I like Ancestry’s new ThruLines feature!
Unfortunately, it is pointing out one of my frustrations with my DNA results. I have several verified second and third cousin DNA matches on my Crawford line but we never got a DNA circle for my 3rd great grandfather, Nelson G. Crawford. When Ancestry released ThruLines, I was hoping to locate some fourth cousins thru one of Nelson’s other children.
However, the ThruLines for Nelson G Crawford only includes DNA matches going thru my 2nd great grandfather, Washington Marion Crawford. It does not include any lines going thru the siblings of Washington Marion Crawford.
When I looked at the ThruLines for my 4th great-grandfather, James Crawford, matches are shown for descendants of Nelson’s sister, Polly Crawford and for all of the matches thru my 2nd great-grandfather, Washington Marion Crawford.
Since Washington Marion Crawford had five siblings that lived to adulthood and had families, I expected to find ThruLines thru at least some of those siblings. Thus, I am wondering why ThruLines hasn’t helped identify any fourth cousin Crawford matches.
I have several theories:
- My fourth cousin descendants of Nelson G. Crawford haven’t done a DNA test thru Ancestry
- These 4th cousins have done a DNA test but either don’t have a tree or haven’t connected their DNA test to their tree.
- The trees for my 4th cousins Crawford matches don’t go back far enough to connect to my research — in other words, I haven’t done enough descendancy research
- Nelson’s middle name is different on various trees causing trees to not ‘match’
- My tree is wrong
I’m hoping that I have enough evidence to disprove the theory of an incorrect tree. But, I will continue my search for documentation of Nelson G. Crawford and his family.
To help other researchers, I have researched many of Nelson G. Crawford’s descendants. My information regarding Nelson can be found
- on my Ancestry ‘Heartland Genealogy‘ tree
- in my online copy of my RootsMagic data
- in a 4 generation descendancy report for Nelson G. Crawford
If you are a Crawford researcher with family in Preble County, Ohio, Warren County, Indiana or Ford County, Kansas, please contact me. I would love to see how our research might connect!