The inch, which is the amount of extra chain you have to add, is not really derived from the thumb; there is some weak suggestion that the Scottish inch may have been defined in relation to the thumb, but the English and succeeding Imperial inches never were.
I seem to recall in the RD-6800 manual there were two methods based on what your largest sprocket was...one was the big-big, and the other was about the line crossing through the jockey wheels being perpendicular to the ground.
Yeah, but I use my thumb.