The More we Add, the More we Connect

 

The wonderful thing about some tech tools for genealogy is that, the more information we add, the better it is that the tools can connect us to the information and people we need.

Recently on Ancestry.com, I received a message to return to my DNA test results to check for updates. Ancestry is apparently rolling out new details. "More of your matches have been updated into parent groups," the email read. On their invitation, I clicked the green button to "see your updates."

This, I presumed, would be when the company resolved some of the DNA matches in the "unassigned" category, but when I checked that entry, it still remained under a banner declaring, "pending update."

Not to worry. Right now, while I'm working on my father-in-law's Tully line, I see Ancestry still has 7,703 matches lined up for that paternal line alone. Let's just say that should keep me busy for at least as long as it takes for Ancestry to get around to actually updating the unassigned category.

Besides, was it merely my imagination, or did I suddenly find new ThruLines matches for that same Tully line, now that I've added upwards of twenty new cousins to that tree? The more that tree grows, the more surnames can connect to other subscribers' trees—the main point of the ThruLines tool. I've added material the tool can sink its teeth into, and now it is churning out the information to guide me further.

When I first told people, years ago when our family first DNA tested, what my game plan was for linking those DNA cousins to their rightful place in my family tree, I invariably heard groans. Yes, it is a lot of work, but now I'm finding even more genetic connections pointing squarely to Irish immigrant Dennis Tully, born 1830 in County Tipperary, being another likely son of my father-in-law's great-grandfather. Through pursuit of collateral lines, once again an entire branch of the family is now coming to light—both in Ontario, Canada, where that immigrant had settled, and now throughout the province and even across the border in the United States.