Could They Be Related to Doc Holliday?

1872 John Henry Holliday**

I was talking with a coworker (we'll call him Tom to protect his identity) at lunch on Friday. He asked if I ever do genealogy for others. I shared I had done some volunteer research for another co-worker, in search of his father's biological parents. He was interested to hear we believed we'd found solid leads in the right direction, but needed DNA confirmation before moving forward again. (Will the DNA test ever be done? I'm thinking probably not....but if it is...I'll be happy to pick back up where I left off).

Anyhow, Tom went on to share his family story of potentially being related to Doc Holliday. He's always been interested in trying to prove the connection. As a follow up, I asked if he was interested in actually doing the research, or just interested in finding out if it was true. As I suspected, it was the latter. 

He provided me the name of his grandfather, from whom the family story had been shared. (This turned out to be an important stepping stone later.) I told him when I get frustrated working on my tree, maybe I'll give it a go for him. I realize, being related to someone famous is typically more family story than family truth. But still, I thought it might be a nice diversion at times to poke into the history (without feeling like I need to do the level of detail I maintain in my own tree).

So, I started a private tree on Ancestry where I could begin to flesh out Tom's family tree. I easily found him in public records, and his parents from a newspaper article. And then hints stopped. Normally, the more hints I save the more hints I get. It didn't hold true in this case. But the all-important name and birth location of his grandfather came in handy! I plugged it in, and voila! I was back in business. 

I spent an evening deciding the main facts I'd save, and just who would make it into this tree (vs. just being listed for reference in the notes field). It's not quite a "quick and dirty tree" since I may want to share the results (and have them be a useful jumping off point if anyone wants to do further research), but it's also not an incredibly detailed tree. I'll hit the basics (birth, marriage, divorce and death) as well as the added facts of residences, military service, and burial locations (just in case anyone ever wants to visit cemeteries). I'll certainly save all applicable records, but I won't take the time to mine all the facts. It should be more than enough information if anyone in his family has an interest to take it further in the future.

A quick Google told me Doc Holliday (born John Henry Holliday) was born in 1815 in Georgia. He had no living descendants of his own. He had one biological sister and one adopted brother, who both died young. Tom's family lore places him as the great-granduncle of Tom's grandfather (if the story is being relayed correctly). Given Doc Holliday's one biological sibling (the one potentially making him any kind of uncle, grand or otherwise) is known to have died young, it's already a big red flag. It doesn't mean there's no possible distant connection, but I'm not holding my breathe.

After just one evening, I'm at Tom's great-grandparents (born 1898 and 1902). I'm going to need to go back quite a bit further. I'll likely need to be able to reach into the 1700's (not always easy, or even possible, to do). Thankfully, others have researched Doc Holliday's ancestry, and I was able to find some names to watch for. Will they match up to anyone in Tom's tree? Not likely, but it's still a fun exercise for me. I just hope Tom won't be disappointed when/if nothing turns up. 

No matter the results, it's still a fun family story. Stories shape families in imperceptible ways. There's nothing wrong with passing them down (but preferably with the caveat they may or may not be true). And who knows? Maybe the genealogy bug will bite someone new and they'll take the tree and run with it! For me, it would be a successful outcome if this helps inspire just one new family historian.

**Photo is public domain from 1872

New Ancestry Sticky Notes Aren't Small Screen Friendly

I finally got the new Ancestry Stickies feature today....and I am not a fan. In a world where lots of people have big screens and/or multiple monitors, small screen users are often overlooked when it comes to ease of use. Recent Ancestry changes have NOT been user friendly for small screens....and I would bet it holds true for iPad users who access via the web, and not the app. My laptop is an ultra portable with a 13.3" screen.

I'm a big user of the Notes field. I use it to track extended family members of people married into my family, multiple spouses and other children I may not want to research - but I need to know who they are, and the info needs to be visible so I can properly assess new hints. And equally as important, the regular Notes field syncs to FTM, so it's the best place to add notes that need to be in both places.

Stickies essentially obliterate my view of all of this information. As you can see in the screenshot, you can't even see my Notes if I start to add one. Even in the default view, the feature takes up 1/2 of my Notes field and I now have to scroll to see all my data because Stickies are at the top of the field. To be able to see Stickies AND Notes, I'd have to scale down to less than 75% of my already small screen size, and I literally can't even read the text.

It was bad enough when they changed Quick Edit and the slider closes the Notes/Tags/Comments and they have to be reopened every time. I tried to roll with the punches on it, I know change is inevitable. But now, Stickies are compounding the problem. If we could move them to the bottom, toggle them when we want to use them...or better yet...give them their own heading like Comments, Notes and Tags!! (instead of slapping then on top of the Notes field)...it would be amazing, and potentially one of the best new recent features. But as it stands, the implementation is absolutely awful for small screens. 

Introducing changes in a thoughtful and meaningful way for users is just as important as dumping a whole lot of new features onto the site. Making sure changes work for those using various types of devices is an extremely important part of website design (for all websites). If, like me, you use a small screen and find these new changes frustrating, be sure to submit feedback on Ancestry's site. Occasionally they listen and sometimes even make changes as a result of user feedback. I don't really want this feature to go away (I'm just frustrated), but it would be really nice if it had been implemented in a way not rendering a widely used field almost useless for a subset of users. How do you feel about the new feature? Have you encountered any challenges with the recent site changes?

Editing Citations: One Ancestry Glitch Is Fixed with the New Update

I'm not always a fan of change, especially not with websites I use day in and day out. The seemingly endless roll-out of changes at Ancestry is no exception. I'm just as frustrated as many other users are. Getting used to changes takes a bit of time, and can make research feel a little more cumbersome for a bit. And when changes seem to roll-out day after day after day, it can be overwhelming! Beta features contribute to this, as they may come and go during the testing. 

But, at least one of these changes actually fixed a problem I blogged about back in October 2025. For a long time the collection "Web: Obituary Daily Times Index, 1995-2016" wouldn't properly save an edited citation. With the new updated edit citation screen (shown below) I can once again enter and save data with no errors! And, I no longer have to edit special characters (like the ~ tilde) and change them to something else. OCD or not, I won't be going back to change these in my older citations. It will just be nice moving forward not to have to remember to edit them.

The fields are actually the same, they're just in a different order and new layout. After about 2 days, I got used to how the new screen is populated. It still feels a little odd, but the fact I'm not encountering errors any longer makes the learning curve worthwhile.

However, if you add your own sources on Ancestry (and I use this frequently) the new layout on this screen is a little less intuitive. It defaults to creating a totally new source. It's fine if indeed you want to do this, but if you just want to use one of the sources you've added in the past, you'll have to choose "Select existing source" to get to the dropdown of all your sources (as shown below). Fear not! All your sources are still there, just another click away.

This is a bit like how they changed the media gallery a while back, requiring different steps to see user uploaded content and images from Ancestry hints. You have to make a choice you weren't used to making. Once you do it a few times, it's no big deal, but the first time you go to use it, you may have a brief moment of panic (as I did) wondering where all your custom sources went!

While I'm not always a fan of change, I am a big fan of fixing broken features. In this case, I'm super glad I can go back and deal with my hints from the collection "Web: Obituary Daily Times Index, 1995-2016", since I've been skipping them for about 6 months now. I was convinced I had hundreds of hints waiting for me in this collection, but in reality, it was only about 60. I'm working my way through them and hope to finish this weekend. This project is also consistently generating a few new hints for each person. It's a double win and I'm eagerly anticipating going back to check the new hints out (after I finish with this collection).

So, while you may find the plethora of new beta features and GUI changes (graphical user interface - fancy words for how the screens look), frustrating....give it a little time and it will become second nature again. Especially if you're returning after an Ancestry break, you may be visually overwhelmed. Just give it a few days and I bet you'll find you're zipping around as quickly as ever. Let me know how you feel about the new changes. Do you wish they'd leave well enough alone? Have you found a new feature you really love?