Three Years, 201 Posts and Counting

Three years ago today, I started my blog (and it just so happens I restarted my tree on July 14th, 2023). My blog and my tree are "almost" twins! As an amateur genealogist, my goal is to document and share my journey, and all the things I've learned (and am still learning) along the way. I enjoy writing, and blogging is good for my soul. If I can help motivate other family historians by sharing my progress, it's all worthwhile.

So here I am, 201 blog posts later, with a growing tree comprised of over 3200 people, spanning 10 generations (going back to 1689) and 950+ different surnames. I'm just as excited about doing genealogy today as I was when I first started — though I still try hard to gather every detail from each record so I won't ever feel the need to start my tree all over again. And because a tree is never truly "done", I'll constantly be learning and discovering for....well, forever!

Over the past 3 years, my site has had over 116,000 pageviews. I'd like to offer my heartfelt thanks to each and every visitor to my site (even the bots and crawlers). I very much appreciate all the comments and shares. With your help, I'm able to reach a wider audience. 

It's hard to see, but in the graphic, the notebook says "Passion, Purpose, Community". I am definitely passionate about genealogy. Anyone who's ever listened to me prattle on as their eyes glaze over will attest to it! And both my blog and my tree have a definite purpose. Community is the big one! I've found the genealogy community is filled with wonderful people. Sure, there are some who protect and guard their trees fiercely, but there are many more who freely share their trees, expertise and knowledge. I'm truly blessed to have made many new friends, and virtually "met" some amazing cousins. 

The genealogy community is welcoming and warm. I feel truly blessed to be a member of such an amazing group of people, and to share my journey with you. I look forward to many more years of blogging ahead.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to create the graphic, assist in a title and search description. All other content is my own.

Ancestry's New Hints Page: More Than a Layout Change

I truly have no words (well, no words I can share here) for the abysmal change Ancestry rolled out to me today. The change is to the Hints screen within a person's profile. At first, I thought I was just dealing with another frustrating layout change. Then I discovered something far worse.

First, from the All Hints page, if you click a person's name (a hyperlink) instead of being taken to the person's profile, you're now unceremoniously dumped on their Hints page (and no, it doesn't look anything like it did before!) One would think a name hyperlink would take you to the person, but now, you have to backtrack to get to the profile. So if you like to review your person before working with new hints—you now have the joy of more clicks.

Once you do manage to get to the person profile, Hints is no longer a nice easy separate tab. It's a button underneath the relationship. 

When you click said button, all your hints, accepted, rejected or otherwise, are now on one big long page. If you want to see previously accepted, rejected or undecided hints, you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page, past all the unreviewed hints and then click to expand the section you want to see. I know, I know, scrolling and extra clicking is obviously a great use of our time...NOT! And undecided only shows as an option if something exists in the category. If not, it doesn't show as an option.

But the thing frustrating me the most is the checkboxes and comments on why a hint was accepted, rejected or left undecided. Maybe not everyone uses them, but I've meticulously documented my reasons for every hint I've ever worked with. Those notes are invaluable as I'm trying to see why I did or didn't accept something. They're critical to evaluating name twins. And now? The checkboxes are blank, as is the comment field (see the image above). Tens of thousands of hints worth of documentation appear to be gone in one fell swoop. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work...

I hold out very little hope any of my hard work will be recovered (though I have posted in a Facebook forum where employees of Ancestry are known to pop on from time to time). I've posed the question, and now I wait and hope I'll receive an answer. Hopefully, it's simply a glitch they can resolve. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to decide if I'm going to boycott researching until I get an answer, continue as I have been and write off all my previous work and carry on with a move forward plan, or proceed with researching and never again give Ancestry one iota of information they might be able to use to improve their algorithms. 

If the fields had been eliminated, I'd still be upset, but I'd understand. But it's not the case. All the fields still exist—they're simply all blank. For me, the loss of this information borders on catastrophic. Next time I encounter a name twin I've previously documented, none of my research notes will be available to me. While I don't care for the new hints page, I'm not actually suggesting they roll it back entirely. I'm only suggesting they restore the user-entered information they deleted.

If you're like me, and you document everything, please take time to submit feedback or post in one of the many Facebook forums for Ancestry users. I've done both. If enough users voice their concerns, Ancestry has occasionally rolled back changes.

The new hints page does not appear to be a beta feature. I received a pop up telling me to take a look at the new hints page the first time I landed there. Ancestry needs to know if users are happy or unhappy with new changes. If you're so inclined, you can submit feedback using this link once you've received and had a chance to work with the new layouts. I guess I had more words than I thought...

If I hear any updates or the notes are restored, I'll update this post with the outcome.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description. Post content is my own.

A Hidden Resource for Historic Genealogy Software

A few months ago, while researching ways to improve my process of transcribing US Censuses, I stumbled on a site with a bit of a different twist. I was looking for information on a discontinued program (called GenScriber) and this site had a detailed write-up as well as download links. While I didn't end up pursuing the software, I did take time to poke around the website and I was impressed. GenealogySoftware.net is dedicated to—you guessed it!—genealogy software, with a focus on historical software (although it does reference some newer updates as well). From the website:

GenealogySoftware.net will be at its core, a database of genealogy and genealogy-related software (programs, applications, whatever term you want to use) – a collection of information and news about genealogy software stretching from the very humble beginnings of genealogy programs in the 1970s up through the 2020s.

The premise behind the site appears simple. There are family historians who've been using the same software for many years. Some still utilize programs no longer updated, or even available. Or perhaps they have old files they can no longer access (floppy disks anyone?). Just because software is no longer "current" doesn't make the files created in it any less valuable. Family history is still family history. So if your Great Aunt Edna, who still used her old DOS computer for her research, left you all her research in her will...maybe this site will help you access it! Or perhaps like me, you were looking for a program to assist with a specific task. Just because software is no longer updated or distributed doesn't mean it wasn't very good at doing the task it was designed for. It's up to individual users to choose the software and utilities for their personal needs. New and shiny doesn't always mean better. 

The site creator attempts to acquire copies of all the software he comes across. While the site does not host software downloads or user manuals, unless given approval from the developer to do so, they do provide links or other potential ways of sourcing older software. They do not include links to third-party sites offering unauthorized downloads. From the website, "We want to actively promote the development and distribution of genealogy software, but only through the appropriate (and approved) methods." They also attempt to remain neutral. They aren't going to tell you "this is the best software for....." Their goal is simply to provide information for upwards of 1000 different applications.

It appears this site was created in 2024, so it's not terribly old. But there have been no recent updates I could find since spring of 2025 (though the footer of the site does say 2026). I did try to find the creator on other blogs and social media, but those too have had little or no activity. I'm not sure if there will be future updates (I hope so!) but nonetheless, the historical value is still the same. 

Whether you're looking for information on an old piece of software you used to use, or are looking for software for a specific purpose, when it comes to genealogy software and applications, you can probably find information of use. Despite not being 100% up to date, I've included the link in my Genealogy Toolbox. So if Great Aunt Edna leaves you her genealogy research, maybe this site can be of use to you.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description. All content is my own.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay