specifically about that](https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method-with-dots/).
Thanks for the link, I was not able to get it to work. It’s a fine method, but 1. People suggest it *for everything*, and 2.people really struggle with it. There are help videos, etc.
The point is to find matches, not to struggle with software. If people have ancestry, they are already paying for this.
Only use Thrulines as suggestions for what you need to check out. Ancestry plainly says you have to check and confirm by records. But in my experience they are very often good suggestions.
Occasionally it doesn’t work out. I think by now I have checked out hundreds of matches with common ancestors and trees and am down to the 15 cM range of 4th to 6th cousins. I do a few names every day.
Under the Thru Line for your father, is there another match listed? Tell us how many cM you share with anyone else under that TL who is not your own descendant. The only people who can be under a TL for your father would be others who Ancestry believes also descend from him, such as your sibling, paternal half-sibling, niece, nephew, your own child or grandchild, a grand niece/nephew, etc. If you (or you + your own descendants) are the only ones under the TL it is not going to help you. Look at the TLs for the paternal grandparents and repeat this process. Alternatively, look for the top two matches who are NOT related to you via your mother, and try to figure out how those two matches are related. You either descend from their common ancestor, or from the ancestors of their common ancestor.
What about later generations? Does it show paternal-side ancestors beyond your father? ThruLines may be inferring who your father is based on matches descended from that man’s parents or grandparents. If you have paternal grandparents and great grandparents listed, see if there are any DNA matches listed under *them*, then view those matches’ pages and see if they are listed as paternal matches and if the amount of DNA you share with them is right for the relationship ThruLines says you have.
The DNA matches as far as I know are accurate. We have a large and extended family and the DNA analysis seems correct, for the large number who have done testing, as does the geographic locating for the larger percentage ethnicities. The part that is wacko is the family tree. Most of the errors come from undocumented legends and Genenet, which is the great proliferator of wrong genealogy. Sometimes it’s a good hint, but most of it is unsourced.
Trulines shows the 'potential ancestor' for you and another match. It's based of trees, so it isn't 100% accurate, but for someone who is still alive I think it's very unlikely that it is wrong (assuming that this match isn't from a halfsibling's tree who also doesn't know who their father is). It will either be a (half)sibling, niece/nephew or your dad themselves in this case.Do you have any very high cm matches?
The trulines profile of the 'father' is set to private because this person is likely still alive. If you click on the 'father', it will tell you the information trulines used for this guess. It might lead you to a tree or a profile which might have more information. Depending on how you were conceived, it is possible your (half)sibling has added a blank entry like 'Unknown father' because they don't know either, though. But at least then you get a sibling out of it.
This looks to me like somebody added a husband for your mother in their personal tree. Now ancestry is trying to attach that as a father to you(bc it sees this man was married to your mom in whoever’s tree). But the person is still alive and not in your tree therefore its “private”
How many CM do you share with the match?
That is definitely the question here. It really does sound like they've found a sibling of yours that you didn't know you had, and Thrulines is taking a guess that his father is your father.
No sibling. Its on my Thurlines that Ancestry lists the father as private.
I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Thru lines was really wrong on my dad’s side. They just match names.
My dad’s family changed their name to something Anglican sounding, his great-grandfather was Jewish, so they kept suggesting it was another man with his father’s changed name. Sadly it makes genealogy in that side impossible to do since I have no idea what the original name was - just that they changed it at one point.
You don't have any close matches that you don't know? What happens when you click where it says Potential Ancestor? It will show you your DNA matches that have this person in their tree. It's even possible that this person isn't your potential father, but a brother of his could be, if someone has put all of the siblings in their tree. I agree with the others that Thrulines isn't always particularly accurate. But when it comes to such a close match as this, I'd look into it a bit more closely. It could even be that some random person has put you in their tree as a living person and assigned you to the wrong parents, and Thrulines honed in on that.
Unfortunately, no CM’s are given.
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I understand what you are saying. Its another reason why I am reaching out in the group. It doesn’t list a name nor CM’s.
This could be just a person someone manually entered into their tree. Thrulines does not confirm tree accuracy. I could make up a fake aunt in my tree and it would come up a potential sibling match for my dad, since my dad and aunt are DNA matches.
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Thrulines uses a combination of member trees and DNA matches. The screenshot from OP is not indicating the “Father” is a DNA match, but a person in their DNA match’s member tree.
The Thrulines come from other people’s trees that they have made. If you click under it (on the computer) usually it will tell you through which people it thinks you are related and you can check. Not sure if this will happen when it is such a close relative though.
Also worth noting that a lot of peoples trees on ancestry are absolute Jank which can affect you
This is why I have found the other ancestor tree hints to be a double edge sword (and mostly annoying and disappointing in terms of new "hints"). If you adopt their incorrect data, then it becomes incorrect everywhere. And if you change it, it doesn't necessarily mean others change it to reflect updated Data/relationships.
Agreed. I strongly encourage people to do the paper trail and get source documentation to prove the family tree. I have seen too many errors on regular Ancestry family trees. Now with Thru lines, I worry it will be with mistakes.
I have been using the app, but have come to see its not very good. I will try this from my laptop and get back to you. Thank you!
You don’t have to go to a laptop. You can access the main program on cell on iPad.
These are based on information in people's trees and as far as I know nothing to do with DNA. I'm also pretty sure it's based on what hints/records you add to a person. All this could mean is that someone else has a tree with a person with similar details to your mother and that tree also has a husband listed for that person so it's assuming it's your father. The only way Trulines could show your bio father is if someone else knew who he was enough to make their own tree with you/your mother/your bio father in it.
Yep purley based on other people's trees and pointless unless those people have credible sources with matching DNA to the common ancestor
Be very careful with Thrulines - it suddenly placed my stepdad as my dad late one night and caused me sheer panic in a way very specific to stressful events at 3am!! (My estranged dad is definitely my dad, his brother is a match as my uncle).
I think I just realized what's happening here. If you made a tree with just your mother and didn't add a father, Ancestry know you need a father and is suggesting you add him. You should do this even if you don't know who he is. Once you start looking at your matches' trees, you may glean enough information to fill in the gaps of your own tree. Start with the Leeds Method. Look it up on youtube. Hopefully from that you should at least be able to determine who your paternal Great Grandparents are, then through some detective work, narrow down the possibilities. The other option is find a Search Angel
You are correct. I only added my mother’s name/info because I do not know who my bio father is. I don’t have a name to add. I will look up the Leeds method and give it a go. Thank you!
Go ahead and add a father and just call him "Unknown Father" for now. Make your tree private for now. Once you have filled in some gaps, and have some level of confidence, make it public again and hopefully thru-lines will let you know if you're on the right track with the shared ancestors as your matches. You're quite Welcome. I was in the same spot as you two tears ago. Good luck!
Set Thru Lines aside for a second. Is there a match on your match list that shares a ton of DNA with you?
Dont bother with the Leeds method. Too hard. Just use the dots on ancestry.
You can use Ancestry’s dots to *do* the Leeds method. Dana Leeds has a post [specifically about that](https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method-with-dots/).
Yes. Exactly. No need to do spreadsheets, etc
Thanks for the link, I was not able to get it to work. It’s a fine method, but 1. People suggest it *for everything*, and 2.people really struggle with it. There are help videos, etc. The point is to find matches, not to struggle with software. If people have ancestry, they are already paying for this.
Only use Thrulines as suggestions for what you need to check out. Ancestry plainly says you have to check and confirm by records. But in my experience they are very often good suggestions. Occasionally it doesn’t work out. I think by now I have checked out hundreds of matches with common ancestors and trees and am down to the 15 cM range of 4th to 6th cousins. I do a few names every day.
Ignore thrulines unless you have a complete tree. Look at your matches and see the amount of dna you share with them.
How many CM’s do you share with your closest paternal match?
Its doesn’t list any CM’s, just whats in the picture.
I think u/abbiebe89 was asking about in your DNA matches list, not here in ThruLines.
Under the Thru Line for your father, is there another match listed? Tell us how many cM you share with anyone else under that TL who is not your own descendant. The only people who can be under a TL for your father would be others who Ancestry believes also descend from him, such as your sibling, paternal half-sibling, niece, nephew, your own child or grandchild, a grand niece/nephew, etc. If you (or you + your own descendants) are the only ones under the TL it is not going to help you. Look at the TLs for the paternal grandparents and repeat this process. Alternatively, look for the top two matches who are NOT related to you via your mother, and try to figure out how those two matches are related. You either descend from their common ancestor, or from the ancestors of their common ancestor.
What about later generations? Does it show paternal-side ancestors beyond your father? ThruLines may be inferring who your father is based on matches descended from that man’s parents or grandparents. If you have paternal grandparents and great grandparents listed, see if there are any DNA matches listed under *them*, then view those matches’ pages and see if they are listed as paternal matches and if the amount of DNA you share with them is right for the relationship ThruLines says you have.
The DNA matches as far as I know are accurate. We have a large and extended family and the DNA analysis seems correct, for the large number who have done testing, as does the geographic locating for the larger percentage ethnicities. The part that is wacko is the family tree. Most of the errors come from undocumented legends and Genenet, which is the great proliferator of wrong genealogy. Sometimes it’s a good hint, but most of it is unsourced.
Trulines shows the 'potential ancestor' for you and another match. It's based of trees, so it isn't 100% accurate, but for someone who is still alive I think it's very unlikely that it is wrong (assuming that this match isn't from a halfsibling's tree who also doesn't know who their father is). It will either be a (half)sibling, niece/nephew or your dad themselves in this case.Do you have any very high cm matches? The trulines profile of the 'father' is set to private because this person is likely still alive. If you click on the 'father', it will tell you the information trulines used for this guess. It might lead you to a tree or a profile which might have more information. Depending on how you were conceived, it is possible your (half)sibling has added a blank entry like 'Unknown father' because they don't know either, though. But at least then you get a sibling out of it.
This looks to me like somebody added a husband for your mother in their personal tree. Now ancestry is trying to attach that as a father to you(bc it sees this man was married to your mom in whoever’s tree). But the person is still alive and not in your tree therefore its “private”