Relationship path

Did you ever figure this out?

Seven years later, I have a similar situation, where Geni shows me something other than the shortest path to a direct ancestor.

My 5th great-grandfather Markus Lauer is shown as my "fourth great aunt's sister's husband's brother's wife's sister's husband's great grandfather".

The profile isn't brand new, nor are any of those in the path, so it's not a matter of Geni having had insufficient time to "discover" the shorter path.

Strange quirk of the algorithm....?

I have not. I am also thinking that there must be a shorter path, but I have yet to find it. There must be a connection, but I can't locate it.

In my case, the relationship I mentioned above now shows up correctly / parsimoniously, but I think the algorithm can be fluky. I'm not sure what influences it (or leads it astray).

Hi all, there are two possible answers here:

1. Your path to the profile in question was found and stored in our database *before* that person moved into position as a close / direct relative. In these cases, you can refresh the path (1 week after it was calculated) by clicking the gray circular-arrows icon at the end of the relationship description. Curators can refresh paths more frequently.

2. The profile is connected to you in multiple ways, and Geni found a shorter path than the one you're expecting. In this case a refresh won't help you, because the shorter path is still the one Geni finds. We've considered providing both blood and inlaw results for path searches, but have no firm commitment on when we would release that change.

Hi Michael,

Those two answers may explain some cases, but not all.

For example, my 5th great-grandmother Lea Ludmilla Herrmann -- who has been correctly identified as such previously (and whose profile has been connected to me in this way for ~2 years) -- today appears as my "first cousin thrice removed's husband's aunt's husband's brother's wife's sister's husband's uncle's wife's mother". Go figure!

Not sure why this happens. It's certainly not a big deal, but it suggests that there's some quirk in the programming that occasionally takes a detour from the shortest path until it finds its way back. :)

- Lisa K.

(Weirdly, at the same time, her son Moses Herrmann is parsimoniously identified as my 4th great-grandfather, even as Lea Ludmilla Herrmann 's relationship to me is described by the more circuitous path above.)

Private User that path to Leah Herrmann was calculated and stored just about an hour before your messages above. It was calculated by extending your path to Sara Kohn, which was itself calculated by extending your path from Joseph Kohn. It sounds like Geni followed your circuitous path above, recording every step of the way. When I refreshed the path, it came right back as 5th great grandmother.

Mike Stangel -- Thanks for the explanation. It is interesting that it discarded an older, more parsimonious stored path in favor of a more circuitous path when another relative was connected. I figured that it must have been a recent change because I'd seen the more parsimonious path before, and also because I didn't have the option to refresh the path.

I attempted to start a new discussion on the following, and it went unnoticed for three weeks. As mine is relevant to this discussion, let me offer up another perhaps similar instance of a situation where a spousal path is shorter than a DNA path, and Geni reports the shorter one, which has the unfortunate result of excluding their immediate family from my MAX Extended:

Grace Delaine Carter

She is, as Geni reports, my wife's uncle's ex-wife. She is also, as Geni does not report, my wife's third cousin. She should be in my MAX Extended, but she is not.

Geni's relationship calculator is reporting her marriage relationship to my wife rather than her DNA relationship to my wife -- perhaps because it is set up to report the closest possible relationship, but that causes issues as noted later in this post.

Ancestry's relationship calculator reports her as my wife's third cousin -- in other words, DNA first.

Ordinarily I would not care. But now that I am importing, via SmartCopy, Grace's siblings and their descendants, they are coming in as outside of my MAX Extended due to Geni linking them to Grace as my wife's uncle's ex-wife. All of Grace's siblings, and all of the descendants of Grace's siblings, are also my wife's cousins and within my MAX Extended, which is what I want put right. Here is the first sister:

Mable Lee Medlin

"Mable Lee Medlin (Price) is your wife's uncle's ex-wife's sister." Not MAX Extended.

True -- but she is also my wife's third cousin. Yes, MAX Extended.

I have let this set for three weeks now and there is no gray refresh arrow option for either of the above. Any suggestions?