ThruLines Mystery

NOTE: Resolution for this issue has been added to the end of this post.

Ancestry’s ThruLines seems to have ‘lovers’ and ‘haters’. For the most part, I fall into the ‘lovers’ group. That’s partly because I have taken the time to research many of the descendants of my ancestors. Thus, I already have a lot of the grandparents or even parents of my matches in my tree. This research impacts my Thrulines and reduces the number of ‘evaluate’ suggestions I see. Thus, I don’t see many of the issues others complain about.

While recently updating my ThruLines documentation, I discovered that my 2nd great grandmother, Mary Foster Crawford no longer appears on the ThruLines page for my DNA test. She is also missing from the ThruLines page for both of my brothers. I checked my tree and she is still connected to my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford, and to her father, Zebulon Foster. However, she is missing the ThruLines symbol.

When I go to a ThruLines screen, she should be between Washington M Crawford and Richmond Fisk Hammond. But, she isn’t there.

If I open the ThruLines for her father, Zebulon Foster, Mary appears twice. as a child with DNA matches below her.

The Mary Foster with 4 DNA matches shows cousins who descend from Mary through her daughter Lida.

The Mary Crawford with the 8 DNA matches shows my line and cousins who descend from Mary’s son, Judson.

When I look at the profile for Mary Foster, it shows her parents as Zebulon Foster and Caroline Ostrander. It also shows her husband, Washington Marion Crawford and children, Ida, Judson, Carrie, Lida and Nelson.

Out of curiosity, I checked the ThruLines for Mary’s grandfather Edward Ostrander. While I found Mary again listed twice, the number of DNA matches going thru Judson decreased to 6 (from eight).

As I was trying to figure out this mystery, I observed that one of my brothers does not show as a ThruLines match. However, if I go to his ThruLines data, he shows along with my test, but my other brother is missing.

So what could be causing these issues and how do I resolve it?

Several people have shared on the Facebook Ancestry DNA group that support suggests disconnecting the tree from the DNA test and then reconnecting it. This requires waiting about 48 hours to see if the reconnection resolves the issue. Since I have 3 DNA tests with which to work, I’m going to try that with one of my brother’s tests (after documenting his ThruLines numbers).

Unfortunately, disconnecting the tree (on Christmas day) and reconnecting it did not resolve the ThruLines issues. Yesterday, I disconnected Mary Foster Crawford from her spouse and children and then reconnected her. She is still missing today. Note: I did not wait very long between either ‘disconnecting’ case and the reconnection. My next attempt will likely be to disconnect, wait 48 hours, reconnect and wait another 48 hours.

ATTEMPTED RESOLUTION:

Since I manage three DNA tests that descend from Mary Crawford, I disconnected one of those tests from my tree and connected it to a new tree. Mary Foster Crawford appeared on the ThruLines page!

While this is a resolution, it is NOT something I want to do with my own DNA test. That test has quite a few of my matches connected to the tree. I believe that if I disconnect my DNA data from the tree, I will also loose those connections. This is NOT something I wish to do. Thus, I don’t believe it is a resolution.

RESOLUTION:

I deleted Mary Foster from my tree. Several hours later, ThruLines was suggesting Mary Foster as a potential ancestor. I then used RootsMagic to put Mary Foster back in my tree. She again shows on my ThruLines page.