Sometimes AncestryDNA ThruLines are Wrong: Disproving an Ancestral Hint

While I’m a big fan of the hints from AncestryDNA ThruLines, we know they aren’t always correct. In my classes, I always emphasize the need to “prove or disprove” these hints.

Just yesterday, I decided to put this into practice with a ThruLines hint that resurfaced this weekend while I was teaching about AncestryDNA’s tools. ThruLines pointed to a certain couple as the potential parents of one of my direct ancestors. Hundreds of online family trees agreed. But were they right?

As it turns out, traditional research led to a strong conclusion: hundreds of trees, along with AncestryDNA ThruLines, had it wrong! This story demonstrates why we should always double-check ThruLines as well as what seems to be “accepted” family trees.

Potential Ancestor: Millie Jones

ThruLines suggests a 4th great grandmother for my father: Amelia “Millie” Frances Jones (1740-1830). This hint shows 273 DNA matches between 6 and 3,471 cM. 250 of those matches were for my dad’s direct line, but there were also suggestions through six other potential children as shown below.

Millie Jones is being suggested as a potential mother for our brick wall ancestor Sarah “Sally” Vaughan (1787-1859) who married John Bookout (1782-1857). ThruLines also suggests a potential father for Sarah: John Green Vaughan/Vaughn.

But let’s take a close look at the list of children’s names and their birth years from the above image. You might notice some interesting concerns:

• • Thomas (born 1756)
  • John (born 1765)
  • Amelia (born 1770)
  • William (born 1772)
  • Sarah Ann (born 1774)
  • Sarah (born 1787)
  • William (born 1791)

Let’s examine the following:

• • Age Gaps: There are some large age gaps in this list of children, though it might not include all of Amelia’s children.
  • Late Childbearing: Amelia, the supposed mother of these children, was born around 1740. The birth years of the last two children imply that Amelia would have been around 47 and 51 at their births which seems old for the 1700s.
  • Repeating Names: It’s peculiar that there are two Williams and two Sarahs, both pairs reaching adulthood and with fairly large gaps between their births.

In addition to the ThruLines hints, Ancestry has over 1200 trees that include our Sarah “Sally” Vaughan who married John Bookout. And some of these trees have a lot of sources! But none of the records I reviewed—besides those linking to some type of tree—definitively identified Sarah’s parents.

Instead of building our trees based on other people’s trees, we need to search for original records… like wills.

Searching for Wills

Since we have death dates and places for both John Vaughan and Amelia (Jones) Vaughan, I decided to search for their wills. Perhaps these wills could prove or disprove whether Sarah was their daughter.

Using a FamilySearch index for Mecklenburg County, Virginia—the place where both John and Amelia reportedly died—I was quickly able to find that both John AND Amelia had wills!

John Vaughan’s 1813 Will [1]

Hoping to find a listing for a daughter named Sarah Bookout, I turned to John’s will first. The first six bequests in his will focused on his enslaved people and items left to his wife, including “my land and plantation whereon I now live during her natural life or as long as she remains my widow…” Initially, I was concerned that he wouldn’t mention his children. However, he did, in the following way:

Children Listed in John Vaughan’s Will

• • Stephen Vaughan’s children (inheriting their father’s portion)
  • Amelia Overby
  • Sarah Blank
  • Mary Green
  • Susannah Arrington
  • John Vaughan
  • William Vaughan

Interestingly, one of his daughters is named Sarah Blank. This raised a question: could there have been a clerical error where an actual blank space was mistakenly recorded as the surname “Blank”?

In 1813, my ancestor Sarah was already married to John Bookout, suggesting that John and Amelia Vaughan’s daughter Sarah, if actually married to someone named Blank, is not the same person as my ancestor.

Hoping to determine whether John’s daughter Sarah was married to a man named Blank or if it was a clerical error, I turned to Amelia’s will which was written in 1828 and proved in 1830. I hoped Amelia’s will would clearly list her children providing additional evidence of whether Sarah indeed married a Blank or a Bookout.

Amelia (Jones) Vaughan’s 1828 Will [2]

I had been thrilled to see the index listing for a will for Amelia—an uncommon find for a female in the early 1800s! As I searched for the correct image, I had one big question on my mind: would she list her children? Finding the image, I quickly scanned looking for a list of children. And, excitedly, I found it! Amelia had specificially listed her four daughters and two sons:

• • Mary Green
  • Sally Blanks
  • Susannah Arrington
  • Amelia Overbey
  • John Vaughan
  • William Vaughan

The name that immediately caught my attention was Sally Blanks. This meant that John Vaughan’s will was accurate; their daughter, Sarah “Sally,” had in fact married a man with the surname of Blank(s).

This discovery demonstrated that hundreds of trees on Ancestry, as well as the ThruLines hints, were likely wrong about the parents of Sarah Vaughan who married John Bookout! The information from these two wills was the evidence I needed to challenge the widely accepted belief that Sarah was the daughter of John and Amelia (Jones) Vaughan.

What Next? Discovering and Sharing the Truth

My next step was clear: I wanted to share the true story of this family and continue my search to identify the real parents of our Sarah “Sally” (Vaughan) Bookout. Curious to see how John and Amelia’s daughter, Sarah, was represented in FamilySearch Family Tree and WikiTree, I prepared myself for what I thought would be a lengthy task of making corrections.

FamilySearch Family Tree

I was thrilled to see that the FamilySearch agreed with my findings! The tree correctly identify John and Amelia’s daughter, Sarah Ann (1774-1859), as being married to James Blanks (1769-1852), not John Bookout. The site also includes links to both John’s and Amelia’s wills adding credibility.

WikiTree

Similarly, with contributions from the same genealogist, David Robertson, WikiTree has the same conclusion with Sarah marrying a Blanks. A listing of 60 sources along with extracts and transcriptions confirm the depth of research that has been done on this family. (David can be reached via email at davidhr@hushmail.com or at his Genealogy Facts website.)

Spreading the Word Through This Blog Post

Initially, I was prepared to correct the information on these “one world” trees, but I’m pleased to see they’ve got it right. My hope now is to spread the word through this blog post, encouraging others to update their trees accordingly. While incorrect trees often lead to misleading ThruLines, I remain optimistic. I believe that combining traditional genealogy with DNA matches will eventually unravel the mystery of my Sarah’s lineage.

Your Turn!

Have you ever encountered an AncestryDNA ThruLines hints that didn’t quite add up? I’d love to hear your story of how you uncovered the truth. Did genetic and/or traditional research help you debunk or confirm the hint? How did you share your findings with others?

Also, I’m eager to hear about those exciting moments when a ThruLines hint led you to a correct ancestor! It’s always helpful to learn from each other’s experiences in our genealogy research.

FOOTNOTES:
1. “Mecklenburg County Virginia, Will Book No. 8 with Inventories and Accounts, 1813–1819,” will for John Vaughan, written 1813, images 238–9, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 22 November 2023); FHL microfilm 7676177.

2. “Mecklenburg County Virginia, Will Book No. 12 with Inventories and Accounts, 1829–1832,” will for Amelia Vaughan, written 1828, image 148, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 22 November 2023); FHL microfilm 7676179.