Can You Change an Accepted Ancestry Hint? What I Found

Have you ever accepted a hint on Ancestry, only to realize as you're filling in the information—the hint actually doesn't match up? It happens! Probably to all of us at some point. For ages, once you accepted an incorrect hint, the only thing you could do was delete any incorrect facts, sources and potential images, and then make a note the hint was subsequently removed. Frustratingly, the hint itself stubbornly remained as Accepted. I never understood why this wasn't addressed. I’ve wondered whether this could affect future hints for the person.

Before I explain my latest discovery, I want to be clear—I have no clue if this is an oversight on the part of Ancestry's programmers, or if it's an intended new (as of yet undisclosed) feature. I haven't seen any official mention of this. While I've tested it on a couple of different occasions, and it seems to work, I cannot conclusively say it will work for every situation. And I can't promise it will remain available. With caveats in place...here's the big reveal!

So, you've just realized you accepted a hint in error? First, go back to the hints page for the person. I did test this from the person profile, by viewing the source and choosing View Record, but it does not work from the person profile:

Don't try this from the person profile

You want to go to the person's Hints page, scroll to the bottom where you can see Undecided, Ignored and Accepted hints. Expand the Accepted section and find the hint you want to change. Right-click to reopen the hint in a new browser tab. (Note: I did try single click to open the slider and while some hints worked, others did not show all the options to reselect. Opening in a new tab seems to behave consistently.)

Access accepted hints from the person's hint page

This will open the hint again. You'll notice from the highlight below, it clearly shows as attached to a person in the tree. But you also have the ability to choose again: Yes, No or Maybe. On the Hints page, those choices appear under Accepted, Ignored and Undecided, respectively.

Reselect the appropriate choice

Before I change this hint (as it is actually correct and I will accept it again when I’m done), I want to show you how many hints showed as accepted before I do this:

Before the change

After I go back and click "No", now look at the results:

After the change

For this test, I did not delete anything on the person's profile before making this change. I wanted to be sure of what happens when this is done. I want to emphasize—my test shows the hint moved out of Accepted while the attached source and facts stayed on the profile. Ancestry does not make any changes to the person profile. If you want to remove the incorrect Source and any associated facts, you still need to do this yourself manually. This is exactly as it should be. Ancestry does not make changes to people in your tree - you do!

My workflow for these cases is as follows:

• Remove facts first. 
• Then remove the source. Note: Any time you remove a source, it also removes any corresponding image from the Source tab in the gallery (such as census or death certificate images). This is not new and is exactly as I would expect it to be since the source image is part of the Ancestry source.
• If you checked a box to use the image as the profile picture (such as a yearbook photo) and it was saved in the Gallery separately from the source image, you may still need to remove it manually.
• Then I go back to the Accepted hint and reselect either No or Maybe.

So, for my like-minded OCD fellow family historians, it certainly seems you can now "clean up" when you make a bit of a mistake. As far as I know, there has been no change to how you remove a photo you've saved. You've always been able to delete those directly in the Gallery. We've also been able to move between Ignored and Undecided for ages, but Accepted was completely different. Now it seems, at least for the moment, we have an option to correct these little Oopsies! 

Once again, no promises this will remain available. I can also only say it seems to work on the US site. If you use one of the international domains and try this out, please comment and let me know if it also works for you.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay  

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Unless otherwise indicated, the content and all opinions are my own.

Ancestry's New ThruLines®: What's Changed and What Hasn't

Although I'm still settling in to the numerous changes with Ancestry hints and person profiles, I would like to mention a change I don't have any real complaints about—the new ThruLines® presentation. The redesign of this page has been done somewhat more thoughtfully and was rolled out without the jarring feeling of being dumped into a completely different interface. It's a little different, but not as much as it may first seem. For me, it does still show as Beta, so there's always a potential for additional changes. This is not an all-inclusive tutorial. I'm only touching on some of the highlights.

After navigating to DNA > Matches > By Ancestor, I'm presented with a few options. I can choose vertical, horizontal or card view to see all my ancestors. I prefer the card view (very much the same as it was before), but I'm sure others may prefer the more familiar tree views. Good news is—you have options! Pick the one you're most comfortable using. One thing I've seen in user groups is people saying "everything is too small to read" in the tree view. But you can actually scroll, using your mouse, to increase or decrease the size of the display. Card view can be adjusted, but you'll need to do so via your browser, not just by scrolling. 

Once you've selected an ancestor, you'll be presented with a tree in vertical view (horizontal isn't an option here, possibly because you'll be expanding generations down to your DNA match(es)). If there are too many generations to fit on the screen all at once, you'll see a small image with a number in a black oval shape under some of the names. It looks something like the image at the left. Clicking on this image will expand the generations below, down to your DNA match(es). You can also scroll to enlarge or shrink the information on this screen. If some descendants are not already in your tree, they may have a dashed line and show a tag of "Evaluate". If not already in your tree, your actual DNA matches will say "Potential" next to the relationship. If they are already linked to your tree, it won't say "Potential". If you prefer to work from a list view instead of the tree view, you can still select it and use it just like the "old" list view. I like the list view, but it does not easily indicate who may already be saved to your tree. It appears you have to click on "View Relationship" to figure it out. 

Now is a good time for a friendly reminder—ThruLines® may connect you with actual DNA matches, but the suggested family-tree connections between you and a common ancestor still need to be researched and verified. While many potential ancestors may be completely correct, and they could be great leads, please do the research and verify for yourself so you don't find yourself deleting a whole bunch of people later. Obviously, a true DNA match is a true DNA match. But the path between a DNA match and your common ancestor needs to be investigated and documented. 

My one "wish list" item on ThruLines® would be a way to visually see how many people are not already attached to my tree in card view and list view. I'd love to see there are 40 potential matches, and 10 are not already attached (and to be able to see who those 10 are). Since a DNA match will likely show under more than one ancestor as you move back through the generations, it feels repetitive to me to have to re-verify over and over. Rather than looking up the same person 4 times, I'd rather have a quick way to know "Oh! They're already attached to my tree." It seems a different color DNA icon for an attached DNA match, or "View in Tree" instead of "See Relationship" would immediately make it clear if I needed to check the person or not. 

If you prefer the old view, you can still toggle to "Classic View" for a few more days. This is currently slated to be removed October 1st. Personally, I had issues with the old view. When working on a small screen, it was a challenge to drag the various branches around on the screen. I know it shouldn't have been difficult, but I always ended up dropping the person and it would take me 4–5 tries to move across the screen. I'd often have to shrink the view drastically, just to move it and then enlarge it again. This wasn't an Ancestry problem, it was a me problem. I found myself using list view only because it caused fewer headaches, even if I had to click on the same people more than once. This new layout, with smooth scrolling, has solved this issue for me. But I can only speak for myself, and clearly some folks have felt the changes more than I have.

Ancestry has much more detailed information on ThruLines® available here. It does a great job explaining what the various views include. Fall is also the time Ancestry has historically updated ethnicity reports. I've seen a few people who've already received theirs, but as the rest of us wait with bated breath for the new results to drop, it's a great time to check out the new ThruLines® if you haven't already. Comment below and let me know your experience with the new layouts. 

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Unless otherwise indicated, the content and all opinions are my own.

Updating My Genealogy Surname Word Cloud—and a Little Blog Housekeeping

As I'm winding down my end-of-summer staycation, I took time to do a little housecleaning on my blog. Below are the updates I made to the general layout.

• Removed links to social media sites I'm no longer monitoring. Ancestry (patndoris94) or Threads (@patndoris) have evolved into the best "off-blog" ways to contact me. Of course, you're always welcome to leave comments directly on any posts here on Blogger! 
• Added a text link to show I'm a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). 
• Updated disclosures to include how I use ChatGPT for titles, search descriptions, and to review posts for clarity, punctuation and grammar. I will continue to use disclosures on individual posts as well.
• Updated disclosures to clarify that prices and features of any site I review were current at the time the post was published.
• Updated my notice regarding sharing to clarify it's fine to share my posts on other social media sites by linking directly to a post.
• And my favorite! It's been 2 years since I posted my first surname word cloud using ChatGPT. I've updated it to reflect the current distribution of names in my tree. The current surname word cloud appears in my sidebar.

Take a little peek at the changes to my surname distribution. The first image is the newly generated image for 2026. The second picture is the original surname cloud from 2024. While they look similar, some of the names have grown in font size, indicating I now have more of these family members in my tree. My original 2024 image was based on 677 individual surnames. The new 2026 image is based on 971 individual surnames—an increase of approximately 43%!

Surname word cloud 2026

Surname word cloud 2024

Generating a word cloud with ChatGPT is very easy! I used the Publish feature of Family Tree Maker (FTM) to create a Surname Report. I chose to include all individuals, but you can also select immediate family, extended family, or choose specific individuals. I generated the report and then exported it to a CSV file. I removed the total line (otherwise the word Total will be included as a surname). Then I asked ChatGPT to create a word cloud using the attached CSV file, with the font size reflecting the number of individuals for each surname. I was happy with the default colors it used last time, but you could absolutely prompt it to use alternate color schemes if you wish.

As always, I'm thankful for everyone who stops by to read my blog. I'm especially grateful to those who regularly share my posts so they can reach more family historians, and to those who comment to let me know when a post resonates in some way. I know housekeeping updates aren't exciting, but I do want to be transparent—especially about my use of AI and how to best share my content with others.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to create my surname word cloud. I also used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Unless otherwise indicated, the content and all opinions are my own.