Thursday, August 13, 2026

Ancestry’s Updated ThruLines: What I Like and What I'd Like To See In Future Updates

The updated layout of Thrulines appeared in my account yesterday.  I think it's a great visualization tool.  It lets you see how many DNA matches have been identified AND fall within the specifications to show up on Thrulines for each branch as you can see in the image below of my Thrulines out to my 2nd Great Grandparents.  

There is nothing that checks to see if the matches are on the correct side though and even if you do evaluate and add or choose not to add there is no option to mark a match as "not valid thru this line."  Case in point, my paternal 2nd cousin once removed (also paternal for him) who is also a maternal 4th cousin once removed (thru his maternal lines) but shares no DNA thru the maternal connection. He shows up in the Thrulines of the Paternal line and the Maternal line. While we are close enough thru the maternal line to have many shared maternal cousins I know he doesn't share DNA with me thru that side because he doesn't share any DNA  with my Mom who has also tested at Ancestry.


Below is a look at my Paternal Grandmother's branch.  The Thrulines doesn't offer the next generations for my 3rd Great Grandmother, Margaret Frizzell. This is due to pedigree collapse as she is a sibling of James M Frizzell my 3rd Great Grandfather(they are the children of Nathan Frizzell and Ruahama Weaver.  It also doesn't show a duplicate of Nathan and Ruahama in card view.  I can't remember if it did prior to the layout change or not.  Regardless they would need to handle pedigree collapse the same over all views of the new display.  I'm guessing it would do the same on a repeat grandfather who had children by multiple wives.  



You can change back to the classic view (at least for now) by selecting Thrulines card view option from the menu on the left. .


When you evaluate the connections a side bar pops out much like it does when you are running comparisons in Hints

Vertical View of match's line of descent from
Polly Jakes sister of my 3rd Gr Grandfather, James Jakes(1788-1847)
of Franklin Co., Virginia




View I see when I click on Samuel Bird, son of Polly Jakes

The image above shows the timeline view
Just below that is the option to toggle Sources which for this one included: 

Records (7) 
Ancestry Member Trees (3)
Photos (1)
Family (6)

What I Like:

  • Multiple View Options: Flexibility to switch depending on research needs.
  • At-a-Glance Overview: A larger, cleaner overview across several generations.
  • Dynamic Zoom: Seamless zooming in and out on horizontal or vertical views.
  • Better Layout of Details in the Evaluating Process

What I’d Like to See Next:

  • An "Evaluate & Dismiss" Feature: The ability to mark a proposed connection as invalid and remove it from view.
  • Parent Side Filtering: Automatically suppressing match suggestions that contradict verified Parent Side assignments. While this wouldn't eliminate incorrect connections that happen to sit on the right parent's side through a different line, it's a great start and would clear up many common errors.
Do you have the new view yet?  What are your thoughts?  

4 comments:

  1. The change to ThruLines seems a little less jarring than some of the other changes. Overall, I don't mind it too much (so long as card view doesn't disappear!)

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    1. I think the card view which they are calling "classic" is going away on October 1st according to the mouse-over blurb that pops up when I switch to that view. :-(

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  2. I would love to see the "evaluate & dismiss" feature you proposed. Same for parent side filtering.

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    Replies
    1. I noticed that the pop out panel(when clicking on a DNA Match link) pulls the connection side thru whatever side it would be if the Thruline is correct NOT from what side it actually is on the DNA Match profile so you would need to check that. Some folks might overlook that. The blurb they have is confusing. It would seem if Ancestry collects that data then they could do a comparison of the two(programming wise) to have it kick out at least the ones that aren't possible because the Thrulines is one side while they DNA connection is the other side. Hopefully they are planning on doing that

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