Ancestry Pro Tools

[Glen TK]

Parent and child combinations in protools can be useful. It does show which side of the child's tree you link through, I have quite a few that show there are half siblings to a particular parent and that parent is then the focus of any further research.

For me the downside is the cost given the circumstances in my tree, I have too many NPE events in the first 3 generations, of my 18k matches only just over 400 are >20cM. I've managed to link about 80 to my tree, many of them on floating branches. My tree has almost tripled in size but there's too many showmen, army deserters and name changing or AWOL soldiers ho vanish into thin air.

[marquette]

Just thought I would report in on what I have been doing with ProTools.

Dad and I, and several cousins here in Australia, have a DNA match (Dad at 74cMs) to a lady in the US and her brother (Dad at 36) but nothing in her small tree led to an explanation of how.

My 2g grandfather came to Australia in the 1850s, along with his 2 brothers and one sister. They settled in northern Tasmania, Melbourne and Sydney. On her side, her mother's family is of German origin, but there is little on her father.

I got into WATO, which I have not used for a while, and put in all the cousins cMs matches now available through ProTools.

WATO suggests the most likely hypothesis is that the lady and her brother are 2xg grandchildren of the brother of my ggf, the only one who remained in England. Now I just have to figure out if one of his sons went to America, more likely than one of his grandsons, but I will keep an open mind.

The next most likely was that they are 2xg or 1xg grandchildren of another brother, who came to Sydney, but I am pretty sure there are no "unknown children" lurking there who might have had occasion to go to America.

There were so many "half" cousin options presented by Ancestry that it was difficult to see where the path was, everyone was "half 3rd cousin once removed or 4th cousin" but WATO had it worked out with 40 minutes input.
WATO had a lot of hypotheses, over 30 but when I deleted the "Unknown half sibling" where I knew there were no unknowns, it came down to 17.

This probably won't work for many of my mystery matches, as they have much lower cM matches. WATO works best with over 40.

[kiterunner]

How can you know that there are no unknown half-siblings?

[marquette]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

How can you know that there are no unknown half-siblings?

I suppose I don't really know, but the unknown half sibling hypotheses of WATO were no more likely than others.

I guess I will have to try again, leaving in the unknowns.

[Mary from Italy]

I do use DNAPainter, but I haven't tried WATO yet. Might be useful for a contact who's adopted; I have numerous shared matches with him, so I know which side of my tree he's related to, but I still haven't worked out how we're connected.

[Glen TK]

One thing I've picked up with a few matches are kits assigned to a family member rather than the ancestry user themselves. When building the tree of a match the match is the starting point and it's surprisingly easy to miss a male username with a pink icon for example. It's only when a male username appears in protools as the aunt to another match that the penny drops.
I had several members of one family all pop up as matches in one go and it became obvious in protools the kits were assigned to the wrong family members, whether it was a genuine error or if there was some attempt to try and disguise the identity/relationships is unknown.

[Phoenix]

I took this out as a belated Christmas present to myself. I had hoped that I might solve the mystery of those huge groups related to me but not to any relatives.

No chance.

Having only subscribed for a month, I'm frantically scrabbling for any last minute breakthroughs, but it's becoming very obvious that unless you have a really strong relationship, the cousin and their cousin may share an ancestor completely unrelated to you. (Yes, I ought to have known, but hope triumphs over experience every time!)

[Jill]

I signed up on their reduced price for a months sub and have already cancelled with 10 days to go as I see very little point. I have rectified half a dozen errors and have been able to work out which child belongs to which of two of my 2nd cousins. I might do a month next year if they have an offer.

[Lindsay]

Likewise. I took out a subscription hoping it would help unravel a mystery group I'm pretty sure are associated with my German g-grandfather, but got absolutely nowhere. I've now cancelled.

I'm glad it's not just me struggling to see the benefit!

[KiwiChris]

I have been wondering about looking at this but wondered if it might be helpful to me.
I am in contact with the child of my second cousin who was adopted out. She has any number of matches on her mothers side, so we have that side sorted, but she has very few close matches on her father side, the closest being second cousin 1x removed 180cM. We have tried to contact all of her closest matches but with little success. One woman has given me access to her DNA results, and shee has a tree, but I cannot work it out.
Would Pro tools be useful to try and narrow down where her father might fit into their trees?