I love the record sets. Love. Them.
I do not like a lot of the other "tools" they have, especially the DNA tools.
I recently checked out a DNA Circle that suddenly has 7 connections. Well, the seven include my two tests, the four tests of one other contributor, and one test to a person who Ancestry doesn't show as matching to my tests directly.
[Confidential to Ancestry: give us segment data and/or a chromosome browser, so I can determine how I really do match these connections. Please and thanks.]
The other group of tests are descendants of a common ancestor I'll call Jacob. I have lots of good data on Jacob, including his Will, pension file and census records. I have no definitive parents or birthplace for Jacob - another brick wall ancestor.
This new DNA Circle member does!
I viewed the Timeline that Ancestry can create from my connection's tree and found this:
So "Jacob" was born in England, six years later his mother died in New York, he then went back to England (assuming he came to the colonies with his parents!) to marry and have a first child, sail back to the colonies and have three more children in two years in three different counties covering two states, bury his wife a year later in yet another county and state, and then move some more.
I need a map.
The "sources" for the children's information include - only - a minimum of 12 other Ancestry trees. There are no sources given for the English records.
Maybe, maybe, maybe this is true but I am too skeptical. I will keep searching for Jacob's parents.
Examine your timelines and vet your sources before you get my hopes up again!
© 2016 Sally Knudsen
