If you have an AncestryDNA account, you’ve probably seen something called Thrulines. I pretty much never use this feature. What it does is list your ancestors by generation and tell you who you’re genetically connected to through that person, based on your tree and the other user-based trees in the system. In theory, I could see the point of it - by using lateral connections, it might help you find a connection point further back than you already got on your tree, if that person had more information than you. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of having such a well-built tree is there are few people who have connections further back than I do…although on the flip side, I hope my tree has helped my genetic connections build back their own trees.
Also occasionally I see “Potential Ancestor” pop up - like above, that’s how I see the potential benefit of Thrulines, that I might connect to someone who has their tree built back further than me. But those “Potential Ancestors” have pretty much either been not sourced or backed up by evidence, or just plain wrong. As my very wise Cousin April pointed out to me, Thrulines is only as good as the information people have in their tree, and a lotta lotta people have a lotta lotta poorly built trees out there. And so, I don’t usually find Thrulines helpful and I don’t usually use it.
Until now.
Just for the fun of it, since I recently added some new generations to some of my branches, I took a look at my Thrulines…and saw two new potential ancestors, parents for my 2x great-grandmother, Nora Donohue Cronin. I know next to nothing about the Donohues. Nora came over from County Cork, Ireland as an adult, joining most of her children in New York, and every record I have of her, she is living in a mental hospital and described as “insane.” So she was never in any position to pass down her family stories or history to her children or grandchildren. But this person, this Thruline connection, had Nora on their tree, with brothers Cornelius and John, sister Julia, and parents, Cornelius Donohue and Honora Haley/Holey. And, they had documentation. I took a look through some of it - the family definitely came from the same area of Cork as my Nora did. This person had done some good research. But I was used to disappointment with Thrulines. I clicked on Julia Donohue’s probate record from 1904 - she had never married, and so her siblings were her beneficiaries.
And there it was, in the listing of Julia’s next of kin -
Source Citation
New York, Kings County, Probate Administration Records; Author: New York. Surrogate's Court (Kings County); Probate Place: Kings, New York. Accessed from Ancestry.com January 31, 2022.
Your petitioner Cornelius Donohue residing at 572 57th Street, Brooklyn, a brother John Donohue residing at Kilkorne, County Cork, Ireland a sister Honora Cronin residing at Flatbush Insane Asylum, Borough of Brooklyn, New York
A Honora Donohue Cronin residing at an insane asylum in Brooklyn? In the 1900 U.S. census, my Nora Donohue Cronin was a patient at the Long Island State Hospital in Brooklyn - Flatbush, to be specific, and the Long Island State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital. The Nora on this person’s tree and my Nora were one and the same, and this person had documentation, through Nora’s siblings, on her parents. I never knew Nora had siblings. I never knew she had siblings in New York. I never knew her parents names.
Ancestry Thrulines had finally paid off for me.
The moral of the story here? Lateral connections are important. We focus on our direct ancestors, and I’m guilty of this as well, but I know from experience - and this story is proof of it - that sometimes our direct ancestors don’t have the information we need to build backwards. Doesn’t mean it’s not there - means maybe that information can be found through a sibling. I have Nora’s death record - it does not list any parents. But the death records for her brother Cornelius and sister Julia do list their parents. And don’t give up on features, databases, websites, etc. Just because it doesn’t pan out for one person or one line doesn’t mean it won’t be helpful in some other area of your research.
Websites I used in this research: