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I have built the tree of a match back way beyond the MRCA that we share more than once before now and the two trees may have a different name or date along the way but Thrulines will display the pedigree line of the match using their tree.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I am learning all the time.

Just to briefly explain what I am trying. I want to find a family in Wales in the 1800s. I have matches, but can't connect the matches to "my" tree (actually my cousin-in-law's tree). The multiple use of the same few names in Wales makes that task very difficult - there are always many different possibilities of the same names and in the same area. So I am trying different possibilities in ThruLines to see if any matches come up, thus saving me heaps of tedious work.

In my last post here, I described how ThruLines chose a different 3 x Great Grandfather than I had in my tree. So I tried a different Great Grandfather and this time Thrulines adjusted and showed this person. So that's all good (except still no matches so far).

So it seems there must be triggers or criteria that decide whether ThruLines shows my tree or the tree of matches, and I'd like to try to understand that. So I'm wondering if you could explain, please, what you mean by "Thrulines will display the pedigree line of the match using their tree".

Thanks.

It's hard to explain and I can imagine it's hard to follow when reading

No actually, it was really helpful thanks. I am about to have a go at it.

I have been given temporary control of the account, so I have a subscription and we have Pro Tools.

Just to reiterate, the matter we are researching, John Jones married Elfreda Milthorpe, had 9 children and then died. Elfreda then married Edwin Holloway and had 3 more children. DNA testing has shown that the last of the 9 "Jones" children, Kate, was actually fathered by Edwin (a descendant of Kate matches a descendant of Edwin's sister, which couldn't happen except if he was the father).

So my task is to see if any other of the 9 were also fathered by Edwin rather than John. I have found many matches with descendants of 6 of the 12 children and I'm trying to make sense of the DNA matches I have. My hope was to use ThruLines to identify possible matches to John's family, so that anyone who matched with them came from John's line.

So I have lots of information, but have been missing the most important, more info and DNA matches about John's parents and siblings. All made more difficult by the fact that everyone in Wales at that time seemd to have the same few names in their trees!

I said I'd try a few ways to "force" ThruLines to include the missing great grandfather, and report back. So far I have tried:

• I checked and verified that there are several relatives in the ThruLines list that don't have any matches, but they are still listed. So that can't be the reason (on its own).
• Most of the people in the ThruLines list are NOT in the tree, but worked out by Ancestry's algorithm. I don't know if they are all correct or not, because I am not interested in those branches of the tree. So that isn't a reason why the person I want is missing.
• I tried removing the relationship between this person and his wife, then re-instating it, as one person here suggested. Nothing changed.
• I tried removing the person completely and re-entering them, again, no difference.
• I tried adding this person's parents (even though this is still speculative), no change.
• I tried changing the spelling of his name, and removing his middle name, again, nothing.
• Finally, I removed spouses of his descendants, so the tree ONLY includes the line I am interested in. Still no effect.

This expremely frustrating. The only option I can think of is to copy the curent tree then remove it completely and then just add the person I am interested in and see what happens.

If anyone has any other ideas, I'm happy to try them thanks.

There is a way to enter a variant spelling or alias that the search engine and (to some extent),  Thrulines is able to use but few people do so correctly, the methods generally used don't fit the algorithms so won't produce results.

Can you clarify this please, it may be helpful for me. Thanks.

I had a problem with discovering my great grandfather as my grandfather was illegitimate.
My sister and I started searching when I was 8.I finally discovered who he was  4-5 years ago so it took about 65 years!

That's amazing! Thanks for sharing that. I think there are ways forward for us too, but it will be difficult.

(1) Civil registration records aren't very helpful, but I notice that there are generally more civil registration birth records than there are baptism records on Ancestry. Some people didn't have their child baptised, some church records have been lost, and of course there were many different churches. Most Welsh records on Ancestry seem to be Anglican, but when John married in Australia it was in a "Primitive Methodist" church. So was that his religion in Wales, and are those records in Ancestry? I will have to check that out. But it may be that the records are simply no longer in existence.

(2) Sometimes the only way to make progress is to buy certificates, which may have more information than is available online. But buying dozens of certificates can be costly! (In Australia they are typically $20 or more, while in Scotland they are only a few dollars.) But I need to look at this option.

(3) Finally there is the old way of going to churches and historical societies in Wales to look at actual records. I'm unable to do that myself, but perhaps we can pay someone to do it. (My great grandmother and my grandmother's birth in Australia was found that way. The online records didn't allow searching on the exact date, but looking at the actual record book at the local council allowed my grandmother's birthdate to be examined.)

So I will have to either wait to see if DNA reveals John's parents, or put in a lot more work, as you did.