mirror tree plus ThruLines

Question

I'm just wondering if mirror tree work is in disfavour.  

I'm getting interesting results by attaching my spare DNA results into the family trees i have built for groups of my shared matches who obviously are all related to each other although i have no idea how they relate to me.  The computer is doing a lot of the work of locating the common ancestors among the matches in the 'bucket'.  

I label the DNA kit "Mirror Tree Work" and keep it private, of course.  This hasn't caused a breakthrough yet, but it has led to a lot of clarity on exactly how the matches in each group are related to each other, even though of course some of the hints are obviously just plain wrong and others prove wrong upon further research.  Combined with info from GEDmatch and FTDNA, there are enough seemingly valid hints that i feel like continuing with this methodology.

But is this practice frowned upon?

Cheers

Shirlea

Answer 1

I find the Through Lines suggestions are right between 33% and maybe 50% of the time.  That leaves a lot of room for error.   What I don't like is I don't see a way of saying, no this one is not correct...  since they come from other's trees it is a huge task to try to figure out who has the wrong info and get them to correct it.  

Example I have a brick wall in my Eva Weber who married Fred Walter.  She was born calculation based on census records and obituary...  around 1832.  There is an Eva Weber born in Hesse Darmstadt in that year... but she died when she was 3 so can't possibly be my 2x great grandmother. And Through lines keeps connecting her and her father to my tree and it is flat out wrong.    But I have no way to easily communicate that.   What I would rather do is have a way of eliminating the bad ones so another suggestion could fill in.  But alas that is not currently part of the functionality.  

Mirror trees are still used by a lot of researchers.  

Another thing I do is take slips of paper and create a tree on my floor.   If the person is confirmed they get a red check mark.  I may have the same person on multiple slips with their CMs and the various locations that DNA painter suggests.   I find that to be quicker than building multiple trees.

Answer 2

WikiTree is not designed for mirror trees.

Comments

sorry, Peter, i wasn't talking about WikiTree, but about my sandbox DNA research which i do using tools at Ancestry.com. GEDmatch, FTDNA etc.

Answer 3

I'm guessing you are talking about a mirror tree on Ancestry.com since you mention ThruLines.  There is nothing wrong with doing a mirror tree.  You've got it private.  I did this when I was initially trying to figure out my grandmother's father.  When you no longer need it, you just delete it.