Unassigned

[HarrysMum]

I have quite a few unassigned matches on Ancestry.
These have all been there long before updates and several show a common ancestor. How does that work?

[kiterunner]

They only use the DNA to assign matches to a parental side, not trees.

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by HarrysMum

I have quite a few unassigned matches on Ancestry.
These have all been there long before updates and several show a common ancestor. How does that work?

I wish I knew how it worked, as I have several long standing matches with 50cM or more in common that are unassigned, and I would have thought that with that much to play with, they could make decisions.

My cousin has only a tiny quantity of her matches assigned - well under 1000 on either side. I can only assume that this is down to underlying health problems, so that vital bits of her DNA have mutated.

[Lindsay]

Originally Posted by HarrysMum

I have quite a few unassigned matches on Ancestry.
These have all been there long before updates and several show a common ancestor. How does that work?

Likewise - I have 83 maternal matches, 472 paternal, and 12,8886 unassigned.

Cousins/2nd cousins with whom I share a lot of DNA are not assigned, and nearly all the assigned matches I have, say I don't have any shared matches in common with them.

[HarrysMum]

So you can have unassigned even with a common ancestor? These common ancestors are our great grandparents. In my unassigned, our grandparents were siblings each time…..both my paternal and maternal sides.

[Phoenix]

As Kite says, the paper trail doesn't necessarily follow the same path as the DNA. I have people with false common ancestors, or a choice of two. I dare say that I could create a fictitious tree, and pretend to be, and be accepted as, the cousin of a stranger.

[marquette]

I don't know why I have any unassigned - both my parents have DNA tests on Ancestry. So I presume all my matches share DNA with one of them as well as me.

Although when I went to make the assignation myself, there are some people in my list who Ancestry says they don't share with either parent. No shared matches to help either!

Similarly, shouldn't Ancestry be able to assign my daughters matches, if they don't share with me, then they must be paternal? There is one man whose family tree shows where and why he matches my daughter, but apparently he shares no DNA with me or Dad!

The whole thing seems a waste of time and I have gone back to revising my tree, to see what new information Ancestry might have.

[HarrysMum]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

As Kite says, the paper trail doesn't necessarily follow the same path as the DNA. I have people with false common ancestors, or a choice of two. I dare say that I could create a fictitious tree, and pretend to be, and be accepted as, the cousin of a stranger.

These few I’m talking about are definitely related through DNA. I still don’t quite get it.
Mine are between 200 and 400 shared cM.
Certainly been there a couple of years so not new.

[Glen TK]

Paternal 7,152 matches
Maternal 5,687 matches
Unassigned 3,096 matches

Several unnassigned show common ancestors, the closest relative of all being one of them. The last update appears to have been Dec according to my Ancestry page.

Apart from the lack of trees and the fact people read messages but don't respond the thing I always find the most frustrating is the common communities, I can literally refresh the page and they change countries for both parents, one minute it's a particular part of Ireland, the next is more generic Irish and then changes to the Midlands.

[Kit]

I think common ancestors comes from trees, like thrulines does but assignment looks at DNA only.

I'm not sure exactly how assignment works though and if common matches are used or not to help make decisions.