Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Now I Have 25 New Ancestor Discoveries! Really?

Before last week, I had only three New Ancestor Discoveries (NADs) on my AncestryDNA page.  I wrote about them earlier in AncestryDNA Says I Have NADs (New Ancestor Discoveries) (posted 17 November 2015).  In the post, I said that I was very sure that the two NADs I had were not my ancestors based on my genealogical research and that of others.

Last week, all of a sudden I had 25 New Ancestor Discoveries!  All 25 of them were born and lived in the early 19th century.  Here are the first 8 of the 25:



The names and parents names and birth places of the first 2 on the list are:

*  Alonzo Howland Cook (1755-1933), son of Phineas Wolcott Cook and Ann Eliza Howland, born in Salt Lake City.


The information about the DNA Circle has two parts - information from other Ancestry Member Trees and the DNA Circle with the matching persons shown:


Here is the Facts page for Alonzo Howland Cook - it says that there were 291 Ancestry Member Trees and he was married 4 times and had 14 children:


There are 13 members in this DNA Circle, and I share DNA with 3 of them;  I share 8.8 cM in one segment with the earliest descendant (a granddaughter) of this person in the DNA Circle.  As I understand the system, that means that we are probably 5th to 8th cousins, and we probably share 4th to 7th great-grandparents of mine.  There are some common ancestral surnames on the list of matching surnames, but they are all back in the 17th century - 10 to 12 generations back from me.

*  William Hallam Worthen (1847-1925), son of Samuel Worthen and Mary Ellen Hallam, born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He is in 247 Ancestry Member Trees, and had two spouses and 16 children.  There are 16 members in this DNA circle, and I share DNA with 3 of them.  I share 9.4 cM with the earliest descendant (a grandson) of this person in the DNA Circle.  While I have Worthen ancestry in 18th century New England that migrated there in the 1630s, the DNA match's Worthen is from England and migrated to Missouri around 1840.

All 25 of the persons on this New Ancestor Discovery list were born in the 1800s.  In the descendants of the persons I have investigated so far, the amount of shared DNA averages out to be about 9 cM in one segment.  According to DNA charts I've seen, and the AncestryDNA estimates, that should correspond to a 5th to 8th cousin range.  In other words, the common ancestors are children of my 5th to 8th great-grandparents.

I have looked at ten of these persons now, and can frankly state that there is no freaking way that any of those ten are my ancestor.  I have proven almost all of my ancestral families to my satisfaction  back in time to my 3rd great-grandparents.  I am very confident in the names, vital data, and relationships of these people, most of whom were born around 1800.


I do not know the biological parents of one second great-grandparent (Devier J. Lanphear Smith, who is adopted), and five of my third great-grandparents, all born in the late 1700s.  It is possible that an ancestor of these New Ancestor Discoveries is the same as one of my unknown ancestors in my tree, and that might be a correct claim.  But AncestryDNA says these 25 might be my ancestor, and I sincerely doubt that any of them are my ancestor.

AncestryDNA says that up to 50% of these New Ancestor Discoveries might be my ancestor.  I still think that it is much closer to 0%.

How did I jump from 3 New Ancestor Discoveries to 25 on AncestryDNA?  What happened?  I don't know.  For now, i'm not going to pay much attention to them.


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7 comments:

J said...

I jumped from 2 to 5 overnight. The 2 that showed up earlier this work are almost certainly direct connections since their child married someone of my family name. There's an adoption in there which I now believe more than ever was a familial adoption. I'll solve it yet.

The 3 new ones that showed up have no obvious connection, very few DNA matches, and appear to all be Mormons polygamists in Utah/Arizona which I know based on generations could not be the hit. Either the DNA is just similar, some people have faulty trees, or the common ancestor is someone more common that they don't go back to in their own trees. I've spent a good portion of time on it this morning and I just don't feel those three are accurate.

L Smith said...

I have a bunch of new ones, too. I don't see any real connection to any of them. A number of the new names seem to have travelled West to Utah where I have no known connections. I have decided not to spend any more time on "New Ancestor Disvoeries."

Densie said...

I went from one NAD to 19! All of the ones I've looked at lived in the 19th century, in Utah. Since I have a mystery great grandmother who was born 1862 in Michigan I investigate all of these, but so far these NADs are just wrong. It seems to be a useless feature.

Unknown said...

I went from 0 to 19. One, while not a direct ancestor, appears to be a collateral ancestor, and may have led me to the parents of my fourth great-grandfather, which was a brick wall.

T said...

Back when I USED to have my DNA at ancestry, it seemed like my matches came more from family trees than anything else. If there was a Smith in their tree, It's A Match! Not so fast. I've since become so disillusioned with ancestry that I have removed my DNA from there. I have no doubt whatsoever that they still have it. I've had far better results looking at the trees that have saved something from my tree to theirs. Contacting someone about a known shared family member is a lot quicker than telling them they're a match to me but I don't know where.

Melinda said...

Very similar story! None of these "ancestors" are ancestors. There are several that are descended from a common ancestor- 150 years earlier- and oddly are from the branch that moved to Utah. I don't see one ancestor among these folks. I know all my ancestors to 1800 and these aren't them. I don't doubt we share DNA, but the algorithms must be wrong.

anitab said...

Twelve new NAD - and I agree - no real likely connections! These are worse than useless - they are time-wasters!