Ancestry.com: ThruLines Explained (2020)

are you confused about ancestries through lines many of you have written asking various questions about through lines including herb Smith who is one of the genealogy TV patrons he wrote I know you've done a couple of episodes about through lines but if you'd like a suggestion why not do another this time take an example and go through it slowly and completely I still can't make anything out of it Thank You herb for your question I will get to that here in just a moment so let me introduce myself if this is your first time here my name is Connie Knox I am a lifelong genealogist here to help you go further faster in factually with your family research don't forget to subscribe and ring the bell so that you get notified each time I upload a video genealogy TV has a website a newsletter and a Facebook page links for all of that are in the show notes below now if you don't mind help me out watch the ads all the way through that helps pay for the channel all right more about herbs question and his request for more information about through lines here when we come back [Music] well herps question is clearly a common one I just because of the numerous amount of questions I get so we're gonna take a look at my through lines we're gonna look at my family we're gonna start with one of my ancestors and we're gonna jump into that right now but one of the things I want to tell you is I want to kind of break your thinking if you're confused by through lines it might be that you're kind of stuck in a concept and so what we're gonna do is I'm hoping to kind of break your thinking and then kind of pull it all back together again so alright here we go so mmm this is my homepage when we click through we get to this tree and so we're gonna be working with Herman Miller Madsen and so let's just take a quick look at him I would like you to meet my great-grandfather this is Herman Miller Madsen and we're gonna be talking about him and using him as an example throughout this video so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break this up into like three chapters chapter 1 is going to be where we explain what through lines is but really we kind of have to go back and look at some of the beginnings of DNA data in order to understand how through lines is actually working so we're gonna go back and take a look at some cousin matches and we're through lines gets its data and then we're going to kind of pull it all together and see how it can work for you in the last chapter again chapter 1 is what is through lines chapter 2 is where does it get its data and chapter three is going to be how we can pull it all together for you okay so going back over to my tree as you can see Herman Miller Madson is married to in this view because I use her birth name Francisca Emilia Cornelia Jensen but we refer to her as Frances Johnson because that's what she used in the United States so Frances Johnson married to Herman Miller Madson they had eight children we scroll over to the right just a little bit you can see that Herman Miller Madson has eight children Elma Bernice Doris Lea Donald Nina Francis Louise and Lawrence okay so there's one two three four five six seven eight now I realize that's kind of simple but there's a reason for this okay and by the way the timings for all the chapters are going to be in the show notes if you want to jump around okay so meet Herman Miller Madsen and Francis Johnson Francisca Amelia Cornelia Jensen she was became Francis Johnson so Francis emigrated to the United States from Denmark at the age of two and Herman Miller Madsen was born in the United States but his folks emigrated from Denmark in 1873 okay so just to get to some perspective we have Herman Miller Madsen and his family and the eight children right here in this is the ancestry view so here is his father Christopher here's his mother Laura we're not going to get into the deep history on that family we're really gonna focus on the descendants because that's what through lines is really all about so I'm gonna flip over to the descendants view so here here's the family right and this is the descendants view and I this is really hard to see so I'm gonna simplify that with a graphic and so it's a little bit easier for you to see you can now see that Herman Miller Madsen and Francis Johnson are married they have one two three four five six seven eight children and one of the things that we want to talk about with through lines is it has to do with the descendants and the cousin matches so let's jump over to the cousin matches for a second so we're gonna go over to DNA and DNA matches and clearly due to privacy reasons I have to blur out a lot of information here but one of the reasons why I want you to understand before we get into the through lines part of it is that we're talking about the cousin matches because it's those cousin matches that are going to show up through lines so while we're here looking at the cousin matches we have different buckets we got the parent-child we got the first cousins second cousins okay so we're gonna scroll down to the second cousin bucket and one of the things that I want to point out is that you have varying cousin matches with various trees we've got the shared centimorgans across 20 segments in this case the segment's are not important for what we're doing right now this tree has seven people and note Carol Miller we're going to talk about her more here in a moment and that we have a common ancestor okay and then this tree is locked we can't see this tree but it has thirteen hundred and fifty people in it this tree has eleven this tree is unlinked so it says there that there is a tree but it is unlinked and we're going to talk more about that here in a second and so some of these have no trees some have unlinked trees some have trees and some are private trees so one of the things that you need to understand is that this tree and in this case it's the ancestors view but the tree that you're working on and make sure you notice up in the top what tree you're looking at but the tree that you're working on is your tree the through lines tree is not your tree so we're going to talk more about that here in a second but but just keep that in mind that the through lines is not really your tree this is your tree what you're looking at here is your tree okay also the descendants view let me go back to this view the descendants view tree is your tree and again you can tell because the this is the name that I gave it Henley - Knox family tree I know that to be my tree that's the tree that I'm working on it is mine nobody can screw with it nobody changes it it's all my work mistakes and all it's all my work okay so if we go over the cousin matches we can take a look at other people's trees so let's take a look at let's find a tree let's take a look at Carol's tree she has seven people in her tree now it automatically jumped into the through lines cuz we have through lines but let's take a look at her tree for a second she's got a very small tree but she did link it to her DNA results which is giving me a through lines view Carol is my first cousin once removed and it's also showing us the line in which we connect so Herman Miller Matson that we introduced you to earlier is the common ancestor okay now there are more through lines here we're going to jump into that here in just a second but I just wanted to show you so here I am here's my father grandmother and great-grandfather and this is two of the children of the eight that I introduced you to earlier okay Elma which is the second child and Donald who I think is toward the end of the line and then Carol is the daughter of Donald okay but this is not my tree this is just a view of the two of our trees combined together this shows how we match okay but we're gonna get more into that here in just a second okay so to really understand how through lines works we need to take a look at the tools that ancestor provides so if we go back up to DNA summary results and very briefly I'm going to talk about this you get the DNA story which gives you the ethnicity estimates and we're not really going to get into that today but there are some really cool what I consider to be deep history that gives you great history about the migration patterns and and stuff it's really fun to explore what we're going to talk about here are the DNA matches in the through lines because they they go hand-in-hand together okay so in the DNA matches is where you really see who you're genetically connected to in the through lines tree it's taking their trees and matching them with your tree okay so if we click on the through lines and explore through lines a little bit as you can see we're the first thing that pops up is your parents then your grandparents and your great-grandparents and again we're focusing on Herman Miller Matson now here it says there are seven matches between one hundred and fifty five and thirty four hundred and eighty four centimorgans and the value evaluate relationship paths so this is everything from probably fourth cousins to my daughter who is listed here she is the eighth 3484 but that's not what we're exploring we're exploring the through lines of Herman Miller Matson and cool little features you can shift it back and forth so due to privacy reasons we're not going to jump into these five DNA matches but I want to go show you now a little graph about what what you're looking at here so if we jump over to my previous example where I showed you the graph with Herman Miller Matson his wife Frances Johnson and their eight children if you'll notice out of those eight children only two of them have descendants who have tested with ancestry and the first one is Elma and there are five descendants who have tested with ancestry and then on Donald's line Donald Matson's line there are two DNA matches that have tested there so it's important to know that so now when we come back over to ancestry and we look at it here if we click through we're not going to click the here because I don't have I don't have permission for from everybody on here to show their stuff but we can certainly do it here because we do have permission here so we click through on the DNA matches here from Donald and now we see Carol Miller who's my first cousin once removed her brother Donald Matson and Donald's son so now these people here let's start with Carol 464 centimorgans in common with me okay now if you'll notice here that not all eight children are listed here this is where people get really upset why is through lines not showing all the children well that because not there's not descendents of every all eight children did not have descendants who tested with ancestry simple answer only two in this family have descendants who have tested with ancestry and here are five listed under here and there are two listed here and you can close this back up again and see it this way if you want but under here there are five under here there are two okay and of the five I'm one of them my two sisters are one of them my daughter is one of them and then there's another cousin in there okay so of the five matches here me two sisters a daughter and another cousin all coming under this line okay that's how how through lines is working now is it right in this case it is you got to remember DNA doesn't lie but people do so the DNA and the trees in this situation are correct if it's wrong it's because somebody's tree is incorrect or there is some inner marrying within cousins maybe that are throwing some of the the the lines off like it might be a second cousin married a second and so those DNA the centimorgans in the DNA are going to be higher than normal so it's gonna look like maybe a first cousin or something along those lines or an uncle or something okay so jumping back over to the cousin matches these are my cousin matches okay and we have a lot of these trees here one of the things that in this case there's no tree an unlinked tree one of the reasons why it's so important to link your DNA to who you are in your tree and you can only link it to one tree by the way is because think of it this way let's pretend for a moment that you are one star in in in the greater sky in the universe and all the other stars in the sky are cousin matches to you there are DNA cousin matches but you don't understand how they link up you don't understand how all of these stars are related to you but when you link your self to your tree in ancestry the dots in the sky begin to connect if you will okay and now you start to understand this giant network of stars and how they connect these stars are your cousins and there's this vast network there some are relating to each other and some are only relating to you but a lot of times when you are relating to somebody somebody there's a third party it starts become a triangle or it starts to become an even bigger network of cousins who are starting to line up you might you as cousin number say cousin letter a links to cousin B and cousin be links to cousin C but you don't link the cousin C because you don't have any DNA that matches but cousin C's tree might be able to help you one of the reasons why you want to link to your tree is so that we can see how you connect with other cousins right so one of the cool parts about this once you've done that and the algorithms are working in your favor and you get this list of cousin matches you can now dig into other people's tree okay so now I'm back on my tree with my ancestors as you can see up in the corner I have the henley knox family tree which is what i know to be my tree so that's kind of the end of chapter one i wanted to make sure that you understood that there is a difference between your tree and the through lines tree so now we're going to talk about where where through lines gets its data from so how does through lines really make this connection it really makes the connections through the common ancestors that you have in your tree so if you'll notice in the in the cousin matches as we scroll down we can see that there are common ancestors here and if we click on that again will show you Carol and it shows you Herman Miller as the common ancestor because both of us have taken the DNA test both of us are showing a connection genetic connection to each other in the DNA and we both have Herman Miller in our tree because we've designated ourselves in our tree Carroll designated herself in her tree and we both have Herman Miller Madsen in our trees so it's saying AHA this must be a through-line this must be the line that connects from Connie to Carol okay and it goes up and over and through Herman and Francis Mattson and comes back down okay and that is really all through lines is but remember that this through line that you're looking at right here this through line was created because Carol's tree had her ancestors in it my tree had the answers even though they're not exactly the same they he may have had Herman M Madson in her tree but it's gonna line up because it's gonna say okay wait a minute based on the genetic match of 464 centimorgans these two have a probability of being one of three things it's probably a first cousin once removed a great aunt or uncle a great Neath niece or nephew I mean there's I don't know exactly off the top of my head exactly what those probabilities are and you can go to DNA painter and find out but the fact that we both had Herman Miller mats in an artery and we both have a genetic match to each other it's saying aha this is the line that connects them this is the through line one of the things I also want to point out here is that now ancestry is also giving you several suggestions in this case this is a very simple suggestion here we're looking at suggestion number one because Herman Miller Madson is popping up under suggestion number one suggestion number two is Francis Johnson his wife so clearly an easy understanding that the married couple suggestion number two is going to show that Francis's is potentially the common ancestor between the two of us and Herman is also in this case we know that to be true I actually knew these people personally so I know that this is correct alright so we're going to go on to chapter 3 now and here we're going to just kind of bring it all together we're going to talk about how the convenience of this is so you understand now that in this grand universe of of cousin matches the stars in the sky how they can start to connect with you if your own DNA is linked in your tree and how those cousin matches start to line up we also know now that your tree is not the same as the through lines tree don't even think it is it's merely a hint feature think of it as any other record set that you are going to evaluate and see if it's correct or not so now that we know that here in your cousin matches well now we know that your tree is not the same as what's going to be in the through lines tree which is under the DNA data okay it is merely taking your DNA cousins and that's lining it up with your tree it's also lining it up with their trees so it's trying to bring them all together let's take one more look at the analogy of the of my own family of the Madson family and take note again remember that Herman and Francis had eight children and only two of them had descendents who have taken DNA tests so again here we are at my through lines view remember it is not my tree it is using my tree it's using other people's trees and in this case there are five plus two there are seven people one of which is myself that have DNA tests under these two two of the eight children from Herman and Francis Madson so of those say if I'm one of them you've got seven you've got six other people who have tested okay and it's taking all of their trees and that's lining them up to give me this view it's quite convenient but wouldn't it be cool we can take this a little bit further okay I'm gonna jump back over to my tree my real tree now I'm back over here in my tree and wouldn't it be cool if you could point out where the through lines are without jumping over to through lines well they do these little icons these blue icons right here with the little people on them is suggesting that there are through lines for every single one of those people that have that little blue dot powerful right so if we take Herman Miller and we noticed that little blue dot is showing up right here with through lines and we can click on it and we can click again and say show me the through lines and you've seen this view before and there it is okay well I hope that you now understand that this tree that I'm looking at right here is not the same as the through lines tree in fact there really is no through lines tree think of it as a window it is a window to the universe of your cousins and how they might match up as a convenience to you when you're doing your DNA research there are going to be multiple places that you run into the through lines link while you're surfing around on ancestry and that is they're provided as a convenience it is really there just to kind of show you how the stars align and how your trees line up with other people's trees based on your DNA connection with those other cousins you clearly have a genetic connection with other cousins and it may be that you don't understand how you connect with them until through lines shows it to you it is wildly helpful I really like through lines for more information about through lines make sure you check out the description below the video on the YouTube channel or go to genealogy TV org there are more videos on the screen for you now about through lines and one that YouTube says is a good suggestion for you alright it is time for you to go find your ancestors so until next time keep on climbing your family tree

Channel: Genealogy TV

Views: 42,786

Rating: 4.9147487 out of 5

Keywords: Ancestry.com: Thrulines Explained (2020), how to use Thrulines, ancestry thrulines tutorial, Ancestry.com, #GenealogyTV, AncestryDNA, Ancestry.com DNA, how to use cousin matches on Ancestry.com, genealogy, family history, Ancestry Cousin Matches, family history tree, genealogy tree, dna online, genealogy research, family tree, how to do genealogy research for free, how to find family history, Ancestry tree, Ancestry online, #familyhistory, #genealogy, Ancestry dna

Id: o5LB0qcz7Pk

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020