But, and you know there is always a but to these things, sometimes you get the dreaded . . .
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| Private tree graphic |
And what is even worse is this . . .
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| Leaf match in a private tree graphic |
Then things take a turn for the worse when you write the match via Ancestry and never get an answer from them about who the identity of the MRCA ancestors are.
Down page from here in this blog I wrote a detailed research tip on clicking on the profile of your match and see if they have some public trees listed in their profile.
http://family-genealogy.blogspot.com/2014/05/ancestrydna-research-tip-leaf-and.html
Based on my research about 25% to 30% of the private trees on my DNA pages have public trees listed on their Ancestry.com profile page. More than likely this is just a issue of your match not knowing that they should link their DNA results to their public tree or they didn't have a tree when they took the test, but they do not or haven't remembered to attach that tree to their DNA results (or do not know how to do it).
When I get one of these profile tree results, I will send them and Ancestrymail message letting them know I am willing to help them link their tree to their DNA results. It has paid off.
But, another item that I should mention is that Ancestry has admitted that they have some occasional issues with their Ancestrymail system. I have no less than a dozen different times when my cousins indicated they did not get a notification from Ancestry that they had mail from me. In one case this was a leaf match in a private tree and after three months, a couple of emails and a feedback report to Ancestry my match finally got back to me.
While this whole AncestryDNA thing is not perfect, I much prefer working with my AncestryDNA results than my FTDNA Family Finder. That site is much more labor intensive and about the only thing I use it for is their advanced tools for matches such as the chromosome browser, etc.
Bottom line dear blog reader, if you get either of these two graphics below be sure to check that match's profile page. You may still get the info you seek for that DNA match.
