Member Trees - Family History & Genealogy Message Board

Where'd it go to?

franbaldock23 — 6 Jan 2009 11:26:53 GMT

Wonder if anybody has any ideas!

Basically my family tree has disappeared. All of it. My account is still live, my searches in the community still show, but not my tree!

I've emailed them in charge, but no reply yet

Same Sex Marriage

camrowe — 15 Nov 2008 10:21:25 GMT

I have been using the family tree function on this site, and can't figure out to add same-sex partners.

For males, it asks only to add a wife, and for females only to add a husband. I need to add a wife to a female, how do I do this?

Thanks!

Mistakes

maternatura_1 — 5 Jan 2009 6:42:58 GMT

I only became a member three months ago. When I first joined I was thrilled with all the "Hints" and went wild adding newly found ancestors. Much to my horror I finally realized that some of these hints were very inaccurate.

I ran across a tree who has an ancestor with the same first and last name as my living father. The difference is that they have different middle initials, lived in different parts of the country and one is still alive while the other died in 1966. The owner of this other tree has included my father's family as the parents and siblings of her ancestor. I've emailed her explaining the mistake and even researched her ancestor and provided sources for her. She still has not removed the erroneous information.

Also, I've discovered that in several instances people have chosen sources with the same or similar names without regard to any accuracy at all. They can even have very wildly different lifespans. For example I discovered on several trees in "Hints" that based on the dates of birth and death the parents weren't even alive when the child was born or the parent was five years old. One glaring error was that the parent was born 200 years after their child.

Clearly people are often careless when building their trees. I'm guilty too. Now I'm having to go back and clean up some of the mess I made during my initial blind exuberance.

I'm very concerned about the inaccuracy of this database and now quite leery of the "Hints." What can be done to improve this?

Can I import a gedcom?

RobinBMc — 4 Jan 2009 11:53:02 GMT

I have been building my family tree with a free program. I would like to display my family tree on ancestry.com but I don't really want to put in over 250 names. The program I'm using will export a gedcom but I can't find anyway to import the gedcom into ancestry.com. Is it possible or not?

Data Vampires !

bruce4313 — 6 Dec 2008 7:07:38 GMT

On my other thread regarding Ancestry not removing my old incorrect Gedcom the subject of "Data Vampires" comes up.
This incorrect Gedcom has been copied and reproduced by these so called plagiarists.
I use the term plagerists as like i said my tree was wrong as i made a big boo boo so to speak and its this tree with these errors that were copied.
Ive emailed the people who copied it but they dont seem to care that their tree is wrong.
Its a shame as due to their mistake they will get no further back with their tree.
However like some one else said Ancestry should do something regarding the blatent copying of peoples trees - yet they dont.
Just wondered out of curiosity how many other people have put mistakes in their tree and had them reproduced ? or how many other people find them selves on peoples trees that have been copied from the Ancestry networks ?

Would someone please contact a tree owner for me

gwill65074 — 3 Jan 2009 2:51:51 GMT

I do not have a membership with ancestry at this time, but I have found a tree that has my ancestors in it. The tree title is "Barnett Family Tree" and a search for Sarah Elizabeth Parton married to James Barnett brings it up as the first tree. The owner is shown as eahowell and I would dearly love to contact that person. Would someone with a subscription please contact the owner of this tree and ask them to email me at gwill65074@aol.com. Thank you. Dottie

Glitch in the program

mbmjlm — 29 Dec 2008 8:41:31 GMT

There is a really, really stupid problem here on the online trees which needs to be fixed pronto. I entered Jacob Marchant, Jr.-then I entered daughter Annie Belle Marchant without noticing that "Jr." was still attached to the surname. When I tried to delete the Jr. from her surname-the program insisted that I add Jr. because her name should be the same as her father's. She is not a Jr. and children do not always have the same name as the father. I had to completely delete Annie Belle and re-add her to get around that. In my opinion, if this is to be more like a genuine genealogy program, these silly glitches need to be fixed. In my opinion, Ancestry should hire programmers who are familiar with genealogy programming to fix these. It is obvious to me that the programmers they are using are not familiar with the requirements that are necessary for a true genealogy program. That is why so many of us say that the online tree is at best a display program and was never meant to be a genealogy program. At the very least, it should be a little closer to a true genealogy program and glitches like these need to be done away with. At least for now, do away with having "jr" attach itself to the surname when you are adding children. At best there is only one child "jr" and most of the time there are none. If I am adding 10 children, I have to delete "jr" at least 9 times. This doesn't need to happen.

Displaying Relationships

TRUETTCANTRELL — 3 Jan 2009 6:35:01 GMT

This there a way to display relationships using my online tree?

Sharing Info with Non-Members

BlueNorma — 31 Dec 2008 4:09:12 GMT

Is there a way that people who aren't members of ancestry.com can view a tree? I'd like to show mine to some family members, but I can't figure a way to link to it.

How can I delete story files from a personal tree?

p_ziegler — 30 Dec 2008 1:33:52 GMT

When I uploaded my Family Tree file, I had no idea that four Word files which were attached to it would get published as "Stories" by ancestry.com. This was never my intention, and if I had known that this would happen, I would certainly have deleted these files from my PC before doing the upload.

I have temporarily marked my tree 'private' to prevent the general public from reading these files. I want to remove them altogether and make my tree 'public' again, but there doesn't seem to be any way to remove a "Story" once it's been put out there.

Does anyone know of a way to get these Story files removed from a tree?

Taking of others' photos without asking

midge1249 — 9 Dec 2008 6:47:55 GMT

I'm in the middle of an ugly incident that I am having real problems about. I have been with Ancestry for over a decade and have had nothing but good experiences with fellow members. BUT, this changed recently. A member named Lori Maxwell, with a 33,000 entry tree entitled "Tracing Our Roots", without any relationship and without contacting me, incorporated my husbnad's parents and grandparents photos into her tree, her link being somehow distantly descended from a great-great-grandfather's 2nd wife, whereas my husband is from the first wife. So the 'connection' is miniscule to say the least. Anyway, we have asked her to please remove the few picture of these few people as they are personal photos for the enjoyment of the immediate family. Twice I have contacted her and have not heard from her. I then put comments on the pictures saying that the family had not given permission for the use of these personal photos (some taken by my husband) - and she just removed the comments. I'm just venting here, because I find it so hard to believe that there are amateur genealogists out there who would be so crass and inconsiderate - certainly not the norm as most are very considerate and cooperative. We have since put the tree private, which is a shame one has to do this because of the 'theft' perpetrated by someone who obviously doesn't have a shred of decency. Be forewarned of this member. She also incorporated a huge portion of my tree into hers (hence the over 33,000 entries, I guess) and she has no link to that part of the tree whatsoever - nada. I would like to see Ancestry offer a protection for what was originally a good idea - some little box which must be 'ticked' if you want your photos shared and 'unticked' for those photos which you don't want 'lifted' from your site. This way, you could leave your site public and not risk having the few unscrupulous types helping themselves to your personal family photo album.

Can I split a tree?

LAlsdorf — 26 Dec 2008 6:16:57 GMT

Just as a lark, I tried tracing my husband's first wife's ancestry. (She was delighted at the idea) In a short time I had added over 1000 people to my tree, none of whom are related to me or my kids. Is there a way to copy just her ancestors to a new tree and then delete them from my main tree?

setting direct line

abair2 — 23 Dec 2008 12:21:26 GMT

Is it possible to set/mark persons as Preferred so you can trace your direct line ancestors like I can on my personal tree at home? I find as I'm working here, I get "lost" and have to keep refering to my home software to keep track of my line- due to all the siblings & such one tends to research, and also because so many names are reused over & over in families and have to rely on dates/spouses to keep them straight. thanks

Tree best practice

aprmike — 22 Dec 2008 8:40:47 GMT

Hi, I am new to this so sorry for the noob question. I am interested in looking back at my direct lineage (from my fathers side only), but have been fortuate enough to be provided with some detailed tree records from further afield in my tree (my mothers family). Is it best to have one big tree or split up into smaller trees? And if so can multiple trees then be linked to make them more manageable?
many thanks

Can't attach a second passenger list record

JoMac53 — 22 Dec 2008 5:06:08 GMT

I have one record attached from New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, arrival date 1850. When I try to attach another record from the same database to the same person but for a different voyage with a different arrival date it won't attach seperately, it just replaces the one already attached. Is it possible to attach a second record from this same database or no? If yes, and this is an indication that it's not working properly, here's the info:

Tree is McKenna - Perry Family Tree (Private)
Person is Richard Curry, abt 1782 Lancashire, England
The already-attached record is for:
Arrival Date: 13 Feb 1850
Ship Name: West Point
The record I'm trying to attach is for:
Arrival Date: 11 Jul 1839
Ship Name: Madison
Both are Liverpool, England to New York, New York.

Thanks for any help.
Jo

How YOU handle MEMBER tree merge with FTM tree???

B_Suni_Roveto — 10 Dec 2008 4:25:38 GMT

Frequently I need to get new information obtained on ANCESTRY.COM into my FAMILY TREE MAKER 09 tree of the same name. Please share how YOU go about doing this.

I thought that the online MEMBER trees interfaced and automatically made updates to the FTM file where you start the search or follow the hint but apparently this is not true?

If you know of a tutorial on this, could you share the link please?

Membership - Contacting other Members

terrafish — 1 Dec 2008 6:07:15 GMT

Hi,

I was wondering how it is possible to be in contact with other members on this website. I do not have a paid account at the moment (very poor student :( ) but I have found 6 family trees which appear to belong to some not so distant relatives of mine. I would very much like to contact them (I think we have a lot of information we could share with one another) but it won't let me as I am not a paying customer.

If I were to purchase a membership, would it be possible for other people to contact me, even if they are not a paying customer themselves? I would hate to think that, after paying for a membership, I would not have the ability to be in contact with people whom I never knew existed.

Or is it true that the family trees are really just a way that ancestry.com can coerce people into buying a membership? Even though it is my hard work and information that they are selling? And even if I am a paying member myself?

If anyone has any information (or ideas, opinions) that would be great! Thanks.

Beta Test? What's that?

sbgjs — 18 Dec 2008 1:15:20 GMT

Ever hear of testing database changes before you deploy them? It was working fine the day before yesterday, now it's all hosed up. For example, I can't attach records to individuals on my Public Tree. Even though there are 11,000+ on my tree, it shows the tree populations as zero when I try to attach.

Ancestry please do something!

PriscillaR — 13 Dec 2008 3:26:36 GMT

I'm getting very frustrated with the same privitized tree coming back within minutes as a "Hint" to someone in my tree.

At least allow us to ignore these trees so they don't keep coming back over & over & over again as hints.

Trash can icon

OTangerine — 13 Dec 2008 1:38:47 GMT

Where is the trash can icon to the right of the
name of the online tree? I can't find the
trash can icon.

Lavinia Bell

How do you merge duplicates?

B_Suni_Roveto — 10 Dec 2008 4:18:41 GMT

In the ANCESTRY MEMBER tree, if you find duplicate individuals, can you merge them?? If so, how??

Looking for Ancestry Member armscye

sthrngir — 10 Dec 2008 7:41:09 GMT

Yes i'm look for this person whenever i try to contact the page gives me an error and i need to talk to them to see if the people in his tree are the same in mine

If your tree is wrong ancestry will not remove it ! Old Gedcom !!!

bruce4313 — 28 Nov 2008 7:16:34 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.

WHY COPY PHOTOS AND STORIES?

GBaragona — 7 Oct 2008 1:31:05 GMT

I uploaded my public-member tree several months ago. In my tree, I have about 10 photos and a couple of "stories" about my gggf and the man who was probably his father.

Would you believe, not long after I uploaded my tree, the story about my gggf appeared in NINE other public-member trees! And the photo of my gggf's tombstone is in FIVE public-member trees in addition to mine.

One man copied my stories, the photos of my parents and grandparents (including their 50th wedding anniversary photos), and one of my great-grandfather with whom he had absolutely no connection. He did this, based only on my comment to him that I had a "gut" feeling that the woman who married my gggf had been married before to one of HIS wife's ancestors! This man told me he had been a "serious researcher" for 30 years. But, I think he has been a "serious collector" for that time period.

I revised my story about my gggf's father, just so I would have something DIFFERENT from those that had been copied from my tree. I was a bit frustrated to see my work being mass-produced! I wanted to have SOMETHING that was "mine" in my tree. Lo and behold! It wasn't but a couple of days before my revised story appeared in the THIRD version of a man's public-member tree! So much has been copied from my public-member tree that there is nothing left in my tree that is "unique".

Why should it be so easy to copy photos and stories from public-member trees? The fact that Ancestry provides the option to "Save this to your tree" in the public-member trees suggests to anyone that it's o.k. to just copy someone else's work. But, it is totally ridiculous to have so many exact copies of the same information in the trees. Also, why can't the owner of the tree be able to choose whether or not stories and photos can be copied, similar to the option for allowing gedcom downloads in the Ancestry World Trees?

Public Member Trees

ecss12830 — 4 Dec 2008 11:12:30 GMT

For the last 4 days and while searching in the Family Tree tab, Public Members Tree, have clicked on the tree’s owners name only to get

"An error occurred while retrieving this profile. Please excuse any inconvenience, and try again later."

This going on for 4 days, when will this be fixed?

Public vs Private

sbgjs — 7 Nov 2008 8:43:46 GMT

Is it possible now, or will it be possible in the future to have certain elements of a public tree made private?

For example, I have a public tree, but I'd like to make some of the photos private. Right now it seems I have the choice to not add the photo to my tree, or make the entire tree private.

It would be nice to share basic info in a public tree but have the option to make certain photos, stories, etc private.

How to set a default when you have multiple trees

garnetquigley — 30 Nov 2008 8:28:37 GMT

Short question: if you have multiple trees on Ancestry.com is there a way to set one to be the default tree?

Longer description of my problem: My principal tree on Ancestry.com was the only one I had until yesterday, when I added two additional private trees which I intend to update rarely. When I logon now Ancestry seems to remember the last tree I was working on, so it is offering my principal tree just as I would want.

While working in my principal tree Ancestry Hints have found other public trees and when I look inside these trees there is data I would like to add to my own. However whenever I hit the "Save this person to your tree" to copy this data to my principal tree Ancestry offers up instead one of my new trees, not the tree in which I have been working.

I have to hit a down arrow, wait a bit, then reselect my orginal tree, wait a bit, then finally get to continue. These extra steps are very annoying time consumers, which would be unnecessary if there is a way to set my original tree as the default.

Grateful if anyone has a technical suggestion. Keying the data in manually because it is more professional is not why I subscribed to a website with automated features :o) Thanks.

Tree not working right

JoMac53 — 10 Nov 2008 1:56:36 GMT

I can't add a second husband to this one lady...it says he's been added successfully, it shows him in the list of people, it shows the marriage in the time line view, but he doesn't show up as an alternate husband for her anywhere except the family group sheet view, and there her first husband doesn't show up! The "alternate husbands" function doesn't work for her in any view.

I have checked to see that there are no doubles in the tree and I've reloaded the page so it's showing the most current view. I don't get it, it's mystifying and frustrating. Has anyone experienced anything like this and what can I do about it?

Thanks. Jo

Well Iwas gonna putpictures on my tree

AutumnSmithObuchowski — 23 Nov 2008 6:58:54 GMT

I worked on my tree all summer and then I got busy with school so I thought I would just come back to it. I guess not,My whole tree has been erased. All that work just to have it erased. Thanks a lot ancestry.com.

Passenger List record not attaching properly

JoMac53 — 21 Nov 2008 3:19:11 GMT

I just attached a record from the New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, database and it didn't create an "arrival" event but is instead showing as a source citation for the actual date of birth which was not even on the record. Can this be fixed?

Tree name: McKenna - Perry Family Tree
Name: Thos F Caine
Arrival Date: 22 Aug 1910
Attached to: Thomas Frederick Caine, b. 31 Jul 1888, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England

"ANYAL family tree" LOST

SUDHAN76 — 18 Nov 2008 7:36:25 GMT

My family tree named, ANYAL family tree has either been removed by the website or there is some technical problem. I tried to contact for help but no help has helped me.
My tree is very vital for me and my family. It represents lots of living people and was being shared by lots of them and was growing very fast but I do not have a copy on my computer either. I request someone to help me find it and get me downloaded so that such a mishap should not occur in future.
May I know why this has happened and how to avoid it. If ancestry cannot help can I go somewhere else and do i have to built it again. It already took me one year to search for this information and put on site.
HELP required.
Aamer

Enjoying the new mapping program?

frostfreedet — 20 Nov 2008 11:03:29 GMT

You can comment on your experiences with it on the Ancestry.com blog; scroll down to Kenny Freeston's announcement:

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

NANCYMSMITH

niqueamidala1 — 20 Nov 2008 4:14:52 GMT

I ran across your family tree via Rootsweb.com. You have Frank Smith Heckman and Jeannette McKeever in your tree. You are missing a child. He was the youngest, born just before Jeannette's death, and was given up for adoption. His birth name was Leland Heckman, his adopted name was Patric Voege. He was my mother's father (he died when she was young). I tried to contact you but the Ancestry site said you opted not to be contacted. Please leave me a message if you'd like to exchange info.
Tanya Stone

Page Glitch

mbmjlm — 17 Nov 2008 6:10:13 GMT

Is anyone else having the problem I have just seen. On a profile page-the "family members" option is covering up part of the profile option for a person. Example: "Add a life event" has only the words "Add a life ev" showing. The rest is hidden by the "family members" option. The rest of the options under that are partially hidden as well. I am seeing this using Internet Explorer as well as AOL.

ANYAL family tree,,,,LOST

SUDHAN76 — 18 Nov 2008 7:40:44 GMT

My tree ie ANYAL family tree has be removed by the website from my profile. Can someone let me know why? and how to retrieve it?
Whom should I contact?

I have other trees also but only this is not available and I did not remove it also. I am the owner.
Can someone else like editor or contributer can remove it?
PLeaseHelp
Aamer

How do I make my tree private and change it's name?

Skunked — 19 Nov 2008 9:25:08 GMT

I'd like to make my tree private, so only I can see it. I'd also like to change it's name. how can I do these things?

Ancestry Personal Online Tree -- Four "Problems"

map2knit — 24 Sep 2008 4:23:03 GMT

SOURCE CITATION DETAILS
In the source citation details, why is the “Actual text” field below the “comments” field? It seems to me that this is backwards.

TITLES
How do you add prefixes (Dr. & Rev.) and suffixes (Sr. & Jr.)?

COMMENTS
Why aren’t comments allowed to have: Bold Formatting, Underlines and Italics? And, worse yet, why are there no paragraph separations? All sentences seem to be run back-to-back. No double spacing, either.

SQUARE BRACKETS “[ ]”
My PC tree contains square brackets when surname is not known (Salome [Unknown]). The brackets carried over into a new GEDCOM file. When I uploaded that file to a new online tree, the brackets were included. However, when I added a new individual, the above mentioned Salome, I got a Windows Internet Explorer pop-up box with the error message “The name contains an invalid character: [“. So, Salome is in the "U" surname section instead of at the top of the "Full list of people"

Glenn

privitized trees are frustrating hints

PriscillaR — 19 Nov 2008 1:51:27 GMT

I've been doing research on my husband's family & getting pretty tired of seeing that darn pink box over & over & over again when I click on hints for members of his family...these hints which are in ONE person's tree will NOT go away no matter how many times I've researched his family. And it doesn't matter if I refresh the screen or not...the same hint will be back again in a few days or so.

I've been working on this family several months now & make note each time the same tree shows up as a hint for the same person(s). This is frustrating to deal with.
Why can't Ancestry do something to make privitized trees NOT appear as hints in the first place??

And if the darn tree is privitized why does it keep coming back as hints? There is no option of "Ignoring" these hints which would obviously stop them from ever appearing again. WHY?

children shown as spouses of siblings?

PriscillaR — 18 Nov 2008 2:09:04 GMT

When adding a census records to multiple persons in my tree I'm sometimes getting spouses who have children as their spouse or in the case of the image I'm attaching a sibling married to another sibling in the same family.

This has been happening more frequently lately & it's bothersome to have to go in & remove these records.

What's the point of being able to add these census records to other family members when it changes that other person or persons as a spouse???

Living people on my tree

PennyPHayes — 27 Jul 2008 5:03:28 GMT

Yes, I know everybody says that if you don't have any dates, that the person in your tree will show up as "Living Soandso". I have just discovered (to my horror) that this is not necessarily true. I created an "alternate" login for myself - so it shows up as a registered member of Ancestry without a subscription. Then I logged in to Ancestry with my subscriber account and invited my alternate-self to view my tree without being able to see living persons.

Guess what? Some living people showed up correctly (e.g. I couldn't see their actual names).... but other living relatives showed up right out there in front of God and everybody, despite the fact that there are no dates at all listed.

I can find no way to fix that short of simply deleting the person. Is there a way that I don't know about to change these people to show up as living? Anybody know why they would show up when they shouldn't?

It's going to be a real pain to check this out and be sure no other living people are visible. Grrrrrrr.

Penny

New Content Added...How to see all new people added

DurlerPflughoeft — 18 Nov 2008 3:07:53 GMT

When new people, photo's, stories, etc. added to Personal Member Tree a message is sent out to all invitees. New Photo's and stories has a link that takes you to the Tree and let's you browse thru all the new photo's and stories..but when new people added the message says how many people added, but just shows my invitees six people who were added to the tree (i.e. 21 people added, then names of six of those 21 people) and doesn't provide a place to go to see all new people added. Is there a way to see who has been added and when they were added, so I don't have to figure it out when I get questions from my invitees about who else was added?

foreign language problem

PriscillaR — 16 Nov 2008 7:58:37 GMT

Can anyone tell me why this looks this way?
Sarah Ann Eads

Geburt:
2 Jul 1829
Border, Idaho, Idaho, USA
Tod:
18 Apr 1867
Kingston, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Heirat:
18 Nov 1847
Des Moines, Des Moines, Iowa, USA

multiple spellings for names

benjaminbanyas — 26 Jun 2008 5:40:48 GMT

when entering names into my member tree, is there a way to put two drastically different names in the same entry and still have the program recognize the names and search for both? For instance, if I am searching for a man whose name was changed to "John Smith" when he emigrated to America, and there are many documents for him by that name, but his actual name was "Yefim Smyrnov" and there may also be some documents under that name, how do i put both of those names into my tree? And if I can put both names in, would the automatic search hints search for both names?

accessing your member tree at library?

JacquelineCJR — 6 Oct 2008 4:04:54 GMT

Hi there -

I remember reading a while back that if you take your laptop to a library that has the ancestry library subscription that it will override your ability to access your personal ancestry.com account. Does anyone know if this is still accurate? I'm planning a trip to Salt Lake in December & wondering whether it will be an exercise in frustration to try and access my member tree while at the Family History Library...

Thanks for any insight or advice!

Editing/Adding New Repository

map2knit — 14 Nov 2008 6:34:56 GMT

Entering a new depository does not work. I entered repository information (name, address, etc.) three times and used the “save” button at each level on the way back to the “Source Information” screen. (This is the screen that contains the button “Return to sources”). When I returned to this screen, the repository line was still displaying “No repository specified for this source”.

Cheers,
Glenn

Downloading Gedcom file?

russitaekwondo — 14 Nov 2008 12:03:59 GMT

Can anyone help? I want to download my latest gedcom file from ancestry, which is something I've done in the past before I'm sure, but now I cannot see any way of doing it! I emailed the support guys, but they sent me back a reply which was a link to an article which has been deleted! I asked for more detail and they haven't replied! help! Have they removed the facility to download a gedcom file from your data without telling us?

Ancestry Hints functionality and Duplicates Suggestion

garnetquigley — 30 Aug 2008 2:17:29 GMT

I am a big fan of Ancestry Hints. As you know, when users create or open an individual in their own tree Ancestry goes through their database(s) to see if there are records for that person including whether that person exists in other trees. When Ancestry finds a possible hit in another tree the user may access a person merge screen to compare and then chose to merge individuals, partial or full families into their own tree.

When the Hint or multiple Hints are offered could not one of the offerings be a hint that the individual in question may exist as a duplicate within the user's own tree? If the user opens this Hint on possible duplicates could the user not be offered the same currently existing person match screen but this time comparing the older record with the newer one within the user's own tree. And then having the same ability to merge the two as the user currently has merging individuals from other member's trees.

In other words could Ancestry not use the existing screens and merge functionality but just add the option for a Hint on duplications within a user's own tree?

I am finding duplicate individuals in almost every public tree I look at on Ancestry. The merging of multiple family members from other trees and from the Census records is a wonderful feature but it can lead to many duplicate entries.

Excluding the merging of multiple individuals functionality for a moment. Even manually adding for example a spouse, without a time-consuming search of an existing tree's list, users can easily miss the fact the spouse already exists on the tree as an unmarried child of parents captured on another occasion.

Having an easy way to identify duplicates and to merge them would benefit everyone including I believe database management and indexing when duplications within trees can be removed from consideration.

Garnet

Tried to delete a member of my tree and now they are listed as "UNKNOWN"

TheMcKayFam — 6 Nov 2008 4:21:22 GMT

I was recently adding in the parents of a member of my tree and found that I had entered incorrect information. I deleted both parents and now they both show up as "UNKNOWN" on the child's page. I am unable to edit them, I can't click on "Add Father" or "Add Mother" in the tree view, nor can I fully delete the "UNKNOWN" entries.

Has anyone experienced anything similar and found a way to resolve it?

Thanks,
Andy

Tree Problem - Old Problem Back Again

sbgjs — 6 Nov 2008 2:53:03 GMT

When I delete an individual from my tree, instead of getting a 'Add Father', 'Add Mother' or 'Add Wife' after the deletion (which would allow me to add a new name to replace the deletion), I get 'UNKNOWN' in all caps. I can't modify the 'UNKNOWN', delete it or add a spouse to it.

This was a systemic problem from a year ago, was fixed, but now appears to have recently returned.

To have a living person taken off of a tree

BarbaraMcCallum20 — 17 Aug 2008 11:58:37 GMT

I have discovered that my father, living, is listed on a family tree. I have contacted the person privately to request that the living people be taken off with no response. What do I do next?? I cannot seem to contact anyone at Ancestry to find a solution and the rote questions for solutions do not include this problem. It seems that a complaint is the next way to solve this. But there does not seem to be a way to complain. I do believe this was an innocent mistake. Does anyone know the answer?

Help

PriscillaR — 2 Nov 2008 12:45:22 GMT

I found an error in my tree in which I have 2 mothers for the same daughter.
If I delete her I'd be deleting her from both mothers + the fact she married & had children & I'd have to delete all the information I'd entered about them too.
I'm guessing about 7 or so people are involved with this part of my tree.
Is there another way to fix the problem?
Thanks, Priscilla

Is it possible to connect branches in your tree?

jhubertjb — 30 Oct 2008 10:15:03 GMT

I have found that my mother-in-law(my husband's step mother) is also a distant relative through my fathers side of the family. Is there any way that I can enter this so that they meet up and connect? or will I have to have my husband not be connected to his step-mother?

Thanks for any help!

Help Understanding Member Tree

nolte_a — 26 Oct 2008 1:15:30 GMT

Member Tree, Ancestry Tree and Oneworld Tree - don't understand the difference.

On-line Member Tree vs Family Tree Maker software - what is the difference?

Also found a hint that lead me to a Oneworld Tree listing but there was no feature allowing me to contact that person.

Help feature just runs me around in circle with no clear answers. Clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Need to "ignore" a whole tree instead of one hint at a time.

JoMac53 — 25 Oct 2008 9:56:17 GMT

I need to "ignore" an entire tree instead of one hint at a time. I have a rellie who is on her third tree in which she merges most of my tree. Of course, I then get "hints" for every single person we "share" so I need a way to "ignore" her whole tree in one click. Is that possible? That should be possible, right? I'm wasting so much time checking hints before I find out it's just her tree again. I can't believe today she's started her third tree. ::sigh::

If it's not possible now can it be added as an enhancement... and quickly!?!?

Help with invitations please

crisg580 — 21 Oct 2008 3:57:12 GMT

I have 2 trees and I want my family to have access to both. My family says even thought I have sent them invitations from both trees they can only view one. How can they have access to both trees?

Finding my connection with an individual

alisonjar — 21 Oct 2008 4:35:10 GMT

Does anyone know if there is a way on ancestry to find the connection/relationship between two individuals.

I often receive emails from fellow researchers asking what my connection is with a named individual in my and their tree.As there are several thousand individuals in my tree tracing an individual from me to them is an endless task and sometimes downright impossible.

I wondered if there is some clever way of doing this. Can anyone help?

unable to view Hints which are trees

PriscillaR — 18 Oct 2008 7:03:42 GMT

For several days now I've not been able to view the trees which are hints for people I have...
When I click on the hint it may say the hint is from 1 to as many as 14 trees but when I click to view those trees it says 'done' at the bottom of the window but no trees ever appear.
I believe this is a problem with my computer but what is it that I need to fix?
Thanks, Priscilla

Contact needed

Famagusta — 21 Oct 2008 8:03:14 GMT

Will janehayevans please contact me via the connection service to discuss the similarities in both our trees
Mine is DHM RICE

How much can an EDITOR edit?

dklart — 19 Oct 2008 8:20:48 GMT

I created an ancillary tree to help a teen newbie get started. We're not related, an ancestor of his married one of mine. He contacted me via the connection service requesting info/invite to my main tree. We only share the one person, but his queries lead me to give him a hand at building a tree of his own. I built a small 20 person tree to help him get started. I sent him an invite, that he accepted, with "EDITOR" privileges to get into it and hopefully work on it.

I just had a look at it and every person and record's been deleted, save one. The "invite" I sent him isn't even there.

I wasn't aware that aside from deleting the tree itself, giving someone editing privileges allows them to do EVERYTHING else. A/C states EDITORS can add/edit to the tree, it says nothing about DELETING records. Apparently "edit" and "delete" means the same thing in this instance.

Can someone confirm or deny this please?

problems with hints

PriscillaR — 9 Oct 2008 4:48:22 GMT

I've been going through the hints on my tree...twice I've found wrong information that wasn't even in the tree of the person it was stated to be in.
For example, my cousin has a Pratt tree. The hint told me that one of her ancestors was married twice...when in fact, she was only married once.
It was her sister who had married the other man stated in the hint.
This woman's SSDI was also for her sister.
I checked my cousin's tree & this wrong information is NOT there.

What good are these hints if the information contained is so totally wrong?

Help - Need to rename tree

SKarpowitz — 1 Oct 2008 8:02:34 GMT

I can't find anywhere to rename my family tree. I am the home person, and I accidentally set my married name as the tree name, rather than my maiden name. Is there a place that I can correct this?

Thanks in advance!

Merging families

SandraMcGraw58 — 16 Oct 2008 4:23:15 GMT

I tried to merge a family--- "add person", "select person already listed", click and the name came up but with blank info. Then I had two duplicate children because of this. Now how do I fix this?? There is no one "home" at "contact us".

I need help with hints (leafs)

rbbrown1000 — 19 Oct 2008 3:30:27 GMT

This is a question that may have been answered elsewhere, but I cannot find it.

I accidentally hit ignore to a hint (leaf) that I need. How do I get it back????

Living relatives

KittyVaughn — 19 Oct 2008 6:59:39 GMT

Should you just put "living...surname" for relatives that are still alive or can/should you put their names?

inviting people to view trees

PriscillaR — 7 Oct 2008 9:37:24 GMT

I invited a distant cousin to view my tree at Ancestry last week...this week I asked her if she had looked at it yet.
She told me, No, Ancestry stated she had to have a paid membership to view it.
I thought that I could invite anyone to view it.
Priscilla

Finding husbands

patriciageorge60 — 15 Oct 2008 9:48:35 GMT

I have been doing research now quite a while and always have difficulty in finding husbands for the women in my tree. Unless I have a little yellow triangle which gives me a clue or the person happens to be visiting the would be husbands house, I struggle. Is there anyone that has an easier way that they know and can share it with me?

To split a tree

chapow1 — 15 Oct 2008 11:53:49 GMT

I have about 1500 people in my tree & I'd like to split into either 2 or 4 individual trees. Is there an easy way to do this without losing data? Any help would be appreciated.

How to request info/invite to a PERSONAL TREE on Ancestry.com

dklart — 12 Oct 2008 6:18:21 GMT

Some members choose to keep their trees private on Ancestry.com. I fall in that category.

I think a reminder of some basic etiquette is in order. This (slightly edited) text is how most people are requesting information or an invite from my tree, which is sent through the connection service:

Dear [Username Withheld], I saw that you submitted a personal tree to Ancestry which contains: Name: OOO XXX Birth Date: 18xx Birth Place: Anywhere, USA. Tree Name: My Personal Tree. Do you have more information about this person that you could share with me? Thank you,

I'm more than willing to share information and connect distant relatives to my tree, but this type of generic request isn't going to get a response. It's going straight into the dumper.

If you're requesting info or an invite to a personal/private tree, take the time to articulate what you're looking for and how you connect to the individual you're seeking info on. It would also be considerate to sign your request; would signing your first name after the pre-printed "thank you" kill ya?

Genealogy is a shared experience, not an entitlement program.

Thanks! I feel much better now.

Darla

a suggestion

PriscillaR — 14 Oct 2008 2:32:09 GMT

I'd like to see a spell checker for 'Stories' in my tree...it's not that I can't spell ...I'm the world's worst typist, I have old eyes & also transpose letters...a spell checker would be nice to have.
Thanks

Merging trees

toofah — 16 Dec 2007 4:03:53 GMT

I love what I have seen at Ancestry.com, but am really amazed that you have not way of merging my trees online. I have quite a tree built and have uploaded pictures and attached them to my tree. I've also been busy attaching records of all types. Now I have received new gedcom files from great aunt suzy. I can't believe that there is no way for me to merge in the new gedcom files without doing this work in FTM and re-uploading. This is really not a good option since I would lose all of the work that I have done to my existing online tree. :-(

Are you building a merge feature?

I have uploaded the gedcom files separately. It would be cool if I could merge from my newly added gedcom file tree just like I can merge in from OneWorldTree.

Am I missing something? I can't believe that this is not a feature that is really needed by a great many users.

icon question

LucindaDuffy51 — 13 Oct 2008 7:13:15 GMT

I am fairly new to ancestry.com and couldn't find an answer to this question in the online help. When looking at a public family tree what is the meaning of the "blue profile" that is found to the left of some names?

Inability to synchronize family tree with home computer tree

MZashin — 30 Nov 2007 1:16:21 GMT

It is extremely annoying not to be able to upload corrections and additions that one makes to one's home computer genealogy program to the online tree without having to upload a completely new tree, or without having to make corrections to the online tree one by one. I have been told that uploading a corrected tree eliminates all the document links and pictures in the online tree that one has previously added. Is this true? I have no wish to destroy what I have already done online, yet I learn new things and frequently correct my data . . .and I don't like leaving erroneous or incomplete information online. As far as I have been able to learn, there is no way around this. This makes the online tree much less useful. . .Any suggestions? Mary Zashin

Downloading GED coms

gypsi323 — 10 Oct 2008 11:25:17 GMT

Question. I would love to download what I have in Ancestry to my own personal computer and it's software. Am I missing it? Is there a way to download your own tree? I see where we can upload one. And I agree we need a merge here instead of the system making separate trees. But there should be an area to be able to download what we have found so far to our own PC.

problems with hints

PriscillaR — 9 Oct 2008 4:48:01 GMT

Help - I'm Confused!

PennyEves1 — 8 Oct 2008 10:49:30 GMT

I've been building my family tree in the Online Family Tree for over four years - I find it relatively simple to use and like the fact that I can print off a comprehensive "data sheet" on each individual for my files.

When I go into "My Ancestry" I now have two options - to continue building my tree in the "Online Family Tree System" or to "Move to Ancestry Member Tree System". I've continued to use the former, despite the fact that it was apparently supposed to be superceded by the new Ancestry Member Trees in March this year!

However, I now find that when searching for individuals in the "Family Trees" section of the website, none of my individuals are listed (and so people aren't finding them).

Please ... what is happening???

Any help would be VERY much appreciated. Many thanks.

Penny

Not receiving email alerts!

lissy90 — 2 Oct 2008 7:07:21 GMT

Has anyone else encountered this problem lately? I have a private tree on Ancestry with about 30 invited guests, some paying members and others like me are free members. None of us for the last few weeks have received any email alerts on activity on the tree. It is very frustrating as most of us rely on these to compare notes.
I have contacted support and they suggested that I disable all my tree alerts and then enable them again, but this didn't work. I informed them of this and they had no answers! I have had to resort to sending out 'round robins' to all my invited guests of any recent tree activity, which is extremely annoying. At least half of my invited guests have reported the same problem, and like me are guests on others trees,private and public,and have had no email alerts for them either. Anyone have any suggestions?

Added option for Member Trees

mbmjlm — 1 Oct 2008 4:53:40 GMT

I have been asking for months for the option to use "unknown" for a birth or death. This morning Kenny Freestone notified me that this had been added using IE7 and/or AOL. Does not work yet with Firefox but they will work on that as well. Not everything we have asked for has been added but this is a great addition.

I've searched and searched.

AlexColvin — 2 Oct 2008 1:27:19 GMT

How do I create a gedcom from my Ancestry.com family tree so I can download it into my genealogy software. I can't find it anywhere and it used to be on my family tree homepage

upgrade Adobe Flash player?

PriscillaR — 29 Sep 2008 10:19:53 GMT

I was out of town for the last 3 months. I've been updating my tree with no problems since returning home but this morning I went to my tree & see a notice I need to upgrade my Adobe Flash Player....I can't do it. I've tried several times since returning home & it doesn't work.
I'm using Windows XP on this pc...had no problems before MS downloaded Service Pak 3 a few days ago.
Can someone help me?
Thanks, Priscilla

"Old" and "New" Personal Tree(s)

map2knit — 20 Sep 2008 5:40:04 GMT

I had not updated my tree for quite a while, so I came up with a “plan” to replace my “old” tree with a “new” tree, outlined in the steps below.
Plan:
1. Create a new gedcom file named “for webtree.ged”.
2. Looked at the FAQ’s to make sure I could execute my “plan”. (Problem number 2.)
3. Opened “Manage my tree” page.
4. Deleted “old” tree.
5. Uploaded “new” tree, which didn’t take very long at all – Surprise!
First “problem”
First image on main page under “Recent family tree activity” was a person named Josiah Weeks whom I did not recognize, so I promptly deleted him without thinking. The screen then went to his son Edward causing me to think I’d better recheck my PC database. Well, Josiah and Edward are both in my file with a very “rudimentary” source citation – problem number 3.
Problem #2
As you know, when we look at the FAQ’s we are offered a choice of printing or emailing the answer. My thinking was I could have the emails open while following each FAQ step at my tree(s). No such luck – All I got back was:
Subject: FWD Answer. . .
The following answer has been forwarded from . . .
You can view this answer here . . . a hyperlink back to the FAQ page.
Problem #3
I discovered that I had six events (plus) “general” info for Edward Weeks connected to the source below in my PC but he has no events or sources in my Online Tree.
PC SOURCE
Picklist name: Mytton of Bayton, Worcs (Part II)
Source (How you want it printed . . .): Richard Williams, Mytton of Bayton, Worcs (Part II) (September 1999)
Short version: Richard Williams, Mytton of Bayton, Worcs (Part II)
Bibliography version: Richard Williams. Mytton of Bayton, Worcs (Part II). September 1999.
TEXT OF PC SOURCE
Actual Text: None
Comments:
Posted on the source's message board (Page 11 of 23 of the Mytton Family Genealogy Forum)

http://genforum.genealogy.com/mytton
Repository
http://genforum.genealogy.com/mytton
ONLINE SOURCE
Title: Richard Williams, Mytton of Bayton, Worcs (Part II) (September 1999)
Notes: Same as PC comments
Repository: Same as PC

Glenn

How can I get rid of "People with Hints" after deleting people?

suzannedallape — 22 Sep 2008 2:45:07 GMT

When I first subscribed to ancestry.com and created my family tree, I got a little overzealous about adding dozens of generations to my tree from One World Tree and other trees. Nowadays, I prefer to stick with what I know, so I recently deleted huge chunks of my family tree, and will add individual new names more judicially, as I come across them, after careful research.

When I click on my "People With Hints" section, I get over 500 names. After I deleted the bulk of the names on my tree, I figured that my "People With Hints" would go down to a few dozen names. However, several days after deleting the names, they are still showing in my "People With Hints."

Is there any way to mass-delete these names that aren't even on my tree any more? I don't want to click on each one and choose "ignore," because I may some day add some of these people back to my tree, and will want to see their hints. (Besides, it would take hours!) Anyone have any advice or insight?

Source & Citation Details in Records attached to Online Tree

map2knit — 22 Sep 2008 8:40:59 GMT

Details from an “attached” record to a personal online tree
Source details:
Name: 1900 United States Federal Census
Author: Ancestry.com
Publisher: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2004.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623,
Call Number:
Notes:
REFN:
Repository: Ancestry.com
Provo, Utah Provo Utah

Citation Details:
Detail: Year: 1900; Census Place: Corinth, De Kalb, Alabama; Roll: ; Page: ; Enumeration District: .
Date:
Notes:
Actual text: Birth date: Aug 1899Birth place: AlabamaResidence date: 1900Residence place: Precincts 25-26 Corinth, Lydia, De Kalb, Alabama
Web address: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1900usfedcen&a...
==========
==========
Details from PC tree

SOURCE DETAIL
Source: Census, Alabama, DeKalb, 1900
(Bureau of the Census, 1900 U.S. Census, DeKalb County, Alabama, population schedule (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.))
----------
CITATION DETAILS
Page: Dwelling 139, Family 141
Quality:

Text
Daughter, Aug 1899, (4/12?), Alabama, Alabama, Alabama

Comments
----------
SOURCE DETAIL
Source: Catalog of National Archives Microfilm
(National Archives and Records Administration, Catalog of National Archives Microfilm (Washington DC))
Page: Roll T623-14, Page 8A, ED 79
Note: This is all I have as I was just learning “sources & citations”.
==========
Why are not the citation details the same as I have in my PC? (I have two), or at least the same as in the index before the image of the census page?
==========
Name: Dora I Wright
Home in 1900: Corinth, De Kalb, Alabama
Age: 10.12
Birth Date: Aug 1899
Birthplace: Alabama
Race: White
Ethnicity: American
Relationship to head-of-house: Daughter
Father's Name: James H
Father's Birthplace: Alabama
Mother's Name: Sarah E
Mother's Birthplace: Alabama
Marital Status: Single
Residence : Precincts 25-26 Corinth, Lydia, De Kalb, Alabama
==========
Glenn

Maintaining two or more trees on Ancestry.com

garnetquigley — 21 Sep 2008 6:51:20 GMT

In addition to my principal tree with abt 20,000 individuals I had created a secondary tree with a 100 or so names for a specific line I was researching. When you have more than one tree on Ancestry.com does anyone know if there is a way to make one tree the default in the situation I will describe in the next paragraph?

While working in my principal tree I would find an individual in someone else's public tree, through a hint for example. If I went into the other member's public tree and then decided to "Save this person to your tree" Ancestry offers up my secondary tree and not my principal tree for the merge/addition. I don't know why the secondary tree came up as the default, it wasn't alphabetical, and it wasn't the tree I was working in at the time.

If I was not in another member's public tree and was merging from Ancestry's "Review and save changes to your family tree" screen there was no problem. It went back to my principal tree.

I realize overcoming the problem involves only a couple of keystrokes to replace the secondary tree with the principal tree as the target for the merge. However when Ancestry is running slowly this changing of targets takes much longer and is just a frustration I could do without, if there is some way to make the principal tree the default in this (and every) situation.

Thanks for any advice.

Garnet

Making Contact

prentonboys — 14 Sep 2008 7:42:14 GMT

What is the procedure for contacting owners of Family Trees?

I know that by clicking on the name of the owner of a tree I can generate an e.mail within Ancestry.com, but what happens then?

I assume Ancestry forward my email on to the owner but what happens if they have ceased as members. I have recently within the last 6 months tried to contact an owner of a tree but I received no feedback from Ancestry as to whether the email was sent, was received or bounced.

I fully understand if the owner of the tree doesn't want to reply but some feedback from Ancestry would be nice.

Help - Need to Change Home Person in Family Tree

MaryWilson585 — 14 Sep 2008 3:54:33 GMT

I am tempted to just start over since I only just began this new (private) tree on Ancestry. However, I'm interested in knowing before I do that if it is possible to change the 'home person' on a family tree. For instance, I started with a deceased woman/mother but now want to make the tree be that of her living son's, whose info is already entered. I cannot see where to change the 'home person' from the mom to the son. Am I missing something or is it not possible?

Questions on Stories and Comments

AGHatchett3rd — 14 Sep 2008 3:40:25 GMT

In the Stories and Comments sections of Member Trees...

What is the maximum amount of text each field will hold?

I've a large amount of text for one particular person and need to know if I need to split it up before pasting it in.

Any help appreciated.

Find and Replace Clean Up of Personal On-line Tree

DurlerPflughoeft — 13 Sep 2008 7:10:25 GMT

I'm still trying to figure out the "how to's" and "where to ask the how to's"...so forgive me if this is not the right place, just tell me where to go (nicely please).

I have a Personal Tree with over 4100 people now and finally after feeling like I've got the majority of them nicely documented and resourced, it's time to do some clean up work. When I first started, I didn't know enough (do any of us ever know enough) to realize the importance of the differences between towns/post offices, townships, counties, etc. My original entries were from a family member's book published back in 1936, which now I realize contained huge errors, typo's, assumptions, and interpretations that I have attempted to research and correct or add notes/messages/descriptions identifying those areas that still need to be researched. However, there are some things that could be easily corrected IF I could figure out how to do a FIND and REPLACE. i.e. Adding county information, correcting abbreviations, correcting spellings...fairly simple, but time consuming if having to do them one person at a time.

For example, apparently I don't know how to spell "Sedgwick" County in Kansas....and it appears that I have spelled it "Sedgewick" over and over again. Another is using the abbreviation of "NB" for Nebraska, instead of "NE".

So, my question is...is there a function for our on-line trees, that allows me to go in and FIND "NB" and have it locate and allow me to either change them one by one or in mass? I don't think I'd ever change in mass....but would look at each occurence and elect to change or not by each individual situation. Similar to the WORD function.

I have a group of questions, for different functionality, but thought I'd start with this one first. BUT (isn't there always a BUT)...

along this line...does the function exist with the on-line Trees to also go in and Capitalize all the SURNAMES? I've seen some older postings on this, but nothing recent and since it's also a type of FIND and REPLACE, thought I'd go ahead and ask about that too.

Thank you all...the programmers, the managers, the other members...I've spent the last 3 hours reading thru all the Ancestry.com Board Messages, which helped a lot and hopefully I've found the right place and the right people to ask my questions to.

Sharen Durler-Pflughoeft
Not a Newbie, but a long way from being a Knowbie

CUMMIN~X2 FAMILY TREE

denniscleak — 9 Sep 2008 2:04:47 GMT

IF THE OWNER OF THIS FAMILY TREE WOULD BE INTERESTED IN EXCHANING INFORMATION ON THE CLEAK FAMILY WOULD THEY PLEASE CONTACT ME

To Ancesrty.com

Murray_Hayden — 1 Sep 2008 12:52:11 GMT

Where do you put marriage dates in your Family Tree system.
You can put in the Husband name & Dates but when you put in the Wife name & dates, There is no place to put the marriage information.
l may be blind, but only when you add a second wife it will come up but not for the first marriage
HELP

Re: improvements to Ancestry online tree

mbmjlm — 29 Aug 2008 2:07:57 GMT

Here is just one of the aggravating things I find associated with adding info to my online trees. I mentioned this several months ago to Kenny Freestone and he said this was "doable" but it certainly has not been "done" to date. As most of us know who have done genealogy research for many years, a large part of the time, with long gone ancestors and even those who have not gone from us so long, we may be able to find when they were born but lose them and have no idea when they died. Most if not all genealogy programs allow the use of "unknown" to record this. However, the Ancestry Online Tree does not recognize any form of "unknown". Why not??? In my opinion, adding this option is absolutely necessary.

This online program has many other shortcomings as well but since Kenny said this was "doable" I wish they would just "do" it in a timely fashion. I get really tired of entering "unknown" and then have the program tell me this is not a valid month and do I want to use that anyway. Leaving that line blank makes it look like they are still living. Adding a year anyway is extremely misleading.

Removing alternate names from entire tree

McDavie — 31 Aug 2008 1:59:23 GMT

I uploaded a file to ancestry.com. but found that every person in my tree shows an alternate name. the problem is the alternate name is there actual name . i figured out how to remove the alternate name, but is there a way of removing them all at once instead of going through all 4,000 names one by one

Removing a spouse

s1maryjf — 28 Aug 2008 8:19:31 GMT

I added a person in my tree as the spouse of the wrong person. I added the right spouse, but it still shows that wrong person as a spouse. Problem is I do NOT want to delete the wrong spouse from my tree, as they are married to someone else in the tree and I have a ton of information on them that I do not want to recreate. Is there a way to just 'break' the marriage or do I have to delete the wrong spouse to make that marriage disappear?

Have a Tree? Learn about verifying data

frostfreedet — 27 Aug 2008 1:33:07 GMT

GENTREK will present "Verifying Internet Data," by Dae Powell. Many budding genealogists are thrilled when find that many of the names in their family tree are easily available online. Proud of their accomplishment, they then download all the data they can from these Internet sources, import it into their genealogy software and proudly start sharing their "genealogy" with others. Their research then makes its way into new genealogy databases and collections, further perpetuating the new "family tree" and amplifying any errors each time the source is copied. While it sounds great, there is one major problem with this scenario; namely that the family information that is freely published in many Internet databases and Web sites is often unsubstantiated and of questionable validity. Let's look at this problem together.

Presentation will be Thurs., Aug. 28, 10 pm to 11 pm, Eastern Time US.

See presentation and participate here, on Genealogy Lookup Chat:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genealogylookup/chatroom.h...

You must register (completely free) well beforehand and carefully read the instructions to sign up.

This is a chat-room format compatible with almost all computer javascript programs except the very newest java hybrids. There is a link to download viable javascript if you have problems viewing the site.

Good hunting,
Jade

Attached photos or stories

garnetquigley — 21 Aug 2008 1:29:31 GMT

If you attach to your Ancestry tree a photo or a story that someone else had posted to their public tree are you creating a separate copy or just a link to the original photo or story? The reason for the question is whether or not you face the loss of the attachment should the original poster delete his/her tree or delete his/her original photo or story from Ancestry.

I do backup the data on my Ancestry tree off line but since photos do not get included in the export file created by Ancestry I would go the extra mile and backup the photos/stories separately if they could be lost as described above.

Thank you for your advice.

Garnet

How to backup Ancestry public family tree?

mcdulph1 — 5 Aug 2008 5:52:30 GMT

Hi, does anyone know how to back up the info that one posts to the online family trees? I don't have any genealogical software at this time, but might be willing to buy some if it would help.

I've been going through mountains of stuff inherited from grandparents--as well as my own paper copies of previous research--and entering it into the public family tree bit by bit.

As a result, I do believe I'd lose my mind if I lost all of this work somehow! (Yes, I'm sure ancestry.com backs their servers up, but I also believe that Murphy was an optimist!)

Thanks for reading, and for any suggestions!

Correcting errors in One World Tree?

Dickvb — 3 Aug 2008 5:55:40 GMT

I have been uploading my GEDCOM file to Worldconnect.Rootsweb.com for years. Some time in 2007 the data was merged into One World Tree. For several hundred people, I had used the German abbreviation "NS" for Nieder Schlesien. One World Tree has converted all of these to "Nova Scotia, Canada"! I corrected all these abbreviations in my database and uploaded again to WorldConnect some weeks ago. But the bad data remains in One World Tree. Although the database in Worldconnect shows a recent submission date, the copy in One World Tree still shows the 2007 date.
Is it possible to remove these erroneous records from OWT and replace them with corrected ones?
Thanks.

How I can delete one memeber from my tree

JuriAlp — 20 Aug 2008 8:44:06 GMT

Hello!
Help please, I need delete one memeber from my tree, I have added this member ( foulty) and can not found, how I can delete this member from tree
Best regards Juri Alperovich from Riga

Wish List for online Member Trees

ahoneybun — 17 Dec 2007 12:51:13 GMT

A descendancy tab - just like AWT has - it would be really really useful.

Can I 'replace' an existing member tree?

RWildebrandt — 26 Jun 2008 3:59:37 GMT

I uploaded my tree to ancestry.com some time ago.
I use Family Tree Maker 2008 to keep all of my information.
I'd now like to upload my latest tree which has all the information from the existing tree plus a lot of new individuals and information. Is there a good approach to do this? I think I'd want to 'replace' the tree that is already there. But maybe that isn't possible or practical.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Merging online trees (not FTM software)

Kansas_Kate — 24 May 2008 4:08:23 GMT

I have several trees. I just learned that there's a connection between 2 of those trees, so I would like to merge one with the other, without having to manually add each member of one tree to the other and without ending up w/ duplicate people.

Is that possible? And if so, how?

MTIA.