Finding Fanny's Family - a Jewish Jigsaw

As we work back through time in our family trees, the availability of “direct” evidence (i.e. sources which directly state the answer to a research question) reduces and we must pull together all the indirect evidence we can find to build a picture of the ancestor being researched (like putting a jigsaw together without knowing the final picture). This problem often depends on the nationality or social group of an ancestor, as different countries or different religions and sects within religions kept different types of record for different life events with differing levels of detail and varying levels of survival. This is particularly so for a Jewish ancestress who married “out of the faith” and was born before registration, such as my 3xgreat-grandmother, Fanny/Frances Common nee Isaacs. Is there any way of working out who her parents were and if she had any siblings? I’ve been fortunate in being able to find a lot of indirect evidence out of which I was able to build a picture of the family Fanny came from.

The Birth Certificate of my great-great-grandfather Henry John Common indicates he was born on 4 May 1844 at 55 Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel to Henry Common and Frances née Isaacks.¹ Further research found that the marriage for Henry Common and Fanny Isaacs took place at St Leonard’s Church Shoreditch on 4 Sep 1843.² Fanny is stated to be of full age, resident in New Inn Yard and the daughter of Hyam Isaacs. The witnesses were Samuel Bailey and Sophia Isaacs. Given the shared surname, Sophia is a possible relative of Fanny’s particularly as Henry and Fanny later named one of their daughters Sophia.

I was unable to find a Fanny or Frances Isaacs in the 1841 census, but Henry and Frances Common appear in the 1851 census living in 3 Mary Street, St George in the East.³ Despite being born only 8 months after the marriage, Henry John is not the oldest child in the 1851 family having an older brother, Simon Robert, age twelve and thus born about 1839. From this I was able to find an 1841 entry for “Francis” Common age 20+ and her son Robert Common, age 18 months.⁴ I was unable to find an entry in the 1841 England and Wales census for Henry Common. Birth registrations and baptisms were found for both Simon Robert and Henry John confirming their relationship to Henry Common and Fanny Isaacs.^1,5,6,7 I was also unable to find an entry in the 1841 census for Hyam Isaacs.

1. First step towards a family group for Fanny

In 2009-10 Ancestry released the London Metropolitan Archives holdings of Church of England parish registers. In the “Marriages and Banns 1754-1938” data set you are able to search for a father’s name. Just on the off chance (after all “Fanny Isaacs” is a rather Jewish name and she might have been the only one of her family to marry “out of the faith”) I ran a search for “Hyam Isaacs” as father of a party and this threw up four matches in addition to Fanny’s marriage:⁸

• 7 Aug 1843 at Christchurch Spitalfields, Betsey Isaacs daughter of Hyam Isaacs married Charles Stephens. The witnesses were Henry Common and Sophia Isaacs
• 8 Dec 1843 at Christchurch Spitalfields, Rosetta Isaacs daughter of Hyam Isaacs married Thomas Watling. The Witnesses were Charles Stephens and Elizabeth Stephens
• 26 Nov 1849 at St John at Hackney, James Isaacs son of Hyam Isaacs married Sarah Gable. The witnesses were John Pogson and Matilda Pogson
• 25 Jul 1862 at St George in the East Church, Elizabeth Stevens, widow age 37, daughter of Hyam Isaacs married Edward Martyn. The witnesses were Petter Halverson and Frances Common

So Sophia Isaacs witnessed the marriages of Betsey and Fanny Isaacs, Fanny’s (at that time de-facto) husband, Henry Common being the other witness of Betsey’s marriage. The recently married Charles and Elizabeth (AKA Betsey) Stephens then witnessed the marriage of Rosetta Isaacs and, after the death of Charles Stephens, Frances (AKA Fanny) Common nee Isaacs witnessed the second marriage of Elizabeth (AKA Betsey) Stephens nee Isaacs. The inference to be drawn from this “cross-witnessing” is that Fanny, Betsey, Rosetta and Sophia Isaacs were closely related in some way, possibly sisters (though we have no evidence as to the name of Sophia’s father). James is another possible sibling, though not tied to the other offspring of Hyam Isaacs by witnesses.

When the same search was performed on parish registers from the City of Westminster Archives (added to the Ancestry site in 2020) a marriage for Henry Isaacs son of Hyam Isaacs to Ann Elizabeth Peach on 21 Mar 1859 at St Anne Soho was found, the witnesses being Henry Common and Frances Common nee Isaacs.⁹ Thus we have another possible sibling for Fanny.

2. Family group with siblings inferred from Church of England marriage records

Further support for the connections above comes from the marriage entry of Fanny’s daughter, Sophia Common, to Conrad Hoffman 24 Feb 1867 at St Leonard Shoreditch, the witnesses being Henry Isaacs and Frances Common.⁸

Leaving aside James Isaacs for the moment, we have a group of people of surname Isaacs who, together with their spouses, are witnessing each others’ marriages. All but one of these Isaacses are stated to be offspring of Hyam Isaacs. The odd one out is Sophia Isaacs. However there is an earlier pre-1837 marriage for Henry Isaacs, also celebrated at St Anne Soho, on 23 Mar 1835 to a Sophia Maishman.⁸ Henry and Sophia then appear together in both the 1841 and 1851 censuses (Henry aged 25+ in 1841 and 38 in 1851).^4,3 This is probably the Sophia Isaacs who witnessed the marriages and she is thus an Isaacs by marriage rather than by birth. (Incidentally Charles and Elizabeth Stevens are living in the same house as Henry and Frances Common in 1851.³)

Fitting this small group of puzzle pieces together we have 4 potential siblings, offspring of Hyam Isaacs (Henry, Fanny, Betsey & Rosetta) plus one probable (James) giving us more lines of research for finding information on Hyam Isaacs.

3. Using Church of England marriages to put Sophia in the right place

Searching the 1841 census for a Betsey and a Rosetta appearing in the same family leads us to the entry for Hyam Issaacs [sic] age 70+ (indexed as Hyam Josaus by Ancestry).⁴ The household includes Catherine age 50+, Betsy age 18, Rosa age 16, Isaac age 16 and Elizabeth age 8. This is almost certainly the family of the parents of Fanny Isaacs. Catherine (age 63) appears living on her own in the 1851 census, Hyam having died on 21 Jul 1849, at Russell Court, Blue Anchor Place, Whitechapel.^3,10 The informant for the death of Hyam was Zuss Isaacs of Spitalfields. We know that Betsy and Rosa had married by 1851, but what happened to Isaac and Elizabeth? Elizabeth is possibly the Elizabeth (age 16) residing with Zuice Isaacs (age 36, = Zuss) and his family, though she is listed as Zuice’s daughter.³ She does not appear with Syes (age 25+, =Zuss) Isaacs and his family in 1841 and is probably too old to be the daughter of Zuss’s wife (Louisa/Rachel, age 34 in 1851).^4,3 Isaac is the right age to be equated with the James son of Hyam Isaacs who married Sarah Gable (age 25 in the 1851 census, c.f. 16 in 1841).^3,4 We now have a potental set of seven siblings: Henry (c. 1812), Zuss/Zuice/Syes (c. 1815), Fanny/Frances (c. 1820), Betsy/Elizabeth (c. 1823), Rosa/Rosetta (c. 1825), Isaac/James (c. 1826) & Elizabeth (c. 1833).

4. After finding the 1841 census entry and death certificate for Hyam

At this point I would have been stuck but for the work of enthusiastic Jewish Genealogists who transliterated and published some of the records of the London Synagogues. From the marriage records of the Great Synagogue came the following two entries:¹¹

• GSM 49b/13 1799 14 July: Isaacs, Hyman s. of Isaac Galaga & Hart Fanny Frumat d. of Hirtz
• GSM 102/49 1806 20 Aug: Isaacs, Hyam: Son-in-law of a Privileged Member: Moshe Chaim; s. of Isaac Pressburg & Levy, Catherine: Daughter of a Privileged Member: Trynla d. of Leib S.G.L.

The second, 1806, marriage could easily be the parents of Fanny and the siblings listed above.

In the marriage records transliterated from the Hambro Synagogue records were the following three entries for people whose father was Hyam Isaacs:¹²

• HSM138 (15 Aug 1827): Myer [Meir] Myers, son of Hyam b. Mordecai of Gravel Lane, Houndsditch = Sarah [Sarah] Isaacs daughter of Mr Hyam Isaacs
• HSM255 (4 Dec 1836): Michael [Yechiel k/a Michael] Isaacs, son of Hayim Isaacs of Rosemary Lane = Leah [Leah] Myers, daughter of Mr Jacob Myers
• HSM257 (30 Mar 1837): Zose [Eleazer Zesman] Isaacs, son of Mr Hayim Isaacs of Rosemary Lane = Rachel [Rachel] Abrahams, daughter of Abraham our father

The last of these can be identified with Zuss/Zuice/Syes who registered the death of Hyam and “adopted” Elizabeth, the probable youngest child of Hyam and Catherine. Michael, whose father was also “of Rosemary Lane”, can be tracked through the censuses and is too old (born c. 1801) to be a child of Hyam and Catherine, but could be a child of Hyam and Fanny Hart.^4,3 By the time of the 1841 and 1851 censuses Sarah Myers née Isaacs had apparently died and Myer Myers had remarried, though three of his children predate his second marriage and must be the children of Sarah.^4,3 We do not have enough data to determine an approximate date of birth for Sarah and must just leave her as a probable child of our Hyam Isaacs.

5. After finding information in some published transliterations of Jewish Records

As these and further transliterations are gradually made available on the internet, I’ve been able to find a few more events, in particular the following curcumcision records:¹³

• 10 May 1809: Samuel (Samuel) Isaacs, son of (Hiam) of Rosemary Lane
• 28 Dec 1810: Henry H (Zvi Hirsh) Isaacs, son of (Hiam) of Ratcliffe Highway
• 21 Nov 1815: Jacob (Jacob) Isaacs, son of Hyam (Hiam) of Rosemary Lane

This Henry can be equated to our Henry who eventually migrated to the USA and who at times uses the middle name “Hyam” (Ratcliffe Highway is not far from Rosemary Lane). In addition to the relationship to “Hiam” of Rosemary Lane, I have also found and purchased the marriage certificates for Samuel (son of Hyam Isaacs to Hannah Lyon, 8 Aug 1838) and a John Isaacs (son of Hyam Isaacs to Mary Solomon, 10 Dec 1837).^14,15 John’s ages in the censuses are variable but it is not out of the ball park to identify him with Jacob.^4,3,16,17 So we now have nine children who are probably the offspring of Hyam and Catherine. In roughly birth order: Samuel (1809); Henry Hyam (1810); Zose/Zuss/etc (c. 1813); Jacob/John (1815); Fanny/Frances (c. 1820); Betsy/Elizabeth (c. 1823); Rosa/Rosetta (c. 1825); Isaac/James (c. 1826) and Elizabeth (c. 1833). We also have a probable son of Hyam and Fanny (Michael, c. 1801)) plus a possible daughter of Hyam, mother uncertain (Sarah). The final family structure built from this mixture of direct and indirect evidence is shown below.

6. With information from an ever increasing amount of online databases

Further support for this family structure comes from DNA matches for myself and my father. I have identified 18 matches who are descended from six of the eight full siblings of Fanny Isaacs enumerated above, plus one match who descends from Michael.^18,19 According to specialist researchers I am what is known as a “golden nugget” for Jewish Genealogical research.²⁰ Having just one Jewish ancestor (at the 3xgreat-grandparent level) clarifies relationships for relatives with extensive, recent Jewish ancestry where the ancestral lines are confused by endogamy within the Jewish community. To quote Douglas Adams, “glad to be of service”.

7. Support for my work from DNA matches. The green highlighted box is my ancestor, Fanny Isaacs. The yellow highlighted boxes are proposed siblings of Fanny among whose descendants I have been able to trace a DNA match.

I cannot guarantee that there will not be further additions to this family in the future, but I’m reasonably confident that the family group is accurate as far as it goes.

Sources

1. England and Wales, birth certificate for Henry John Common, born 4 May 1844; citing 2/526/491, Jun quarter 1844, Whitechapel registration district, Holgate sub-district; General Register Office, Southport.
2. England and Wales, marriage certificate for Henry Common and Fanny Isaacs, married 4 Sep 1843; citing 2/368/335, Sep quarter 1843, Shoreditch registration district; General Register Office, Southport.
3. 1851 England Census, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 25 Dec 2009.
4. 1841 England Census, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 25 Dec 2009.
5. England and Wales, birth certificate for Simon Robert Common, born 14 Nov 1839; citing 2/102/389, Dec quarter 1839, St George in the East registration district, St Paul sub-district; General Register Office, Southport.
6. St George in the East Parish Registers, St George in the East, London, England, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 19 Nov 2010.
7. Christ Church Watney Street Parish Registers, St George in the East, London, England, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 19 Nov 2010.
8. London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 25 Dec 2009.
9. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 26 Sep 2020.
10. England and Wales, death certificate for Hyam Isaacs, died 21 Jul 1849; citing 2/765/448, Sep quarter 1849, Whitechapel registration district, Aldgate sub-district; General Register Office, Southport.
11. Shire, Angela, Great Synagogue Marriage Records 1791-1830, Crediton, 1999.
12. Gent, Frank J., New Synagogue Records CD, Crediton, 2002.
13. Synagogue Scribes, https://synagoguescribes.com/blog/, Accessed 21 Sep 2020.
14. England and Wales, marriage certificate for Samuel Isaacs and Hannah Lyons, married 8 Aug 1838; citing 02/161/11, Sep quarter 1838, City of London registration district, General Register Office, Southport.
15. England and Wales, marriage certificate for John Isaacs and Mary Solomons, married 10 Dec 1837; citing 02/261/6, Dec quarter 1837, City of London registration district, General Register Office, Southport.
16. 1861 England Census, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 25 Dec 2009.
17. 1871 England Census, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 25 Dec 2009.
18. Ancestry ThruLines for Alfred Commons (https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/5C9DF31B-1477-4562-84BC-ED25F3066CCC?filterBy=all).
19. Ancestry ThruLines for Susan Law (https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-matches/list/080ab020-82f7-4145-bc9c-3bf177830102).
20. Legacy Family Tree Webinars, 'Dealing with Endogamy', https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/dealing-with-endogamy/?fbclid=IwAR3GSWO1eKwU4OnenUqMUyUqAOkSjjEbjdSw4bjcoTAPD_iHHYxmjK_tZps, Accessed 13 Sep 2022.

Background to using DNA

 As a trained scientist I have no difficulty understanding the basics of the science and mathematical statistics underlying genetic genealogy, but I also do not believe in re-inventing the wheel, so I started looking for websites which demonstrated techniques to use. This blog post is a list of the sites I have found most useful and why. This is not intended to be a one-time blog post, but hopefully will grow as I come across more useful sites.

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Diahan Southard's "Your DNA Guide"

 This really set me on the right track in organising my DNA matches, grouping them by "Most Recent Common Ancestor(s)" (MRCA). Yes, I bought the book. If you want to and don't want a solid copy I would suggest purchasing the PDF version from the web site. In particular I would suggest reading the following blog posts on the site:

• DNA Triangulation: explains how to use shared matches (in Ancestry and other sites) to identify MRCAs without ploughing down to segment level,
• What is a Genetic Network: explains the concepts underlying DNA Triangulation

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DNA Painter

 Online visualisation tools for getting your head around your DNA matches (particularly for a very visual person like me). It has tools to help people with recent "non-parental events" locate themselves within a potential family tree and for those people who want to dig down to segment level in their analysis. The section I use most often is:

• The Shared cM Tool: based on the work of a group of genetic statisticians, this allows to isolate the possible relationships a certain level of common cMs can cover.

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The Genetic Genealogist

 One of the pioneers of genetic genealogy (and yes I've purchase one of his books), his blog ranges widely over the uses of DNA in genealogy. He was one of the founders of:

• The Shared cM Project: a statistical analysis of relationships and the variations in shared cM which can occur. This is the data underlying "The Shared cM Tool" (above)

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The Leeds Method

 A method for sorting out your high cM matches into genetic networks, and seeing if you have any recent pedigree collapse. Plenty of explanatory blog posts to help you.

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DNA Explained

 I've only just come across this blog via one of the best coverages of ThruLines^TM I've seen:

• ThruLines Suggests Potential Ancestors – How Accurate Are They?: explains how the "potential ancestors" feature of Ancestry trees is used to create a ThruLine, and how to use these suggestions.

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 That's all for now, folks. Good luck with your DNA matches.

When Ancestry ThruLines™ gets it Wrong

 ThruLines is a marvellous tool for sorting out your more distant DNA connections, but it depends on the majority of people having accurate trees on ancestry (see "Getting the best out of an autosomal DNA test"). When there are a substantial number of inaccurate trees for a family ThruLines can be led astray.

In January 2021 I found a AncestryDNA^© Match with a suggested ThruLines link¹:

You and [DNA Match]
< 1% shared DNA | 6 cM across 1 segments
Unweighted shared DNA: 6 cM
Longest segment: 6 cM

Shortly after this Matches with such low cM values were cut from the results unless you had marked or noted them in some way. It was also relatively early days for ThruLines.

Figure 1 shows the relationship suggested by ThruLines with John Wickham (1737-1825) and Mary Baldwyn (1736-1825) as our Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs).

Figure 1: The genetic link as proposed by ThruLines.

The late marriage is not unusual, but for a premarital child of a couple to keep their mother’s surname is. It usually indicates that the child is not the offspring of the groom. Also the middle name ‘Field’ is unexpected if the father is John Wickham.

Looking at Poor Law records:

East Sussex Bastardy Orders: Mayfield:
“1829 Dec 4 Maintenance order on Joseph FIELD, labourer tp for a bastard son of Phoebe DANN born 2 Jan 1828 (Par.422/34/2/127)
[Phoebe DANN married 27 June 1835 at Mayfield, John WICKHAM, widower].
Alfred Field son of Phoebe DANN, spinster, baptised 8 February 1829.”²

So according to Phoebe, Alfred Field Dann is her son by Joseph Field, which at least explains the middle name. But where does the Wickham link come from? Is it via Joseph Field or Phoebe Dann? It turns out there is a link via Phoebe herself³.

Phoebe Dann is the daughter of Thomas Dann and Jane Hobbs. Jane Hobbs is the daughter of William Hobbs and Elizabeth WICKHAM. Elizabeth Wickham is the daughter of Richard Wickham and Ann Colchin. She is also the sister of John Wickham, father of my 3xgreat-grandmother, Ruth Wickham, and grandfather of Phoebe's husband John Wickham, who is thus a second cousin of Phoebe Dann as well as her husband. So the MRCAs for my DNA Match and myself are (in the absence of any other link) Richard Wickham and Ann Colchin, and the DNA match and I are seventh cousins. Figure 2 shows the actual relationship.

Figure 2: An actual genetic link

I now have this information in my Ancestry tree, but the DNA Match does not appear as a ThruLine any more as it is eight generations back. I don’t mind, I value accuracy above ease.

This sort of multiple relationship can make sorting out DNA links complicated. Because of Phoebe’s Wickham ancestry, it would be easy to assume that all her children were fathered by her eventual husband, John Wickham. However any descendant of Phoebe Dann would show a Wickham link, as shown by the DNA Match of mine descended from Alfred Dann. Statistically though descendants of Phoebe by John Wickham would have the chance of a double dose of Wickham/Colchin DNA and average twice the amount of shared DNA compared to the descendants of Phoebe alone. The suggested link still appears on ThruLines for other DNA matches of mine who are descendants of Alfred Field Dann, hence the use of this example in a blog post.

Multiple marriages can also cause confusion, particularly for husbands who favour a particular given name in their wives. Another DNA match of mine traces their ancestry back to Jane Knight (1824-1904, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Knight)¹. In their tree they identify Elizabeth Knight with Elizabeth Rolph (1810-1855, married Richard Knight in 1830) and our MRCAs to be William Rolph (1787-1860) and Sarah Borders (1789-1869). (This match is part of a large genetic network of Rolph/Borders descendants.) However this identification would make Elizabeth Rolph only 14 years old when Jane was born (and occurs six years before the Knight-Rolph marriage). Of course the answer is that Richard Knight had a previous marriage (to Elizabeth Stapleton (1799-1828) and Jane is the child of this marriage. Jane cannot then carry the Rolph/Borders genes, so where is the link?

Looking at the family tree we find that Jane Knight's son, Daniel Filler (1851-1928) married Phoebe Philpott (1853-1902). Phoebe Philpott is the daughter of Eliza Knight (1832-1914), the granddaughter of Elizabeth Rolph (1810-1855) and thus half-cousin of Daniel Filler. So it is Eliza Knight (half sister of Jane Knight) who carries the Rolph/Borders genes and is the actual link back to William Rolph (1787-1860) and Sarah Borders (1789-1869)³.

Figure 3: How incorrect trees can confuse ThruLines

Figure 3 shows the situation with the red dashed lines showing the genetic link as currently suggested by ThruLines and the green lines showing the actual genetic link, confirming the Rolph-Borders marriage as the MRCAs. Of course there is also a possibility of other, as yet undiscovered, links particularly in the sort of small, country villages inhabited by both the above examples.

The moral of this post is to always, ALWAYS double check anything in an online tree or suggested tree. Check for supporting documentation, check for reasonableness, check for alternative possibilities.

Sources

1. Ancestry ThruLines for Susan Law (https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/080AB020-82F7-4145-BC9C-3BF177830102?filterBy=all).
2. Burchall, Michael J. East Sussex Bastardy Papers 1594-1845 (CD ROM). Edited by The Parish Register Transcription Society. Lewes, UK: Sussex Family History Group, 2009.
3. Susan Law's Ancestry Tree (https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/tree/52067358/family?cfpid=13296141854). Private tree, access by request.

Getting the best out of an autosomal DNA test

This blog post is based on my experience using AncestryDNA^® for family history research.  AncestryDNA is an autosomal DNA test which (subject to statistical variation) is a “broad spectrum” test covering all antecedent lines.¹ Much of what I say will, however, be applicable to any autosomal DNA test system, but Ancestry does have the biggest sample set of tests.

Once your DNA sample has been analysed Ancestry provides three sets of results:

1. An Ethnicity Estimate,
2. A list of all your DNA Matches with shared DNA equal to 8 cM or greater,
3. ThruLines^TM, a suggested line of connection, based on analysis of Ancestry family trees (private and otherwise) if one can be found.
   

Further background on the AncestryDNA testing and analysis process is available on the Ancestry web site.²

1. Ethnicity

Unless you are primarily interested in anthopology, the Ethnicity Estimate doesn’t help much with family history. Due to the random nature of DNA inheritance, the whole of a particular ancestor’s DNA can have disappeared from your chromosome set. I have 4% European Jewish DNA. A remote cousin via my Jewish ancestors has none.

2. DNA matches

When I first did my test this was the only result useful for family history. Even so the usefulness depended on how much work the matches had put in their end and how accurate that work was (and whether, like me, they prefer to keep their tree private). I have three first cousins in the list whom I know and who were already in my tree. Two of them have online trees, helpful, but mainly containing information I already knew.

The next three with 93-109cM match values have no trees and minimal information on their profiles. By looking at the shared matches I can assign them to either my mother’s or my father’s side and define a rough branch. Two of them have surnames which do not appear in my tree. I don’t know where to start looking for them. The third has a family surname, but I still can’t track him down.

No tree, no personal info, no use (even with high level of DNA match).

The next match (91cM) had a family surname and a VERY small tree, most of which were living people, but she had linked her DNA to it and the one named person was in my tree. I was able to investigate her line and add it to my tree.

Even a small tree is useful as long as it is accurate.

A match at 58cM had a private tree. Even though it is linked, the only way I can directly make use of it is by contacting the owner and requesting access. I don’t blame them. When I first subscribed to Ancestry (15 years ago) I uploaded my careful research to a public tree and found large chunks of it taken and attached to totally unrelated trees. So I made my tree private and have happily shared it with anyone who requests access and can prove how they are related to me. This process can be tedious and this is where ThruLines comes in (see below).

Be prepared to respond to tree access requests in a reasonable and timely fashion if you want to keep your tree private.

A match at 24cM was linked to a public tree with 13,000+ people. Dead cert you might think? There were a lot of common names, but no matching people and no obvious common ancestor(s). The shared matches indicate my mother’s side, but that is as far as I can go.

Accuracy matters more than size in a tree.

3. ThruLines

Added in the last year or so, ThruLines is where Ancestry’s size comes in. Despite all the people who don’t bother with a tree, there are enough trees on Ancestry (with or without DNA links) for someone to have some of your lines in their tree somewhere – as long as what you have in your tree is accurate and you link yourself to it. And this applies to private trees too. You are no longer totally cutting someone off from your tree if you keep it private.

My 91cM match has a relationship suggested in ThruLines, because the linked tree is accurate, even though she only has 8 people in her tree.

My 58cM match with a private tree has a relationship suggested in ThruLines even though her tree is private. I can fill in my relationship with her without accessing information she prefers to keep private.

My 24cM match with a 13,000+ tree does not have a relationship suggested in ThruLines. Considering how many other relationships ThruLines suggests for my tree, I conclude that there is an error in the other tree.

To get the best out of ThruLines you need to link your DNA result to an accurate tree.

My experience with ThruLines is that it is ~75% reliable. It is dependent upon people having accurate trees. For most of the other 25%, you can work out what has gone wrong and still make use of the ThruLines information, but I have had one case where the suggested relationship was rubbish, even to the point of suggesting a relationship on my Father’s side when all the shared matches were on my Mother’s.

With ThruLines, don’t just copy, CHECK carefully.

The final thing I have to say is: what a waste it is to do a DNA test and then do nothing with it. Just a teensy tree with your result linked to it can help. Alternatively, find a relative you trust and let them manage your DNA result and link it to their tree.³

Sources

1. International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki, ‘Autosomal DNA’, https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA, accessed 23 Aug 2021.
2. Ancestry Australia, ‘Ancestry DNA White Papers’ https://support.ancestry.com.au/s/article/AncestryDNA-White-Papers3, accessed 23 Aug 2021.
3. Ancestry Australia, ‘Assigning a Manager to Your AncestryDNA® Test’, https://support.ancestry.com.au/s/article/Assigning-a-Manager-to-Your-AncestryDNA-Test, accessed 24 Aug 2021.