How do Thru Lines work?
 

I've linked my aunt to her tree. Lo and behold, she's on Thru Lines.

It has provided a connection to an Australian whose tree is quite rudimentary, only three or so generations and no common names.

It appears to piggy-back that tree onto another to find connections.

I'm sure it's right, since shared matches all point in the same direction.

(Dodgy genealogy mean there are some incorrect potential ancestors for my aunt, btw!)

I have always understood that Thrulines refer to other people's trees and therefore depend on the accuracy of the other person's tree.

In the last couple of days OH has had a couple of Thrulines appear purporting to have a common ancestor. However, the research is rubbish and the "common ancestors" turn out to be the parents of one of the siblings of his ancestor and not the parents of him or his sibling!

The Thruline might well be OK, but you just have to be cautious!

I can see that it can reinforce very poor research, and I'm curious to know what happens if there is a conflict, but it's odd that relationships are appearing without a tree in place that we have entered ourselves.

Yes I've found it is only the quality of other people's trees, so should be sceptical until its proved.

One connection I have has gone further back than me to a Lord - which I think is highly unlikely - I have found nothing to prove the extra generations.

They use other trees, not just yours and your match's tree. You probably do the same when trying to figure out how you are related to some of your matches. I know I do!

That's what I figured, Kite. It's just working out where the missing link actually is. Her tree is completely Australian, no names in common. Aunt's completely in England.

Doesn't it tell you whose tree it came from if you click through?

Be gentle with me, I'm a complete novice at this!

Yes, I am beginning to spot trees, but I'm disappearing down the rabbit hole again, especially since some of the tree owners are spouses etc, so themselves have no DNA match. I've only just spotted the common ancestor filter.

This would be good fun for best mate's tree - but I'll need her permission before I start.

I have that a lot with my 4th cousins and closer with trees from Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand.

I kid you not one tree has over 95,000 people! I still can't find a name in common :D

The three matches that frustrate me a lot is the Pawnie Indian one and two in New Zealand. One of the New Zealand ones has a shared match with my closest match one of my first cousin's children which is frustrating because when I get a shared match with her it is usually then quite easy to see the connection.

I have 10,000 people in my tree and I still have loads of mystery matches, Maggie. Of course, often a tree is based on official records but the biological facts don't fit them.