Ancestry Improvements - Family History & Genealogy Message Board

Slow loading pages

kdychton — 4 Dec 2008 2:53:32 GMT

I am new to Ancestry.com and I'm finding it very frustrating that the pages take so long to load. Is this just me or a problem for everyone? I am using a broadband internet connection that doesn't have this problem on other websites.

I realize that a lot of people use this web site, but if we've paying a lot of money for the use of it, shouldn't they do something to speed up the process?

a suggestion about saving newpaper articles

PriscillaR — 8 Jan 2009 5:43:53 GMT

I don't know if it's possible but it would be nice if there was a blank line where one could type a comment when saving a newspaper article to an ancestor in their tree.

Floating "Compare With People" Block during searches

cormack196 — 11 Dec 2008 8:03:08 GMT

Does anyone else find that floating block that says "Compare With People From Your Family Tree" as you scroll down the page extremely annoying? I mean, don't ya think "I" know who I am researching?

How do we stop that block from floating down?

For the New Year: A Better Search Engine, Please?

jbe1329 — 1 Jan 2009 4:48:33 GMT

I've been subscribing, on and off, here for years. The lack of a) a wild card search and b) a search confined to a specific place are probably the most frustrating aspects of Ancestry, and have been for some time.

If I search for someone in Jersey City, NJ, in a census, for instance, and the name is one letter off from the indexed name, I have to scroll through, it seems every other state and city in the union before I give up. The state, city and county are apparently ignored in favor of a name and age -- but I know where this relative lived, and there's no way to confine the search to a specific city.

If the surname is a mangled one, there should be a way to bring up, for instance, all entries for John (or even J*) in Jersey City, NY. (Or, conversely, for a certain surname, for surname beginning with a certain letter). Yes, the list would be long, but not as tedious as searching through census districts by hand (which I've done on occasion).

Alternates on given names are also pathetically lacking. For instance, the name Catherine may appear as Cathy, Kate, Katie, Kathryn or other variations, but I seldom see more than "Kate" come up as an alternate.

Sometimes, when I finally find a record by wracking my brain for every conceivable alternate/incorrect spelling, I wonder just how many potential Ancestry subscribers have given up in frustration at not finding an ancestor, because of the search engine.

Newly added DE Marriages 1744-1912 highly erroneously indexed

frostfreedet — 27 Dec 2008 5:46:38 GMT

It is great to have addition of images of actual records for the State of Delaware. This is only the second Records database for DE, and most welcome (the other one is a major mess, with misleading entries omitting most of the information from the card file it was taken from).

However, a huge number of names were misread, and dates as well. If for test purposes you search for the surname 'Joseph,' you will see a listing for a License dating 1900, but the Marriage Record in the index is given as dating 1800.

This is true throughout the listings, particularly for marriages occurring in the early 1900s.

The names are mostly quite legible in the record. Whoever did the indexing was hasty and evidently either untrained or unsupervised. Very common errors include reading the old double-s as a 'p', but there are innumerable additional mistakes.

Doesn't anyone check the results before putting these bizarrely done indexes up?

Jade

Advanced search no longer includes family trees

MLDaggett — 29 Jan 2008 11:27:32 GMT

...is this a problem Ancestry.com is "working on" or do they consider it an improvement? I know I don't.

What Improvements?? The site seems to be going down the tubes !!

midge1249 — 29 Nov 2008 10:26:49 GMT

Ancestry Phone Number 1-800-262-3787

The above phone number is to cancel your subscription, but I suggest that we ALL call it and DEMAND TO SPEAK TO A LIVE PERSON who can explain why the site seems to be deteriorating on a daily basis. They obviously don't believe in the old adage "If it ani't broke, don't fix it" as someone at Ancestry delights in complicating things once we are all used to the new unimproved changes. After a decade of membership, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that Ancestry.com has allowed itself to become ripe for more up-to-date (technically) competition. What was a brilliant site and cutting edge a decade ago, is beginning to show wear and tear and although full of good information, access to it and speed to retrieve it is failing miserably and just becoming a waste of valuable time.

Caution: Incorrect birth, death, information re: Germany, France, England.

1nceaShawley — 28 Jul 2008 10:31:56 GMT

Hi, I have notified ancestry.com today that there is a recurring problem throughout their web-site. It took me a long time (too long!) to realize that this is a technical issue. What is happening:
1. Under birth location, ancestry.com often inputs "birth, Viersen(sp?), German", when it is inaccurate.
2. Under death location, ancestry.com inputs "Y, Somme, Picardie, France", when it is inaccurate.
3. (the one that finally tipped me off). I kept noticing place of death as "Warwick, , England", for men dying during the 1860's. As I was researching several Gentry brothers, I noticed they were all listed as dying on different dates in the 1860's in "Warwick, , England". I thought to myself, "now this would make sense if it was during WWI or II". This prompted an idea, that this timeframe WAS during a war; the Civil War. So I looked each of them up in the Civil War records, and found that:
a. All 3 brothers had served in the Civil War.
b. All 3 had died during the War, on the exact date listed on the ancestry.com for "Warwick, , England".
c. Their dates of death that were listed for "Warwick, , England" all coincided with dates of Civil War battles for the Company's they had served under.

Just a word of caution for those doing research. I sent ancestry.com an email today for tech support on this issue.
Thanks, Pam
P.S. Please also see my next email about my "Gentry project".

Attaching Census Records etc

JonWicken — 25 Dec 2008 2:32:21 GMT

Ancestry has just changed the process for attaching records to an individual in your tree.

The old method was that when you clicked the "attach to person in your tree" option it took you to a page where you could type in their name to then enable you to select them.

You would just type for, say, John Smith "Jo" in the first name field and "Sm" in the surname field and return to bring up the options.

This old way also kept visible on screen the birth year incase you had several people with the same or similar names.

Now in the past week this has changed and when you select "attach to person in your tree" a pop up box appears. This blocks the personal details so you can't see the name well or year of birth.

Furthermore you have to type in the full first name and then the last name. It all seems to take longer and requires more typing.

Is it just me or this new (supposedly better) version worse than the old version? It certainly is to me and I can't quite believe it is supposed to be an improvement!

Merging duplicate people? Deleting multiple people at one time?

gcraze — 12 Dec 2008 3:48:22 GMT

Now that I've pretty much gone 100% with the online version for my record keeping, I've found that there are some duplicate people who got attached and have various branches off of them. In the FTM software, there is an option to merge people when you have duplicates, but that doesn't seem to exist. It seems the only option I have is to export the online version to a Gedcom file and clean it up in FTM, and then re-import it. But I don't want to do that since I have tons of records, pictures, stories, etc associated with the people in the online version that won't go with the Gedcom.
Am I stuck manually editing the online version person by person?

Also, is there a way to delete several people at once, rather than person by person? Somewhat related to my issue above, in that duplicate branches my have been inadvertently added and I want to prune them.

Thanks!

Can't Save Record to Individual with New Save

lucybutko — 17 Dec 2008 8:05:18 GMT

I'm trying to save a record to an individual and a new save "bar" comes up that asks me to type in the name. It doesn't work.

If I hit the see list of people, there are NO trees listed. That doesn't work.

Why can't ancestry just leave things alone.

NEW 1900 US Census Details are Missing Information

roncon60 — 20 Dec 2008 6:33:32 GMT

Has anyone else noticed that when Ancestry.com redid the 1900 US Census to include birth months, marriage dates, etc that the Citations' Source Information no longer includes Details that were once a part of the Citations?
Example:
Detail: Year: 1900; Census Place: Beaver, Clarion, Pennsylvania; Roll: T623 1394; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 3.
is now only showing
Detail: Year: 1900; Census Place: Beaver, Clarion, Pennsylvania; Roll: ; Page: ; Enumeration District: .
The Roll Number, Page Number and Enumeration District Number are missing.
When adding source information to my computer tree I have to correct this. It's very time consuming.

West Virginia Marriage Records, 1863-1900-most useless dB ever

frostfreedet — 20 Dec 2008 12:17:20 GMT

This database gives only name of bride and groom. Not County where married, no date, and certainly not a citation for the record.

When you click on "view record" it just gives names.

Why would Ancestry think this was useful? ?? ???

Of course there is a description of the database giving the LDS microfilm numbers and Counties covered.

This is even more useless than Trees, which at least often give a location and/or date (whether accurate or not). On the other hand, it is not as wonky and misleading as the so-called Delaware Marriages database.

This can safely be removed from the server, folks.

Best wishes,
Jade

Parents that are born after the kids in trees and Famous people search

ElijahShalis — 18 Dec 2008 12:46:01 GMT

Why is it that Ancestry even allows people to setup a tree in which parents are born after the kids? I mean that is just retarded, it also explains why the Famous people search is so messed up. It should not count that link.

Mexico research

snolock60 — 10 Nov 2008 12:13:38 GMT

Hello

I was wondering if there was a way to research information in Mexico on the Ancestry site. I know of a family member who worked on the railroad in Fort Worth, Texas and went to work on the railroad in Mexico. What railroad? I believe he died there also, so what about cemeteries or anything?

Quebec Canada Druin Collection

ElijahShalis — 18 Dec 2008 12:43:47 GMT

Okay my problem is with doing research on my Canadian side in Quebec. It seems that whomever at Ancestry did the translation for the corresponding digital entries of the old french records missed hundreds of pages of them entirely, misspelled very badly and basically didn't know French at all. I having just a middle school french education was able to find one but there is no corresponding digital entry for it.

gedcoms submitted in 2003 - why wont ancestry remove it?

bruce4313 — 28 Nov 2008 7:17:20 GMT

Being green behind the ears
I submitted this Gedcom in 2003 , the link is below if you click onto the submitter on the one world tree you will find the submitter is bruce4313 – this is me.

http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:2431...

basically i removed the Gedcom due to masses of errors a couple of years ago but some how Ancestry have kept the data and its still on one world tree !

Anyone else who has these name in thier tree have copied from my Wrong 2003 Gedcom , which the link is above.
I am not Ancestry to remove thier trees just this one world tree that links to me. If other users have not researched and just copied like many do on this site - its their problem.

All I want is for Ancestry to fix the flaws, there is no way other than through administration to remove this one world tree . Why can’t Ancestry do this????????
Ive recieved fob off after fob off .
How can Ancestry let people subscribe to Wrong data?
I keep hoping that Ancestry will care enough to fix this problems this year. I wish they would respect the wishes of long term clients in this matter. Removal and updating of false or otherwise outdated and useless information .I am the submitter I am sick of emailing , writing to Utah also generation networks telling them this one world tree is completley wrong the information is incorrect. Im sick of getting emails regarding this Wrong Tree too! .
I have in November submitted a new tree and wish they would please remove this one world tree .
Come on Ancestry for pitys sake.

Search Issues

jesslizzie — 26 Nov 2008 1:35:33 GMT

Is it just me or has the ancestry search gone to pot?
I'm searching for things that I actually have certificate reference for and still nothing comes up.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Photo Image Tagging

floetry — 27 Oct 2008 8:37:55 GMT

Any chance of adding photo tagging so you can highlight who is in the group shot when you roll over them? This would also help for pictures that you don't want crop to add a face of someone to their profile. Works great on Facebook.

Thanks!

Gender of Spouse?

conqueringclouds — 25 Jun 2008 6:24:37 GMT

I've got a few gay & lesbian family members and was wondering how to get their partners on with the correct 'husband' and 'wife' etc.

You can add them, but it looks odd if you've got 2 women and one's the husband!

Maybe if there's any way too fix that up?

Cheers,
James

GEDCOM Files + Photos

nolte_a — 26 Oct 2008 11:30:21 GMT

I export my GEDCOM file from Ancestry.com. When I import it into MacFamilyTree, the photos are not there.

PLEASE INCLUDE PHOTOS when exporting GEDCOM files from Ancestry.com

Ancestry Family Trees Hint TOO SLOW?

rundehel — 7 Feb 2008 1:23:27 GMT

Does anyone have a problem trying to get into the Ancestry Hints area of the Ancestry Family Trees?

It is so slow most of the times! At one point, I clocked in for an ancestor's family hints for about five minutes of accessing before it gave up as the server's connection has been reset. Couple times ended up as same result.

It is a really frustrating waste of time and I keep telling Ancestry tech people to buy new, faster servers to keep up with the demands!

Maps Mystery

Trishymouse — 14 Nov 2008 10:32:10 GMT

I received the email below about a new map feature on Ancestry.com family trees in my email today. I can't find it for the love of heaven anywhere. Am I just slow, or am I missing something here...?!
_____________________

Ancestry.com now helps you visualize where important events occurred in the lives of your ancestors by placing their events on a map.

How to use it
We’ve updated the family tree so that just about anywhere we show a place, you can click on that place and see the link on the map. When we display the map we’ll also show all the events for the person. It’s been fun for me to start visualizing these places in my tree that I’ve been staring at for so many years. The map let you see the streets and roads, or select an aerial view to get satellite images.
We’ve worked hard to make this easy to use, but for any who want a fun tutorial, we’ve created a pretty great tutorial that walks you through all the map’s features. Just click the question mark in the green circle at the top right hand corner of the screen.
In addition to viewing the important places in your family members’ lives, you can also find places to help you in your research efforts. We have links to show local cemeteries and courthouses, and “Other Places” link displays a list of additional display options where you can find historical information—churches, historical sites, libraries and archives, and government buildings.
If the locations in your tree aren’t found by our mapping tool, we’ll help suggest possible matching locations to display. If you have no location entered for some of your events, the map feature allows you to enter in location information which will then be stored to your tree.
Got Suggestions or Feedback?
We have lots of plans for the future on how to make this feature even better than it is. Your feedback is a crucial part of the improvement process; please let us know what you think of the map feature and what improvements you would like to see. Add a comment or send me an email (kfreestone at tgn.com).

Searching census by piece number

martinbriscoe57 — 4 Dec 2008 9:27:47 GMT

I just went to do a search of the 1841 census by piece and folio number but I don't seem to be able to do it now.

Another comment.
The method of displaying results is now very poor and wasteful of screen space. The most efficient method of searching is the human eye and brain. I can get a list of possible matches but the final selection is done by me looking at that list. I now only get about nine names displayed on teh screen where I previously would be seeing many more than that so I was able to quickly scroll down checking them.

Each entry displayed is using about three lines with another blank line between, I find it much more difficult to scan down these and because of all the blank space.

MB

Existing Audio

Trishymouse — 25 Jun 2008 7:15:56 GMT

Will Ancestry EVER allow users to upload existing audio to the audio tab of family trees? Now you have to do it by phone or directly 'live' by microphone using computer. What about those of us who have audio in formats like MP3 files we collected and made through the years of important information from people who are dead? We can't interview them again, they are gone! Please allow us to upload audio...

Photo Order

CDMcComish — 13 Dec 2008 5:00:31 GMT

How can I re-order my photos at an individuals page? Must I delete and re upload? My photos are not in chronological order but very random. Can this be easily fixed? How can the "slide show" be more orderly?

Advance apologises if this should be listed somewhere else.

Too Slow!!

bunnygirl146 — 2 Dec 2008 11:32:03 GMT

Is it just me or is anyone else finding Ancestry slow to respond at what is obviously busy times. From 7pm UK time it gets slower and slower tonight it got to the point i was waiting at least 30 to 40 seconds for each page i went onto to unfreeze.
Ok some may say go on ealier but Family and comitments dont allow this and when i do sit down to enjoy my much loved hobby, that i pay for! i dont want it to be this frustrating.

Genealogy . com message boards - Can't Post, are they Improving those too?

Eunae — 17 Nov 2008 6:40:28 GMT

I, nor anyone else it seems has been able to Post messages to the Genealogy . com / GenForum message boards since the 14th of Nov. When you try to post a message you get an INTERNAL ERROR message over and over again.
Are they doing Upgrades or something over there? Since they own all of these genealogy websites now I thought this might be as good a place as any to inquire.
Hope they get the boards fixed soon. I wish if they were just doing reg. maintenance they would Post a Message telling us so we would know. If they had equipment failure that's different.
Anyone know what's going on over there?
Thanks

Extreme Slowness when trying to read newspapers, etc.

midge1249 — 11 Nov 2008 8:50:54 GMT

Given that Ancestry must now have a gazillion customers, has anyone else found that their servers are just not up to snuff when it comes to being able to handle all the traffic? It quite literally takes about 3 minutes before a page comes up to be read. To read a 6-page newspaper takes about 1/2 hr just to bring the pages up as quite often they come up blank and you have to refresh to try to bring the image up. Very frustrating and really not worth the time if you have alot to search through. Maybe it's time Ancestry invested in some more heavy-duty equipment/servers.

Eliminate duplicate records for same person

dyesboy — 18 Jan 2008 12:09:52 GMT

Re: Two sisters married two guys who are cousins

Would be very interested if you find the "fix" in Ancestry.com. There is some confusion. I have been told by a customer service rep. there is no merge function of duplicate individuals that exists directly in Ancestry.com tree.
The so-called solution is to export your tree back to the source and do the merge there; and upload again to Ancestry.com. What happens to photos and stories in Ancestry.com?
Why doesn't Ancestry tree have a merge function for this situation? Help anyone??

Ancestry to-do list

JonWicken — 16 Nov 2008 2:24:06 GMT

This seems to keep disappearing at times from the page it should be on. So much for customising your own page when this keeps happening. It did appear briefly yesterday and now is gone again.

I needed my to-do list as I was going to research in London but it now isn't where it should be. This has happened before and is VERY annoying.

I almost feel like I'm going mad as it isn't there at times and then comes back. And now I can't access my list - what's the point of having it there at all if it disappears?

What is this fault with ancestry and has anyone else had this problem? I am very happy with ancestry when all is working well but am starting to get increasingly frustrated with the on-going faults with this website.

Thanks

Complete BMD Search failures

nadger49 — 13 Nov 2008 9:56:16 GMT

Since the New Search Features have appeared I have noticed that the old BMD Complete Search option is only working very infrequently. I nearly always get a Negative Search Result, regardless of how specific or open I make the search. Is anyone else experiencing this problem, or is it only me ?

Longer Names

JonWicken — 4 Nov 2008 9:18:51 GMT

There have been changes on ancestry again last week which now means if you have a longer surname it does not show the full first name at the top of their profile page.

This is ridiculous as now the profile headers can just show initials rather than the full name. Middle names are also shortened to an initial or omitted altogether. Is this permanent?

Also I have said on the surveys that we are asked to fill out from time to time why the children field cannot be altered. If someone has a longer surname then their name on their parents page can't even be read as it is just an initial.

Does anyone else find this annoying?

Site Request

floetry — 5 Nov 2008 4:35:24 GMT

I know you can sort images by attaching them to people; However, is there a possible enhancement to create online folders? Reason, I have documents/pics (picture of a family house or plot of land, etc) that pertain to certain families and it's a pain attaching 30+ people to the same item, but I need a way for people to quick reference it. Yes I know I can put a comment field notice in, but again I would have to do that for each person...Pain. I even considered that for the lead member of each families. That doesn't work because if you have lost cousins that don't know about that person they won't know to look there.

It would also be nice to sort images, docs, etc into folders if you want to group our images by family. I do have members that would like to look at all the images/docs pertaining to XYZ family.

If this already exists, than excuse my request.

Have a good day.

World Connect

awojos — 13 Dec 2008 4:46:41 GMT

I may be to late for this topic but what happened to World Connect... I went on there first time in awhile and just the names are there but no information. Parents,sibbling so on. What happen to the site? I know Ancestry owns it but did they clear all that out?

Thanks
Awojos

site improvments

PriscillaR — 5 Nov 2008 3:54:18 GMT

Reliability would be a nice feature.

I just made a discovery of another family to connect to but I'm getting messages that Ancestry may be experiencing problems or in so many words my tree no longer exists.

Last week I couldn't even access the message boards for a few hours or my tree...UGH

Warning: Everyone should test the new Beta search engine site!!!!

jdweintraub — 3 May 2008 10:16:25 GMT

I've been working through the Beta search engine. I think everyone should do so. My worry is that they will replace the existing ranked and exact search engines they now have with this new system, which will reduce our search efficiency for advanced researchers. Make your opinions known, and make sure we don't lose the existing search engines.

What isn't apparent, I think, to many researchers, is that Ancestry's present ranked search doesn't just count the number of matches that happen to your entry information, but WEIGHTS that information. They have decided that first and last names have the greatest weight. So if you enter, say, 7 parameters that all match a record in a ranked search, but leave out the first and last name of your target, your target may come in first in the ranked results but your search will get 2 stars (out of 5), even though what you entered matches perfectly. This is one reason why, if a name on the index is mangled, you get names on the ranked result list on the first result screen that have little to do with your person's other parameters that you entered, (and expected to be involved in the final rankings).

I tested my 7 parameter example above, with the new ranked search engine, and found that now, my example, instead of showing my target person in first place, now showed him in 43rd place. That's not an improvement, as the programmers have changed their non-name weightings and ignored the fact that I entered New York (Manhattan) but gave me other locations/cities within New York State first on the results. Test that yourself.

I also found that for their Beta mixed models, where one could specify some entry lines as "exact" and others left alone (with fuzzy logic? or ranked searches?), that I could not use the wild card (*) search within the exact search lines for names. I sent a note on that... but others should test to see if the new beta search engine does, indeed, ignore wild card searches on "exact" name lines, making it difficult for searching. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Also... the new Beta engine doesn't warn the reader about 1930 census searches, where the present exact search engine says not to enter birthplace if your target is not head of family... and thus produce a false negative. (But in fact, Ancestry's transcribers were not consistent on this, as many people who could be head of family (within a bigger family... such as father in law, son in law, etc.) ARE in the 1930 index with their birthplace shown.) If you do enter in the beta engine for 1930 a daughter's name with her birthplace and exact matches, it's unlikely you will find her unless the software ignores the birthplace entered.

My bias is for search engines to be transparent as to their assumptions... and thus I favor exact search engines. I've seen too many people where I volunteer using the ranked search engine give up when they can't find their person in the first 100 or so names, precisely because they don't understand the assumptions behind such a search engine. They would do much better with exact searches, wild cards, and a less is more strategy.

Ancestry is going in the opposite direction of transparent search engines, which I predict will lead to lots of complaints if the beta search engines, as they now are configured, become the main (or only) search engines we have.

So...again.... everyone should test the Beta system throughly..... and submit their comments loud and clear NOW, about the new system. In addition, this testing period should be known throughout the Ancestry community. We have a tendency to scream after the fact about software changes... and it appears, at least on paper, that we can provide some input right now and avoid future problems.

Joel Weintraub

Enhanced Viewer

PriscillaR — 26 Oct 2008 11:26:10 GMT

I downloaded the Firefox browser as suggested...everything seemed to be working fine until I tried to view a census image...never had any problems doing so with AOL or IE6.

Anyway, I was told to download the Enhanced Viewer...I tried but got an error message stating a script is missing.
What's wrong NOW?

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the hassle to use Ancestry given it appears it doesn't want to work with other browsers.

Member Military pages 2 of 2 posts

dwilliam16 — 25 Oct 2008 12:30:15 GMT

Something that I think would drastically improve the military image of a page would be the addition of a medal/ribbon area that actually shows the rack. The website www.usmedals.com has a nice rack creation tool that is used for purchasing pre-made racks, but also outputs a nice picture that can be saved. To see an example, check out my grandfather's page in progress at http://trees.ancestry.com/view/Military.aspx?pid=-1840103798...

Member Military pages 1 of 2 posts

dwilliam16 — 25 Oct 2008 12:18:59 GMT

I have a bit of a conundrum in that the Ancestry.com military member page only allows for one branch of service to be listed, as well as only one war. My grandfather started in the US Navy, was medically discharged for a blown eardrum after a suicide plane attack on his ship. He then enlisted in the US Army a year or so later and was then moved to the US Army Air Force. Finally, he moved to the US Air Force where he stayed for 22 years. I would love to be able to document that on the military page, but it only allows for one branch.

Improvements for searching

K400H — 28 Sep 2008 11:18:00 GMT

I would like to see an improvement please in the search results returned, with regarding to dates.

Trying to search for a marriage of an ancestors born in say 1702, returns marriages for say 1880. There needs to be a limit based on date entered to what results are returned. Results that can not be correct should not show at all.

New Home Page - Family trees displayed

colleo — 27 Sep 2008 6:35:27 GMT

Someone else's family tree is shown on the top of my home page. I have corresponded with this person in the past and shared information with her on one section of her tree. I have an interest in one of the surnames there and was able to share the benefits of some of my research. I do not consider this to be my family tree and it irritates me to see it there every time I log on.

How can I hide it? Or better still, remove it from my records?

Family Tree heading

mbmjlm — 18 Oct 2008 5:25:38 GMT

it's nice to see that Ancestry has put the heading "family tree" back at the top of the topics that can be accessed from the home page. The current one is still accessible at the bottom of the page but I am so glad to see that heading at the top as well. Perhaps they will even allow some who don't want their family trees to put up(or some who see a family tree that is not actually theirs) to just opt out of that.

RSS Feed on Guest Books

FritzKruse — 16 Oct 2008 6:37:36 GMT

I have a suggestion, it would be great to have the RSS feeds on Guest Books.

I have several and am always having to check for new messages, or for people that are posting spam. It would be great to get an automatic notification of any new entries.

Petition to Everyone for the addition of Syncing with Family Tree Maker! - Please Read

felyza — 8 Feb 2008 10:46:43 GMT

I would like to make a request to the makers of Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com to please add support for syncronizing data between Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com member trees. This is being asked for, directly and indirectly, by many people including subscribers, and those who would be subscribers but aren't, simply due to the lack of ease associated with the online trees.

In Family Tree Maker, users have all the abilities of the online trees, with more. There is error control above and beyond the online trees. User actually have the ability to MERGE data. Other programs can work in conjunction with, and complement the offline program, and FTM also allows users the control to access the searching and merging of data, just as the online tree, connection dependant.

For those with slower connections, slower computers, or massive trees, the online trees can be PAINFUL to work with.

I, and MANY others like me, would GREATLY appreciate the ability to sync FTM with Ancestry.com member trees. The few who actually like and enjoy the online trees would still have the ability to do so, and it would keep the ability to browse for ancesters in your favorite browser, but with syncing, it would greating reduce the problems that arise from the online trees.

Here's a QUICK sampling of the forums, and requests for features, or questions on how to do things that would be fixed or fulfilled by simply adding syncing capabilities to FTM.

Date and Place Checking...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Merging Data...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Looking to Sync...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Merging and Syncing
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Accidental errors introduced by slow connections with online forms...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Errors introduced simply by loading everything in web pages...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Reporting that can be done offline but not online without problems...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Hints taking longer due to increased load on servers...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

Fields stock in FTM that aren't there online...
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ancestry.ancimprovements/1...

In terms of benefits to MyFamily.com, Inc. (Registrar of Ancestry), and The Generations Network, Inc (Copyright Holder of FTM 08)...
1. It would increase sales of the Family Tree Maker program
2. Syncing data either instantly, or on a timed interval, would consume FAR less bandwidth than loading every person on every page
3. Users with a slow, or intermittant connection, would have the service opened up to them, for the same reasons as 2
4. Increase of user base would increase viability of the FTM addon market (good for other publishers too)
5. More people would use the online service, as syncing to show off work is much less painful (again see 2)
6. Less trees would go 'missing' by deletion and replacement (which many of us do), resulting in less broken links to trees
7. Updating via downloadable patches to a local program would allow for easier updating of the service as a whole
8. More fields, providing more details, would begin increasing the overall accuracy of the network
9. With ease of access, there will be more people inclined to participate, increasing revenues
10. Users would have features 'added' simply by using the existing features in the program, including reporting and printing, merging, etc

If others would like to see this too, please, SPEAK UP!

-Post here
-Use the web form to contact support and request this
-Call their tech support 800 number and ask tech support to put the request in

If we all sit back and simply say to ourselves 'yeah, that'd be a good idea', the people who makes the decisions on where to spend research and development money won't hear you talking to yourself. Believe it or not, those people depend on us to give them direction. They come up with some things on their own, but they are very user driven. I've worked with software development for a few years, and if enough people want it, they'll get it. But only if the producers know its really wanted. Otherwise we, as users, are more or less stuck with 'I think they might like this'.

I doubt they have many moderators that respond to ideas, but if you contact them and TALK TO THEM, and TELL THEM we want it, then you will be heard. If enough respond to this here, then someone MIGHT notice, but please, contact them on the 'live chat' or tech support and request it directly.

Identity theft - please help!

ShVill — 5 Sep 2008 3:59:15 GMT

I hope someone can help me, I just found out that somebody has been having fun, using my name and personal data as well as family story, in this website. So that my name and other private information have been published here. I have reported it twice as abuse, asking the webmaster to cancel it, but unsucessfully. Is there any other way to have that thread deleted? Thank you so much in advance.

Error-new US Compiled Revolutionary War MilitaryService Records 1775-1783 Not Searchable

frostfreedet — 30 Sep 2008 8:47:07 GMT

In New Fuzzy Search for this new database, the only search factors available are "lived in" and "more" (keyword).

In Old Search, the explanatory page of what the database is about remarks on the 'wild card' use of the asterisk, but the search fields above the explanation have only:
--Collection Number (drop-down menu)
--Roll # (you type it in)
--State (drop-down menu)
--Military Unit (you type in whatever you think the search engine will recognize as a Military Unit: Infantry? Company? First New York Regiment (Continental)?)
--Type (drop-down menu)
--Other (you can type in keyword; presumably a name will not work).

Then at the very bottom you can *browse* the Compiled Service Records, but you must know the State, Regiment number or commander, or how the National Archives has a Company identified. Then you can go through the card images one at a time.

This is not acceptable.

Jade

One World Tree Strikes Again

DeborahSweet — 28 Sep 2008 3:52:29 GMT

Below is pasted a copy of the e-mail I just sent Ancestry. (not the first on this subject, btw). Believe me, I am, as I say below, heartily sick to the death of the OWT, and its errors. I cannot understand why Ancestry refuses to acknowledge that it was a huge mistake.
Anyone else agree?

Please remove any references or OWT links to Anne Stewart Moore Starkey in relation to my 3rd Great-Grandparents Ann Stuart and husband George Wright.
Once again, OWT has taken my perfectly documented data, and screwed it up. You have blended two *completely* unrelated individuals, giving the information on MY Ann STUART to someone named Anne Stewart Moore - such as husband, George Wright, and place and date of death 6/16/1897 in Otego, Otsego Co., New York.
In less than 10 minutes, I found the proper information on this Anne Stewart Moore in a couple of user submitted trees - she was married to someone named Stephen Decatur STARKEY - NOT to MY George Wright. She is NOT the mother of William, Sarah Jane, Joseph H., John Stewart, George, Margaret or Mary WRIGHT. Please remove those children from her.
I repeat - Ann Stewart Moore Starkey was NOT married to George Wright. She did not live in Delaware County New York, she did not die in Otego, Otsego Co., NY on 6/16/1897, and she did NOT have the Wright children named above. There is not, nor ever was any connection between my Ann STUART, and someone else's Anne STEWART Moore Starkey.

I have already detached Anne Stewart Moore Starkey from the OWT in relation to my George Wright and Ann Stuart, BUT she keeps coming up in MY tree as one of those green leaf 'hints' - I have clicked on 'ignore' HOWEVER since your program seems to still be recognizing her as a 'match' for MY Ann Stuart, it will continue to MISLEAD the unaware researcher to FALSE information. I have just had to contact two people who were unwittingly led down this path, and were carrying the wrong information as cited above. One person had no problem with making the change, but the other is 'demanding' that I prove what I am saying. Now, I have no difficulty with proof, and have sent them some further information to that effect, but my question is why don't they demand that YOU prove the information YOU are giving? After all, your OWT on Anne Stewart Moore traced back to MY tree - however there is not nor ever has been any such information on this woman in my data, so you are the ones upon whom the onus for the burden of proof should be placed.
I have to tell you that I am heartily sick of having to correct the errors generated by OWT. My information was NOT wrong in the FIRST PLACE, until you took it and blended it with unrelated and unverified information from God knows where.
And PLEASE don't tell me that all I have to do is make corrections in the OWT. I cannot understand why, after over 30 years of documenting and verifying my information, I should now have to make corrections to something I didn't screw up in the first place. Apparently, even when I DO correct something, you've embedded the wrong information so deeply that I can't ever completely get rid of it. Hence the fact that it is still showing up as a 'hint' in my own tree.

Just Fix it!
Fed up in New York
Deborah Southworth Sweet

trees.ancestry.com enhancements

LeonardNoland — 25 Sep 2007 3:38:08 GMT

What enhancements would you like to see to trees.ancestry.com?

I have many I would like to see.

Coming Soon

thetachi111 — 16 Sep 2008 3:42:36 GMT

What happened to the coming soon section on the front page? I see the newly added records. But I like to be able to look forward to the records that will be relased in the coming months.
Andy

"People with Hints" under tree Overview

lucybutko — 21 Aug 2008 3:59:50 GMT

I just started using this feature within the last two weeks or so, trying to find people I needed to work on. I haven't used it much, but was surprised tonight when I went to an individual showing multiple hints, and the records were records I had already attached to the person.

Ancestry.com definitely needs to develop this feature. They need to make sure it works correctly first, then break down the hint categories (trees, trees ignored, records, records ignored). Then it might be truly valuable, to us and to them as well. They might also be able to apply a no hint category for people with no sources/records and a category for people with (some) records and sources attached.

They also need to loop (return to people with hints) the process so one doesn't need to "go back" in order to continue using the hints or go to Overview to start over again.

Lucy

Restore the Old Profile Format Please!

rundehel — 3 Sep 2008 12:22:31 GMT

Hey, Ancestry.com

I don't like the new Profile format! I wanted the old Profile format restored at once. With the new one, you cannot see who are your parents, your wife and children all in your profile, only just you and the information of birth, event, etc., that's it.

Please stop making any further changes to Ancestry.com's online family tree format without checking with the subscribers FIRST! If some subscribers do not like the new changes or new format, please allow them the option to keep the old format. Facebook has the right idea: it lets members keep the old format or switch to the new format while retaining the option to go back to the old format.

Please do likewise for some subscribers who did not wanted the changes or new format.

Aussie Home Page Requests and World Archives Project

larenoz — 9 Sep 2008 5:40:22 GMT

Hi All,

I logged in to the USA site the other day and noticed some new features (of the bells and whistles variety) regarding page layout, that I would LOVE to see available on the Aussie "home" page:

* To Do List
* Quick Links

Standing request, more Aussie document content! I'm interested in helping out with the World Archives Project, are there any plans for Aussie documents to be made available via this method? I'd love to work on them.

Cheers,
Michelle

Ancestry.com is Creating a Candy Store Mentality

lucybutko — 6 Sep 2008 3:36:33 GMT

I know that anything a subscriber enters at Ancestry.com becomes not sacred, but there should be a way to keep people with overly sticky fingers from lifting the goods from user contributed data/photos/stories/etc. and making it their contribution. Like, create a limitation or permission requirement if someone wants to copy something that a subscriber has contributed.

HELP 1900 SEARCH ENGINE PROBLEMS

fmdww — 4 Sep 2008 1:21:56 GMT

The 1900 search engine does not work correctly. I can take the name of John b. 1880 plus or minus a year and it shows almost 500,000. Narrow it down by state and not one name comes up. There are no matches. Select all states and an immigration year, again no matches. There is something wrong with the search engine. Please fix it so I can narrow down my search from 500,000. I can't get it to work by state or immigration year.

It is nice to see the date of month with the year for the births but please fix the search engines so they all work.

Delete Multiple Entries?

Aldwynn — 30 Aug 2008 6:23:01 GMT

When I first started with ancestry and genealogy, I got a little carried away, and simply accepted anything from the OWT when their tips popped up. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Now that I have gotten a little smarter with genealogy, I would like to clean up my tree, and only have entries in it that are sourced.

That leaves 3000+ entries I merged from OWT that I need to delete.

Is there a way to do this in ancestry.com? Or do I have to create a new tree and start over?

I was hesitating to start over (or to do mass delete in FTM and then upload a new gedcom), because of all of the photos, documents and such I have attached to my tree here online.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Denny

GEDCOM export to include comments

KeithALeng — 22 Aug 2008 11:44:12 GMT

I'd like GEDCOM exports to include comments. The GEDCOM specification includes Note records, comments could be exported into that field.

New Search is NOT an Improvement!

TheresaRGriffiths — 12 Aug 2008 2:16:02 GMT

The new search is New Search is NOT an Improvement!
Ancestry seems to be getting worse over the years NOT better.

big box in the way on home page -

helfertk — 14 Aug 2008 1:07:41 GMT

is there some way to get rid of that big box titled Start your Family search (or something like that).

I've all ready started my search and I want to get to the search fields, instead I have to scroll down because of that gosh darned box.

Any suggestions? Thanks

Can't print pedigree without overlapping

wildbill39_1 — 8 Aug 2008 11:34:22 GMT

I have been looking for a techboard and can't find one.
Or a user group experienced with problems would be helpful.
Anyone out there? I get nowhere with the online email help stuff. I can't print the pedigree without the two right columns overlapping til illegible and 'support' after two weeks of daily email and phone communication can't resolve the problem. My sister and my son in separate places, different computers and printers have the same problem. Running updated print drivers, Win XP Pro, IE7, updated Java, changed security settings, etc. I looked at the CSScode and they support Netscape in it. I've thought about putting Netscape back on but hate to. The tech just tells me that "it prints fine on his computer" and sends another worthless link to read.
Thanks for any help.
M. Paul

Ancestry's US recs v. UK recs

SandraMcGraw58 — 5 Aug 2008 8:12:43 GMT

I found a way, finally, to access UK records; I joined GenesUnited! That way I can access UK records at a reasonable cost and still continue my USRecords Ancestry membership. They wouldn't allow me to have a year of US Collections plus a month's subscription to UK Records. Its either all or pick one. I did not wish to afford $300 for a years' worth of both. sorry ancestry.

Can I opt out of the new search?

crisg580 — 7 Aug 2008 4:25:50 GMT

Is there a way to opt out of the new search permanantly? Can't stand those useless annoying pop-up suggestions and search results are worse than before. I just want out so I don't have to go through more steps to get the old search to come up.

Can I change the layout of the People page?

brownsandpeters — 4 Aug 2008 6:46:19 GMT

Hi, is there a way to change the layout of the People page? I would like to move some boxes around, like I woul d like to have the Sources box moved up to the top and all that other stuff moved down below it. Is this possible?
Thanks!

Ancestry's 'New Search Experience' using old search engine

frostfreedet — 3 Aug 2008 5:11:42 GMT

Latest discussion on this topic is here

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/category/ancestry-com/

Anyone can share their experiences.

How to attach records...

cyfyguy99 — 27 Jul 2008 1:18:14 GMT

...that are discovered via 'browsing' instead of 'searching'

So I found a record about my grandfather that I came across by browsing to it, not by putting in grandpa's info and searching...

...now how do I attach that record to his profile?

Thanks

Where is the "manage tree" option?

crisg580 — 8 Jul 2008 7:28:48 GMT

This site is so not user friendly and now with all these home page changes it is worse than before. Can someone please tell me how to delete one of my trees and make another tree private? There used to be a manage tree option but now it is gone and I can't find it.

Ancestry improvement-NOT

mbmjlm — 25 Jul 2008 12:57:44 GMT

Many of the new additions to the Ancestry books were already posted on Genealogy.com, such as Stephen F. Austin's Register of Families-thus already owned by TGN. However, using Genealogy.com-one can download 50 pages at a time of a book. With Ancestry, that is not possible. Doesn't seem like an improvement to me.

Corrections

R_Roewert — 22 Jul 2008 4:39:36 GMT

A suggestion for Ancestry: There needs to be some sort of process to implement corrections in data transcribed from census reports. We all know that many census reports suffer from poor legibility, and the system in place to make corrections is usually quite sufficient. But, take into consideration the following scenario:
On the 1900 census for Auburn Twp, Clark Co., Illinois, you will find one James W Burkett on page 10 of this enumeration. His family is listed below him, however when viewing the summery for this family on this report James is listed as Burkett while the rest of his family is listed as Murphy. Murphy is the surname of the family listed immediately below the Burkett family. This particular census is clearly written and there is no question as to the distinction between the Burkett family and the Murphy family. Clearly in this instance the error lies with whoever transcribed the census, and it is not due to an illegible enumeration. Going through the usual method of reporting corrections merely adds an alternative name to the listing, it does not correct what is an obvious error. Anyone who has been doing serious genealogy work for any amount of time knows how errors are like snowballs. They just keep getting bigger. Sooner or later some inattentive "researcher" will have James Burkett's family attached to the Murphy family in his data and the next thing you know it will be all over the place. What needs to be done in a case like this is not to offer an alternative name or cursory correction, but the data needs to be changed by Ancestry to reflect what is actually written.

Changes at Ancestry.com and the One World Tree

hamboz — 7 Jul 2008 9:48:52 GMT

Having perused the various messages in this section, I agree with you all. And, one more: Has anyone noticed that one cannot access the One World Tree section? (As of 7 July 2008) When it was brought in as a "great tool for researchers" a couple of years ago, I was leary, now I see the "snake in the grass" so to speak: Now that they have gained all the free material from the users of this site (access available only through paid subscriptions) now they go one better!!! One must pay an additional fee to access this material under another name and charging about $9.00 a month. (I can't remember the name, the ad came on only once at the Ancestry.com home page)

And I think the new manner of searching for individuals is terrible....I tried looking for an individual using both techniques, and with the new style about 90% less information was found than with the old style.

Ancestry, Ancestry, I hope you are reading this!!!!!!

New search results screen

pjbuk007 — 23 Jun 2008 10:52:28 GMT

Does anyone else find this annoying? I mean the column down the left for "Refine your Search". I want to see as many results as possible - the best are when they are one line each, so I can eyeball the names.

When I first started using Ancestry, you got the results in one line each, so you could see many more at once, which makes life much easier. I am involved in a One Name Study and find it much harder to look down the names when each record result takes up several lines..

Can this column on the left be removed?

Here we go again.

Nan_Lambert — 2 Jul 2008 7:54:55 GMT

Check out the new "home page," and then, PLEASE, answer the "tell us what you think" survey.

And here's the requisite ancestry blog entry:
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2008/07/02/introducing-a-...

Message Board Avatars Not An Improvement

frostfreedet — 31 May 2008 2:58:03 GMT

Oh, come on, TGN, this is getting ridiculous. No wonder the message boards have been acting wonky the past two weeks or so.

The added script makes the boards jump around and causes more frequent refusal of the actual message-board segments to open at all (oh, but the ads display perfectly).

This is not a dating service, not a chat room. The most important part is The Message, not submitter's age, height, automobile make/model, education level or dog's name. Please.

Remove the avatars, remove the silly links within the messages, please let us use the boards in peace.

List of women married into a family

inwolfepak4 — 22 Jun 2008 7:47:22 GMT

Is there a way to list all the people with a specific last name (either born with surname or married into family).
I am constantly searching resources (both inside and outside Ancestry.com). These include cemetery lists, obit sites, newspaper sites, etc. Often (50% of the time) I have a women's married name, but does this match anyone in my tree? It is very difficult to tell since I often do not have their maiden name.

This seems like a fundamental need for genealogy research which is missing in Ancestry.com. Or perhaps I have overlooked something in Ancestry.com.

David Graham

RBestrom7380 — 15 Jun 2008 3:03:41 GMT

Message Board Avatars. If you want a dating service go to Yahoo.

Links to "family" names, that are NOT family names or even places. I'm Sure, the links will pick up on the Clock Keeps Ticking Against Your Stupid Link connections.

THIS CRAP IS NOT GENEALOGY RESEARCH.

These were brought to you by David Graham...

Why doesn't he design something that will STOP the message board from rejecting the thread and other problems.

I challenge this idiot to a duel, your choice of weapons. I'd suggest you choose a weapon of destruction as you have no means to choose a mental fight, or about genealogy.

Find another job. You know nothing about genealogy.

Breaking trees into smaller ones

dwilliam16 — 16 Jun 2008 5:00:28 GMT

Is there any plan to enable someone to take a particular branch of the tree and start a new one? ie, one for myself, and one for my wife's family, 2 for my mother's parents and 2 for my father's parents. Just for my own sanity, it would be nice to be able to have the Mallard, Wamsley, Williams, Gunter, and Reed lines each as their own separate tree. This way, if I have a relative who is only interested in Mallards, etc, I can give them a GEDCOM that is just what they want, without having to take it into FTM as a new tree and deleting all the other info. I can't be the only one who thinks this would be a nice feature, either for Ancesty.com or FTM.

Missing Contact Links - Radio Button and Checkbox Options

lhmatthews — 17 Jun 2008 8:15:51 GMT

I had a missing contact link on my profile which I addressed in previous thread. I finally figured out that although I had changed by connection radio button preference to: "Display my email address to other members. Free for members to contact you. Paid members can also contact you anonymously through Ancestry's Connection Service." It was defaulted to contact by subscribers only through connection service. Anyway, somehow I either intentionally or unintentionally unchecked a checkbox of types of information I can be emailed about. Without a check in the checkbox, it made my radio button choice untrue and the contact link was no longer displayed. BAD DESIGN! I have submitted suggestions for a more logical sequence of user actions including the ability so there is no question what is wanted. So, I suggest you critically review your profile connection preferences to make sure it is what you want.

Profile Email Options - Be Sure You Have What You Want

lhmatthews — 15 Jun 2008 9:01:51 GMT

I dropped my 10+ year subscription a couple months ago and wasn't sure what sort of contact info was on my profile.

Today, I changed the options from the default option of "Anonymously through Ancestry's Connection Service (recommended). Requires paid membership for members to contact you." to the option "Display my email address to other members. Free for members to contact you....." For whatever reason, the contact option change didn't seem to take in Ancestry (at least in the older messages). In addition, I updated my email address and lost the contact link completely. However, it does display when accessed through Rootsweb. Wierd, huh! I submitted an issue to Ancestry support but probably won't hear back until mid-week.

I frequently question Ancestry's purpose for changes and their level of testing of their changes...one of the reasons I dropped my subscription. The stated reason for the contact email change is to protect privacy. However, I have benefited from people being able to contact me directly and never was bothered by excess spam or unwanted email in the 10+ years the encrypted email address was displayed on Ancestry. I got some great research contacts and information from researchers that contacted me directly a few years after I made a post.

Theoretically, if it works, the advantage of a profile tied to an account would be that you could update your email address no matter what your subscriber status is. However, I have lots of questions too. Will Ancestry continue to offer the Rootsweb/Ancestry message boards for non-subscibers? Will they eventually purge Rootsweb/Ancestry messages that have no profile or are so old....and not bother informing us?

If you are not satisfied with the default setting of anonymous contact by ONLY ANCESTRY SUBSCRIBERS, consider changing it but also be aware that it may not change for you. Argh!

Alert - new disruption coming soon to Message Boards on Rootsweb side

frostfreedet — 1 Jun 2008 7:32:59 GMT

Message Boards on Ancestry side now have little avatars that are supposed to be photo thumbnails.

Dave Graham posted a blog on the intention of this feature:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2008/05/30/public-member-...

One key change is that the username link on the Ancestry side no longer connects directly to the (limited, buggy and frustrating) 'contact member' feature. Instead, it is supposed to connect to the Member Public Profile, which is supposed to include a 'contact' link.

The net effect of this on the Ancestry side is to eliminate the 'contact' link. Evidently the link to a member's Public Profile won't work on the Ancestry side if the member has not updated their Public Profile since the change was made 2 days ago.

Dave says the intention is to add this feature "everywhere," so I assume the intention is similarly to change the poster-link's function on the Rootsweb side.

If they do this the same way, the net effect will be to make it impossible to contact most Rootsweb posters, just as it is now impossible to contact nearly all Ancestry past and present members.

It is ridiculous that these changes, in the name of making TGN a more 'social' environment, result in making communications rather more difficult.

Can't save record to my tree.

lucybutko — 29 May 2008 8:21:33 GMT

Is anyone else having problems with this at this moment, abt 4:15 p.m. edt?

The computed just keeps Waiting for Ancestry trees...

What's going on now with Ancestry Hints?

rundehel — 7 May 2008 2:50:29 GMT

Regarding Ancestry Hints this morning, I clicked on an ancestor's Ancestry Hints icon to find out who were her parents, spouses and children. When I saw the information, I added the parents, two spouses and few children, then clicked to "Add" the information and return to the ancestor, only to see nothing was added or updated.

What's going on now? Right now, Ancestry Hints feature is very slow.

Ancestry on-line Family Tree - Can you merge people????????

TheresaRGriffiths — 30 Apr 2008 3:46:19 GMT

I myself don't like the new ancestry on-line Family Tree!
But, Just like the other one you can't seem to merge people.
If you can merge people than can someone tell me how?
As I have found new info and the line connects to another line and added the name and I need to merge the two.
Can someone brings this to the big shots at ancestry!

Thank You Generations Network

lucybutko — 19 May 2008 3:41:42 GMT

For thoroughly screwing up what worked...Rootsweb sites, Ancestry.com...

"You" have made waste to valuable resources that took years for dedicated people to build, many of which died in the process. Their "Vision" has carried many of us much farther than your myopic member trees and other recent changes ever will. "You" are a sin.

ENHANCEMENT REQUEST: Add/ Update/MANAGEMENT for Trees

delikid — 15 May 2008 12:47:19 GMT

I have uploaded my entire file from FTM2008 to ancestry.com.

Yesterday I received updates from a family members. I made the updated in FTM2008. Then went to share > upload to ancestry...

... to then determine that I can only create an entire new treee? Reading all the posts made me realize this IS an issue for active researchers. How could ancestry NOT think that there'd be updates to trees? geez...

SO, I am requesting an enhancement to truly "MANAGE" my tree, not just download or delete it. Give us the ability to upload new content from FTM2008 of a single person, family of people, etc.

Shoebox Problems

genericjane — 30 Oct 2007 7:50:59 GMT

On a couple of occasions recently I've been able to save things like BMD and census records to people in my tree. However that option seems now to have disappeared, and when I view a record, the only options I have now are to save to Shoebox or on my computer.

I tried sending an email to ancestry, but got diverted to a page asking me to complete my profile! I've got a steadily growing list of documents in my shoebox and no means of attaching it to a family member. Anyone have a similar problem or know how to get round this?

Little PopUp Windows for Links

patster1 — 30 Apr 2008 5:39:42 GMT

I can't find any reference in recent messages that anyone has seen this. I too find the popup links very annoying and just today saw (in fine print) on one of the popups a link to disable them. I hit the link within the popup and out in Ancestry.com land there was some magic done and all of the popups disapeared. Looking through various other messages I see no popups. Also I do not see anyway to get them back if wanted (I do not want them back).
Pat Bowen

Re: new beta site Ancestry is advertising

mbmjlm — 30 Apr 2008 9:51:24 GMT

Has anyone tried the so-called new Beta Site? If so, is it any good? I am leary of trying any of their new things for fear I will lose the other things just like I have lost the enhanced image viewer on anything other than Firefox.

Thank you Ancestry ...

JimLivermoreNY — 23 Apr 2008 12:35:31 GMT

for listening and providing us with the alphabetical sorting of search results. I, for one, appreciate it!

Linking to more resources on the Message Boards

Ancestry_Product_Mgt — 28 Feb 2008 11:49:23 GMT

We just wanted to quickly let everyone know about a new feature we’ve introduced on the Message Boards. We now automatically recognize last names included in message board posts and offer special links to additional surname resources.

You can read more about it on the Ancestry blog here:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2008/02/28/linking-to-mor...

Thanks,
Ancestry Product Management

state maps and flags

sek92 — 18 Apr 2008 3:03:22 GMT

ARe they putting on state flags and maps and if so when

How do I add a generation without losing data?

SDeWolfeBurns — 28 Sep 2008 7:15:18 GMT

I just realized that I skipped a generation on one of my lines, for the surname DeWolfe/DeWolf. As it is right now, an ancestor Frederic shows his father to be Emile, but Emile is actually Frederic's grandfather. How do I add a blank generation in between Frederic and Emile without losing data?

I am not using any special software, just making it on line here at Ancestry.com The tree is called "Our Children's Ancestors."

What does Alternate mean.

Tyler9191 — 6 Apr 2008 5:36:39 GMT

When I look at my possible famouse relatives it says I have a famouse 25th Great Grandfather so I tried to make my Family Tree up to that point where he is. I tried it and it did not work out right and he was not there though he is if I click alternate as I am researching my Family Tree and it turns out my 25th Great Grandfather is there under a alternate Family Line. What does that mean. Am I even related to him. What does Alternate mean.

The new improved Find People search box - looks great - thanks!

homesteadlite — 30 Mar 2008 4:24:55 GMT

Love the new possible matches when you type in a name and it gives you options as to whom you might be searching for - thanks, Ancestry!

Now, please get to work on merging FTM & ancestry trees. What a phenomenal hassle.

How to Update Family Tree Info

leighgray7 — 21 Jul 2007 4:31:33 GMT

Is there a way to update my online family tree without having to go through and manually attach all the photos again (ie, by totally replacing the old tree with a new one)?

Also, if I inadvertently attach an existing person to someone (as a parent, for example), is there a way to undo it without replacing the whole tree with a fixed one? I did this recently and ended up exporting the ancestry tree to my Legacy program, fixing it in legacy, creating a new gedcom, uploading it, and deleting my previous ancestry tree. It was a huge hassle.

List of historical records - how to generate?

homesteadlite — 30 Mar 2008 7:12:57 GMT

I want to ensure that I have added all the historical records to one tree that I had in an 'old' tree (had to re-add all photo's and records when I upgraded FTM tree with hundreds of new names recently).

Is it possible, can someone help me please, to generate a list of the historical records so you can cross-check or inventory the records?

This same question applies to comments, is there a list generate-able within a tree or searchable subject lines should you not recall the person the comment was made upon, but do remember the subject or catchphrase?

Thanks in advance.

Statistics/Trivia Idea

josephcostlow — 14 Jan 2008 6:49:27 GMT

It seems to me like it would be easy to add some basic statistics functions to family trees. Perhaps there could be stats/trivia such as:

- earliest person anywhere on your tree
- most common names/occupations/etc.
- some sort of map feature that dots where all ancestors are from

I currently only use the online tree - does FTM have anything like this?

Putrid Green Saved Messages

lucybutko — 6 Mar 2008 4:11:11 GMT

Putrid Green Saved Messages: this is not a good color to memorialize our dead, oozing or rotted ancestors!

3 Trees Lost

FCWL97 — 13 Dec 2008 4:59:03 GMT

Hi - I have had to input data on new trees whilst the three trees which have disappeared I'm told are on World Tree Why? The Hints come up in my tree for that particular family as $$OWT and although I search the records - they are there but not shown on my tree; then when I input as seen on my list of many many people they are not linking with the family SO I'VE GIVEN UP especially after phoning and sending emails; one operator didn't know what a $$OWT was.
Please contact me and reinstall my trees

Can't view ANY of the obit info I wanted to look at! Keep getting an error!

TheresaRGriffiths — 27 Mar 2008 2:04:06 GMT

Can't view ANY of the obit info I wanted to look at! Keep getting an error!
What the heck is going on?????????
Ever since all the updates since 2006 and 2007 it's been a nightmare.
They need to hire more people or something. ;(
I'm very disappointed in the company.

It's getting worse not better! - Getting error when correcting census! Errrrrrrrrrr

TheresaRGriffiths — 27 Mar 2008 2:00:16 GMT

Finding my Ggrandparents on census with wrong spelling for surname even through plain as day it's spelled right when you look at the org!
Had some others I was looking at like that also and when I click on the link to add comments etc. I get this error below.
I swear since all the new updates these past 2006 and 2007 it is getting worse not better!
( Below is the error I keep getting )

Unable To Retrieve Record Information

Record information was unavailable.

Problems since last Ancestry Inprovements

thomgibson — 17 Feb 2008 6:19:44 GMT

I have been unable to access any records for the last two weeks and have been getting profile information from someone I don't even know as though I have been linked to their account.
Three requests to the Ancestry.com have not been answered or even acknowledged.
I have been demoted to "guest" with absolutely no access other than my tree.
Does anyone know of an e-mail address, other than the "help form" for assistance.

Thank you,
Tom Gibson