How do I know if DNA ThruLines for a potential ancestor are true?

[Beatles78]

Hi all,

I descend from Adam Warfield (born 1774 in Franklin County, PA) via his son, George Warfield, born 1805 in TN. Adam's a brick wall for me, I had thought that he was possibly descended from Samuel Warfield from MD, but there is no paper trail to prove that. Then I stumbled upon ThruLines for a potential ancestor and it's Warfel and Steinbrecher. There are trees that have Adam Warfield as Adam Warfel Warfield, descended from Steinbrecher and Heinrich Warfel.  I have ThruLines on ancestry DNA that shows that I'm a DNA match to several descendants of Christina Steinbrecher, born 1757 in PA....so I'm wondering now if my Warfield line did not hail from the English Warfields, but from the German Warfels! The other clue I had found is the 1800 census for Adam Warfield. He was surrounded by German surnames. Would an Englishman be in a German community? The other clue I had was where my ancestor George Warfield was buried. He is buried in a family cemetery of another Steinbrecher descendant - in the McCormick, Fruits, Snyder cemetery in Alamo, IN. My friend and I were wondering why my ancestor ended up in her family's cemetery (she's in fact, a Steinbrecher descendant!) Could this be true, could she and I be related?? She and I do not match DNA on Ancestry, but we know they have a higher threshold and it could be higher than our shared cM, if any.

So what do I make of all this? There are also repeated names in Adam's and George's children that were in Steinbrecher/Warfel families.

I would love it if anyone could direct me to some sort of truth here or how to find it!

Thanks,
Stephanie

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Thrulines are based on trees of Ancestry users not DNA, the most common version of a pedigree is usually the one the suggestions are based on but that doesn't make it the correct one. I have dozens of wrong suggestions and the trees they come from are invariably Ancestry users who are not in my match list.
 
As for matches Ancestry consider 8cM as the lower limit to be considered a match but only around  85-90% of 3rd cousins meet that criteria & it drops to around 30% of 5th cousins. With distant relatives it's often a case of hoping a large number of  family have tested in order to find a sufficient number of matches to suggest a genuine connection.

[4b2]

Look at the shared matches Ancestry is showing for the suggested thru-lines connections. Mark the ones as unidentifiable with a note to say so. Look through the trees for common places, surnames, and people. Hopefully you will see some common matches between the shared matches, which could be Warfield or otherwise. If the trees have dead-end ancestors, open that dead-end and search for them in public trees.

Being a shared match of another match does not mean you three share the same DNA + line of Ancestry. So you will typically want to look for shared matches where there are multiple overlaps that would look something like this in a graph.



On average, you will typically be able to find matches on a line back to births around 1750 if you are born around 1950, with typical generational gaps. However, you can find them back to the later 1600s and probably earlier. Since you are from the US, you will have more matches than people with British ancestry, so it's more likely you might have an extra generation or more on that line.

Thru-lines will pull out any of your matches that have any apparent shared line of Ancestry, as per Ancestry trees. So if you have 50,000 matches, you might be looking at 500k-1m unique people that happen to be ancestors of your matches.

[scotmum]

This old article about Thrulines is well worth a read:

https://dna-explained.com/2019/03/11/ancestrys-thrulines-dissected-how-to-use-and-not-get-bit-by-the-gators/

[Biggles50]

The answer to your question in the subject line is simple, you do not know Thrulines to be true.

Due diligence is necessary to research each person thoroughly before and as you add them, then if the evidence shows them to be in error delete them and flag up the match as having an odd Thruline.

When you look at a specific DNA match and follow the Thruline the “Evaluate” tag is important.

Frequently Thrulines will show say John Smith having a Father called Bill Smith but then when you click in Evaluate and look at the Trees you will often find that the trees which are used to cobble together the Thruline will have not Bill but Charlie Smith as the Father.  Ergo, you cannot trust Thrulines.

Next low cM matches, they are not reliable without documentation to support them.  8cM matches can lead to them being included in your tree and in turn that can lead back to generations being added ad these may be completely false relatives. Voice of experience here, I fell into this hole in my early DNA days and included people who are not biologically related to me.  The end result is for me I am not really interested in DNA matches who share DNA with me if said share is 15cM or less, the caveat being unless there is a compelling reason to research them further.

At 3xG GP level and beyond each of us is likely to have inherited no DNA from them such is the random nature of DNA recombination.  Yet a sibling could.

Hypothesis and theories, the Germanic origins do look as they require further investigation and consideration.  As with any do repeatedly revisit the theory to see if the probabilities of it being valid are still applicable.

[Beatles78]

Look at the shared matches Ancestry is showing for the suggested thru-lines connections. Mark the ones as unidentifiable with a note to say so. Look through the trees for common places, surnames, and people. Hopefully you will see some common matches between the shared matches, which could be Warfield or otherwise. If the trees have dead-end ancestors, open that dead-end and search for them in public trees.

I've got some work to do! I do know that when I looked at ThruLines, I added all those descendant matches to a "Steinbrecher" group I created. Then looked at each of them individually and see if they matched each other. I went through the first 3 matches and they match 10,12 14 people in that Steinbrecher group that I had created and added those descendants to. So that's a positive sign perhaps?

[Biggles50]

If you subscribe to ProTools then create a series of Clusters using members of your Group as per 4b2’s suggestion.

Those that share with the most in a Cluster should be the first ones to research.

[Beatles78]

I do not subscribe to ProTools but maybe I should for a month when I have the time!

[Beatles78]

Being a shared match of another match does not mean you three share the same DNA + line of Ancestry. So you will typically want to look for shared matches where there are multiple overlaps that would look something like this in a graph.

Ok I purchased the protools to generate clusters chart. I selected the main match and then 4 shared matches between us and I got these charts. Can someone assist with understanding these?