the Sunday Soapbox | DNA and 'Discoveries' ~ Who Is Bob's Mother?

Well, I'm no DNA expert. Far from it. But I do understand the basics. I've started the sometimes boring process of educating myself with seminars, webinars and reading material. I have a love/hate relationship with DNA. I love what it can add to my genealogical research, but I also hate the sometimes difficult reality that some matches may not ever be solved, in my lifetime anyway.

Then there's this other problem.

Maybe you've noticed it too.

The Ancestor Discoveries on Ancestry.

I don't pay much attention to them, but there they are every time I log in to my AncestryDNA page.

Maybe I'm ignorant. I'm not too proud to admit there's a lot I don't have working knowledge about.

But I ponder on this:

There is one particular "ancestor" that keeps showing up as a possible relation. She has been added to myriad family trees without much more documentation than someone else's tree. She has been added to a group of trees with whom I know I share a common, proved, ancestor. She has been declared the mother of this particular ancestor.

Problem is, there is no proof.

None.

Zip.

It's pure speculation.

So, like unsourced Public Trees, we (or I anyway) now have this issue of 'DNA' 'related' ancestors. And I'm thinking, I could put Bozo the Clown in my tree as this guy's (we'll call him Bob) mother. If everyone else who was a proved relation to Bob does the same thing well, I'd bet that Bozo would show up as an Ancestry Discovery!

I have red hair and I do have an odd fondness for clowns, but I'm certain Bozo and I are not related.

I'm okay with not knowing who Bob's mother is. The records most likely exist somewhere - we're talking 1800 Maryland - I will continue to pursue the truth and ignore the unproved.

But not everyone will.

How big of a problem will this become?

Am I way off base here, or is this a genuine concern?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!


©2017 Anne Faulkner - AncestorArchaeology.net, All Rights Reserved

Video Of The Week: AncestryDNA: What To Do With All Those Matches

We watch a lot of videos in the Cave. Webinars, instructional videos, continuing education videos, you name it! If it helps with our genealogical pursuit we are all over it!

Each week we thought we'd share one we've enjoyed.

Hope you enjoy it too!






©2017 Anne Faulkner - AncestorArchaeology.net, All Rights Reserved

Something New ... And Exciting!

After the breakthrough I had last week with my brick wall 2nd great grandmother, I decided the way to go about researching all my brick walls was to go wide and deep.

Now, I have never been one for a ginormous family tree anyway. Having just come off a successful culling of my own out of control tree. which, as it turns out, wasn't so out of control as some. But that's not the story here.

The story today is to share with you what I am currently attempting in the Cave.

I spent the weekend casting a very wide net, going in deep on the Whitford family that I discovered last week. Turns out the whole clan is nuts - and they liked to marry and divorce numerous times. I would not have seen this pattern if I was sticking to just my direct line. By starting a new research tree on Ancestry dot com I was able to include all the collateral family, half cousins, step grandparents, all the odd, but blood related at some level, characters that I would not have bogged down my own tree with. (No, I do NOT want my own WikiTree, thank you). And, guess what!? I did start to see patterns, and was able to put some 'orphans' in families based on information found on other relatives documents, death certs, wills, etc. I must admit it was quite exhilarating!

Genealogy high?

So I have started to create research trees for all my dead end ancestors, adding all the spouses, children, brothers & sisters, aunts & uncles, etc; and following the trails to see what I might unearth.

It is very satisfying, for my obsessively orderly brain not to have all these trails, these webs, dangling from my own tree like so much Spanish moss. And, when I want to research a particular family I can just open that tree and work.

Now, I have member tree hints turned off so I don't get a gazillion bad trees popping up in my new hints, but once I have found all the legit sources available, I will pop over to search and look at those trees.

This is where the magic can happen.

Like it did for me last week.

Most often not, mind you, but it can, so I always look.

And, here's another thing. Once I get the research tree built, and have become pretty familiar with the surnames, I can hook my AncestryDNA to the tree and wait a bit to see if I snag anything! If I had one of those 30,000+ behemoths I would certainly not recognize the name of my 6th cousin five times removed. But with a compact little research tree I would.

The information is out there - we just have to dig deep and go wide sometimes until we spot that glimmer of light at the end of the long, long, long rabbit hole.

Today I am working on my McBrides and my O'Connells - should be a piece of cake!
 

"We Found You New Ancestors - Just By Looking At Your DNA!"

That is the bold cry from my AncestryDNA page.

New ancestors!

With my DNA!

Wow!

"Now your DNA can tell you something that was never before possible" Ancestry proudly declares in a recent email. "Go back as far as the 1700's in an instant through your AncestryDNA test".

Amazing!

How do they do it, you ask?

"New Ancestor Discoveries are made through a unique combination of AncestryDNA results and the millions of family trees shared by Ancestry members".

Uh - oh.

You mean those PUBLIC and frequently unsourced Family Trees? Hmm. Something is just not right here. This is a HUGE can of worms just waiting to be opened.

Michael John Neill tells us in his brilliant blog post All You Need Is Spit that you can now "find ancestors from the past using just a DNA test, no genealogy research is required" Yup. NO research required. None. Zip.

You though it was easy to go back to Adam and Eve in an afternoon before? Well now.

I am afraid.

And disappointed.

This just does not seem responsible to me. If you are going to supply the tools you have some sort of obligation to supply instructions for use. And warnings.

And NO! No, No, No - it is not that easy. (this reminds me of the saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should")

My particular experience with this newfound wonder of science is completely incorrect. But I would never know this if I hadn't done the research. The hard research. The digging in books, writing letters, waiting for replies, hitting brick walls research. This particular "match" I spent over two years trying to prove before getting the proof I needed to disprove it.

But here it is. Presented to me proudly by AncestryDNA as a "new ancestor".

Sophia Snyder and Micajah Merryman have been declared on dozens of Public Trees on Ancestry as the parents of Anna Merriman, my third great grandmother. I wrote about her here.  

I am NOT related to Sophia Snyder. Or Micajah Merryman. And I have done the research to prove it. The 6 of 9 members I match more than likely have Anna Merriman as our common ancestor. And, they are Public trees. Certainly unsourced. Obviously unresearched.

No I am not in any circles. Circles would require me to have a Public tree on Ancestry. While I appreciate and understand the importance of a good sourced Public tree, mine has more than a few wild theoretical branches. I would not be practicing responsible genealogy if I allowed that to see the light of day. The few public trees I do have on Ancestry are sourced and proved. Available for all to see. But I do not have my DNA linked to them (you can only have DNA linked to one tree at a time).

 DNA is just another research tool. Another source to glean information. The results are only as good as the information it is being compared to. GIGO, as Michael John Neill reminds us: Garbage in, Garbage out.  

Please, practice genealogy wisely.

And be careful out there!