Thursday, January 21, 2016

Ancesrty DNA matching system just gets wierder

For about the last three months I have been fighting major gremlins in the AncestryDNA matching system. One of my first matches at Ancestry/FTDNA for me and my dad was with a Texas Witt family cousin. That leaf match has totally disappeared, his tree is listed as private (it isn't and I am a contributor to the tree), and when I do a DNA surname search for Witt it doesn't even show up. I have called their tech support three times (each lasting well over 1/2 hour) and even though they put a ticket in, no resolution to date.
 
That is just one of the here one minute, gone the next, shows up in a few days again, disappears, etc.
 
Now today I get the weirdest email ever from Ancestry. It is titled "New Shared Ancestor Hint for Warner Lee Van Horn" (my dad).
 
My dad has a match and the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) is him. He is listed as his own father and the match is to an unnamed son. See screen grab below.
 
 
 
 
When I open up the "explore the connection" link, I am greeted with a 4c cousin who is not a leaf match (in fact, her tree is now private. She is a she and not a son as the link above states. See graphic below (click on image to get a closer look).
 
 
 
So I will be on the phone again soon with Ancestry to try to understand this bizarre occurrence. I swear this folks are going to make an old man out of me yet! ;-)