Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Ancestry.com Provides a Relationship Calculator in Your Ancestry Member Tree

Ancestry.com provides a Relationship to me for a person in my Ancestry Member Tree.  It is right under the name, birth date and death date on the profile of a person in my tree.  

1)  For instance, here is the person profile for Peregrine White (1620-1704):


The relationship shown is that Peregrine White is my 9th great-grandfather.

2)  Another example:  here is the person profile for Doris Watts (1921-2005):


Doris is my 4th cousin.

3)  I have Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) in my Ancestry Member Tree - here is his profile in my tree:


Abraham is my 3rd cousin 5 times removed of the husband of the sister-in-law of my 9th great aunt.

That is cool, but how did they get that?  Evidently, Ancestry has a relationship calculator.

What I want to know is "who is this 9th great aunt?  Who is the sister-in-law, and her husband?"

4)  I noticed, just in passing, that the Relationship is a link!  I clicked on the relationship and there is the list of the persons that define the relationship (3 screens, some overlap):



So there it is.  The 9th great-aunt is Frances Hill (1632-1676), her husband is Jonah Austin (1630-1683), and his sister is Mary Austin (1632-1694), wife of Thomas Lincoln (1630-1708), the second great-grandson of Robert Lincoln (1529-1556), who is Abraham Lincoln's 7th great-grandfather.

Now, what I really wish is that Ancestry provides a way to print out that relationship in a chart that shows the paths between the principals (i.e., me and Honest Abe).  

5)  Of course, the relationship estimation is only as good as the information in my Ancestry Member Tree.  

If a person in my Ancestry Member Tree is not related to the Home person in the tree, then no relationship will be listed.  If no Home person for the tree has been identified, then no relationship will be provided.

6)  I have the Lincoln line in my Ancestry Member Tree because my grandchildren are related to Abraham Lincoln also - he is their 8th cousin 7 times removed.

I have another wish - that I can specify two people in my tree, my granddaughter and Abraham Lincoln - and have the Ancestry Member Tree tell me their relationship, and show me the path.  I can only find that relationship if I make my granddaughter the Home person in my Ancestry Member Tree.


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3 comments:

Steve K said...

If this tree was synced to your tree in FTMM3 ( or FTM 2014) the same relationship tool can generate the report between any two people in you tree. My wish would be for it to show that my cousin Ellen and I are double cousins through both the Kunnmann and Koster lines.

Barb said...

This is EXACTLY why I read your blog. I did not realize you could click on the relationship. Cool tool!!!

VickieB said...

The relationship is not always as you think it should be, Ancestry uses the closest connection to determine the relationship rather than straight line.